The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this?

What kind of 'radioactive materials'?

You didn't know?

--------- 1994 ----------
14 December Czech police seized 2.72 kg of material--later identified as 87.7 percent enriched U-235--in Prague; this is the largest recorded seizure of such material. Police arrested a Czech nuclear physicist and two c itizens of the Former Soviet Union. The uranium apparently came from the FSU and was to be smuggled to Western Europe.

17 October Press reporting dated 26 October indicates Russian authorities arrested three men trying to pass 67 kg of U-238 to unidentified individuals in the city of Psko v.
28 September Press reporting indicates that a container with radioactive substances was found on a street in Tallinn.
07 September Press reports indicate Russian police arrested three people in Glazov trying to sell 100 kg of U-238.
0 August Press reports Russian authorities arrested two men attempting to steal 9.5 kg of uranium 238 from the Arzamas-16 nuclear weapons research facility.
18 August Press reports indicate Estonian police arrested a man and seized 3 kg of U-238 he had buried under his garage.
12 August Press reports indicate that St. Petersburg police arrested three men trying to sell 60 kg of unidentified nuclear material.
June According to 6 June press reporting, Russian security official announces the arrest of three Russians in St. Petersburg who allegedly tried to sell 3.5 kg of HEU.
June According to an 8 July press report, Russian authorities arrested three officers from the Northern Fleet accused of having stolen 4.5 kg of U-238 from their base in Nov 93.
--- 1993 ----------
November In a case stemming from an incident in November 1993 in which a Russian naval officer stole 4 kg of 20 percent enriched U 235 nuclear fuel rods from a p oorly guarded area at Severomorsk, a Russian court found the officer guilty but gave him a suspended sentence because he admitted the act. Two accomplices were sentenced to three years at a labor camp.

CIA report

With the fall of the USSR and Soviet military living on the equivalent of $30 pcm - if they got paid at all - were in a state of desperation and smuggling was rife, with Estonia being a key port in transported illicit materials, including drugs and people smuggling to the West. The Swedish and Finnish customs were intercepting them all the time, and many will have got away with it.

Given Sweden admitted it smuggled Ex-Soviet stuff during September 1994 on the Estonia one would have thought that aspect of the sinking should have been investigated.

 

[Vixen]

I'll be specific then. You presented the testimony and opinion of an academic expert in ship collisions. Other similarly professionally qualified people pointed out problems with the expert's claims in considerable detail. You ignored every single problem and simply restated the academic's credentials as your only rebuttal. Do you see why that qualifies as a "superstitious" rebuttal and not a substantive one?

The thread is about the review of the Estonia sinking. The reason for the review is Evertsson's documentary in which he presented conclusive pictures of the hole in the starboard hull (which had been known of for many years).

Of course mention will be made of the people appearing in that documentary, including Professor Amdahl, who is an expert in marine collisions, no matter hw much you want to mock him.

 

[JayUtah]

Of course mention will be made of the people appearing in that documentary, including Professor Amdahl, who is an expert in marine collisions, no matter hw much you want to mock him.

Well, I can't have asked for a more appropriate admission that theprestige is absolutely right. When confronted with a critical evaluation of the evidence you choose to deploy, all you can do is simply fall back and rely upon the academic credentials of your preferred witness and pretend that solves all your problems.

I haven't mocked Professor Amdahl. I've pointed out errors in his findings. That's what similarly qualified people do for each other all the time. You are utterly incapable of discussing his actual findings with anything approaching a critical perspective, or anything approaching expertise in them. You've simply placed blind faith in his opinion, even when other similarly qualified people give you good reasons to take issue with it and what it's based on.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Waves of a relatively calm 2m high breaking on a seashore gives a decibel reading of 78db. Workplace safety is not much different from this and a constant 85dB over 24-hours is likely to damage one's hearing..

8 hours. Not 24. The regulation you're misunderstanding while trying to impress us with your knowledge is a noise exposure limit based on an 8 hour working day.

 

[malbui]

I haven't mocked Professor Amdahl. I've pointed out errors in his findings. That's what similarly qualified people do for each other all the time. You are utterly incapable of discussing his actual findings with anything approaching a critical perspective, or anything approaching expertise in them. You've simply placed blind faith in his opinion, even when other similarly qualified people give you good reasons to take issue with it and what it's based on.

In my experience reports from experts absolutely need to be tested.

I've appeared in court on a couple of occasions as an expert witness. On neither occasion did they say 'well Dr Malbui we've looked at your CV and it's very impressive, so no further questions.' It's rather more the case that they looked at the whole process from data gathering to signing off my report and attempted to rip me a new one on every single point. Now clearly we're not talking court of law here, but in matters of such fundamental gravity the principles are exactly the same.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...A whopping 29 survivors - out of 137 (of which 58 were crew) - reported two or three loud bangs before the lurch, yet no-one mentioned the deafening roar of a stormy sea lifting it up.

No-one mentioned the noise of the stormy sea? The report says "Many passengers were unable to sleep prior to the accident due to the ship's heavy motion and the noise and vibrations from waves hitting the bow. Several passengers were seasick. Some had been sleeping and woke shortly before the accident due to the motion and the noise."

 

[malbui]

In my experience reports from experts absolutely need to be tested.

I've appeared in court on a couple of occasions as an expert witness. On neither occasion did they say 'well Dr Malbui we've looked at your CV and it's very impressive, so no further questions.' It's rather more the case that they looked at the whole process from data gathering to signing off my report and attempted to rip me a new one on every single point. Now clearly we're not talking court of law here, but in matters of such fundamental gravity the principles are exactly the same.

Actually that choice of wording has made me think. Have we discussed the possibility that some kind of temporary extreme gravitational anomaly could be behind the sinking? The kind of thing that that Danish bloke on here reckons would disprove the Theory of Relativity?

Hot damn I think I'm onto something here. Check out my YouTube channel in the morning. There will be animations.

 

[Vixen]

No-one mentioned the noise of the stormy sea? The report says "Many passengers were unable to sleep prior to the accident due to the ship's heavy motion and the noise and vibrations from waves hitting the bow. Several passengers were seasick. Some had been sleeping and woke shortly before the accident due to the motion and the noise."

Did anyone specifically state that there was a sudden noise over and above this at 1:15?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Please refer to the type of exams police have to pass, as cited earlier.


At least we can expect that unlike Silver Linde, the star witness, and the other crew, they had no motive to present themselves in a good light. Running around trying to help the passengers yet Paul Barney says when he got in his life raft, two crew were in survivors suits.

So yeah, those two cops who lost most of their colleagues in the tragedy are totally unreliable, as compared to the drug smuggler, star JAIC witness.

Why would they not be in survivor suits?
If a ship is having difficulties and taking on water you get in to your suit. you get in to your suit. It takes moments to do and is part of a crews basic training.
Also procedure is for every life raft or boat to have at least one crew member aboard.
Finding the crew in survival suits is to be expected.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Because Rockwater who was assigned to do a feasibility study as to whether salvage was possible, reported back that it was.

Rockwater are not a salvage company, they are a diving support company.

Why would the size of the ship and the logistics not be a consideration?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The correct term is 'advised'.

The government have lots of advisors, why would they follow the advice of just this one man?

 

[Andy_Ross]

He was born in 1938 so would have been 56 at the time. It is specifically stated in the reports that he was asked to judge the video footage and the lab results. If he had been utilised to do the dive as well, I have no doubt that would have been mentioned. They rely on his credentials, why would they hide his involvement in the dive?



I have no experience with explosives and have no idea what that package was. Saying that, not knowing the reason why it was left doesn't automatically mean it wasn't an explosive. I do find it curious the alleged explosives subsequently disappeared from future video footage.

If navy clearance divers were using charges on the ship they would not have left any unexploded ordnance littering the site.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You didn't know?

CIA report

With the fall of the USSR and Soviet military living on the equivalent of $30 pcm - if they got paid at all - were in a state of desperation and smuggling was rife, with Estonia being a key port in transported illicit materials, including drugs and people smuggling to the West. The Swedish and Finnish customs were intercepting them all the time, and many will have got away with it.

Given Sweden admitted it smuggled Ex-Soviet stuff during September 1994 on the Estonia one would have thought that aspect of the sinking should have been investigated.

How often is 'all the time'?

Why do you think the Swedes would be smuggling this nuclear material?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Did anyone specifically state that there was a sudden noise over and above this at 1:15?

People reported several loud bangs. Not all being trained police officers, they didn't take out their notebooks and record the time.

Is there some particular event you have in mind which would have produced a different and distinctive noise? Can you describe what that event is?

 

[Andy_Ross]

People reported several loud bangs. Not all being trained police officers, they didn't take out their notebooks and record the time.

Is there some particular event you have in mind which would have produced a different and distinctive noise? Can you describe what that event is?

submarines of various nations and explosives planted by MI5.

Sorry that should be MI6 despite what they claim in James Bond movies.

 

[Vixen]

Rockwater are not a salvage company, they are a diving support company.

Why would the size of the ship and the logistics not be a consideration?

Rockwell in its report back to the Swedish government confirmed that salvage of both the bodies and the ship was feasible. ~ Report Dec 1994.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Rockwell in its report back to the Swedish government confirmed that salvage of both the bodies and the ship was feasible. ~ Report Dec 1994.

How would they know? they aren't a salvage company?

I am sure the ship could be salvaged but not in one piece.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

submarines of various nations and explosives planted by MI5.

Sorry that should be MI6 despite what they claim in James Bond movies.

Ah, yes, Swedish, British and Russian submarines forming an orderly queue to take turns at ramming the Estonia, in order to break in and steal whatever the secret Soviet stuff was. And when they finally succeeded, doubtless they got a terse message from Admiral Michael Caine "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!".

 

[Vixen]

The government have lots of advisors, why would they follow the advice of just this one man?

When Carl Bildt was asked who had called him with the news of the tragedy, he claimed he couldn't remember, yet Finnish PM Aho quite openly said he was called by his personal secretary in the middle of the night and Laar, by the Estonian Crisis Committee. It was almost certainly the intelligence agencies as of that time, before hardly anyone knew apart from the coastguards and the people monitoring the radar and signals (strangely Tammes had problems getting a signal and the Helsinki monitors had to send a pan-pan message as the usual shipping radio channels had interference). It was Svensson who expressed concern about the appearance of the bodies within hours of the sinking and the Swedish government ran with him despite insincere attempts to look into the feasibility of recovery. When you consider Svenssons vast military career, the idea he should be squeamish is unbelievable, especially given that the Baltic towards the seabed is pretty much just one degree above freezing and with little oxygen for aerobic bacteria to feed on, nor the worms that like salty water as the Baltic had one third of the salinity of the Atlantic, for example.

Hans-Emil ( Emil ) Svensson , born June 28, 1940 , former commander of the first degree . Elected to the Royal Swedish Naval Academy in 1982 and to the Royal Swedish Academy of Military Sciences in 1984.

In the early 1980s, Svensson became head of the navy's analysis group, and as such came to play a prominent role during the submarine hunts on foreign submarines that violated Swedish waters. The violations increased drastically during the 1980s and it was during 1980 that the first large and intensive hunt at Utö in the Stockholm archipelago occurred. Svensson told newspapers at the time that this was something new, because it was not possible to reject the submarine, it was a new provocative phenomenon.

wiki

 

[Vixen]

How often is 'all the time'?

Why do you think the Swedes would be smuggling this nuclear material?

High Court Judge Johan Hirschfeldt who looked into this said it was 'classified' information but did confirm in the Riksdag 2005 that it had done so specifially on the 14th and 28th Sept 1994. The customs officer who blew the whistle was on holiday on the 28th. Hirschfeldt destroyed all the records so all we have is a few lines in the Swedish government's version of Hansards.