The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

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

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

Rockwater were outsourced by the Swedish Government to provide a report into this. It won the tender over several other companies, despite being the most expensive. It provided the requested formal report Dec 1994 as per the correct channels and the Riksdag rejected salvaging the wreck or recovering the bodies, as advised by its co-opted Ethical Advice Committee.

So despite Rockwater confirming that in their professional opinion it was feasible to recover the bodies (and it came across about 150 of them whilst examining the wreck) the government said no, and we can trace this back to the day of the accident when Svensson expressed his view it should not be done.

 

[Andy_Ross]

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.

wiki

How does that answer the question?

 

[Andy_Ross]

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.

So no evidence that the Swedish government was smuggling radio active material from Russia?

 

[Vixen]

So no evidence that the Swedish government was smuggling radio active material from Russia?

Think about it. Kari Lehtola wanted to run radioactivity tests on the wreck once he was outside the remit of the JAIC.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Think about it. Kari Lehtola wanted to run radioactivity tests on the wreck once he was outside the remit of the JAIC.

So?
What evidence does he have concerning radio active materials aboard the ship?

 

[Vixen]

So?
What evidence does he have concerning radio active materials aboard the ship?

What do you mean, 'So?' Lehtola was on the JAIC. He had all the time in the world, and the authority to order radioactivity tests as part of the investigation. However, he waited three years until the report was signed off and out of the way.

 

[Andy_Ross]

So he had no evidence for any radio activity.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Cop this: after signing off the JAIC report Kari Lehtola's personal curiosity got the better off him and he applied pressure on the Finnish divers syphoning off the polluting fuel to 'test the radioactivity levels'.

Why would he suspect the *fuel* in particular of being radioactive? Be specific.

Did the divers test the fuel? What was the result?

 

[GlennB]

Why would he suspect the *fuel* in particular of being radioactive? Be specific.

Did the divers test the fuel? What was the result?

If the claim is true at all, I suspect he wanted them to test for radioactivity while down there removing the fuel; in addition to their job, as it were.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

If the claim is true at all, I suspect he wanted them to test for radioactivity while down there removing the fuel; in addition to their job, as it were.

That still raises the question of "test what for radioactivity"? Did he think they were moving a reactor core or something big enough to noticeably irradiate the entire ship?

 

[GlennB]

That still raises the question of "test what for radioactivity"? Did he think they were moving a reactor core or something big enough to noticeably irradiate the entire ship?

The FSM knows. Background? We could ask Vixen but I doubt we'd get a straight answer.

 

[beachnut]

Presumably people who progress through the ranks are the ones with the right skills. We have guys in the Met who are 'super recognisers' - once they have seen a face, they never forget it. Can pick out the face of a wanted villain in a crowd of hundreds. Police are trained to be observant and to write their notes ASAP because these will be the factual objective, emotion and judgement-free, facts as read out in court.

source?


Who is the villain in this OP that this observant police person picked out related to the OP? How do you know this particular police person was trained to be observant? Any evidence?

Some anecdotal evidence, you know some police who are observant, or made up a claim they progress to become observant over time...

I know some who are not...

All people can be observant, police are not special in general.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I've been to Niagara Falls and I have been on the deck of a ship during stormy weather, so you tell me.



2,000 tonnes is the potentail capaicty of the car deck. Hence, if the ramp has given way then that is how much seawater surged in and it will not have been gentle.

The ramp is where in relation to the waterline?

*headdesk*

 

[Axxman300]

The water began coming in after the initial impact with the wave. The bow cover hadn't been ripped off yet. The crewman reported it to the bridge but their' idea of "inspecting the damage" was to look at video monitors. Nobody went down to survey anything. By the time the bow-cover came off there was already a lot of water in the car deck, thus when people woke up to the louder bang the ship was already listing.

I have seen nothing to change the basic explanation of the Estonia's sinking.

 

[Vixen]

Why would he suspect the *fuel* in particular of being radioactive? Be specific.

Did the divers test the fuel? What was the result?

Not the fuel. The Finnish environmental agency SYKE demanded that the fuel be removed as it would pollute protected waters. They even had to visit the Swedish government in person and demand it be permitted for them to do so. The Swedes did not want anybody to go down there but themselves, so the Finns devised a method of robotic magnets on to the ships tanks and a guided hose to syphon off the fuel. Lehtola tried to pressurise the divers to take radioactivity readings of the wreck, which failed twice because of the conditions. Presumably for his own curiosity as he was only a lawyer, after all, and the JAIC was now closed.

 

[Vixen]

source?


Who is the villain in this OP that this observant police person picked out related to the OP? How do you know this particular police person was trained to be observant? Any evidence?

Some anecdotal evidence, you know some police who are observant, or made up a claim they progress to become observant over time...

I know some who are not...

All people can be observant, police are not special in general.

The people who think it is a 'conspiracy theory' just don't like that two of the police also reported two or three bangs before anything else happened.

[survivors] Ewa, 31, Sweden 76. Ronnie, 41, Sweden 77. Maria, 34, Sweden 78. Tom, 33, Sweden
There were 70 people on board from the Stockholm police. Only four of them survived.
The Swedish police suffered a huge loss in the accident, as 70 men and women from the Stockholm County Police Department had gathered in Estonia. Only a few of them survived. This is how they reported the events in the public documents of the Estonia investigation.
Ewa got up all the way with her cabin buddies.
"When we came to the seventh deck, I saw an older woman sitting there bloody with a man."
Ewa thought they were both retired.
Tom, too, was in his cabin, from which he escaped wearing only panties and a shirt. Maria and Ronnie were in the ship's restaurants, where after midnight there were still perhaps a dozen members of the police department.
“Many had already gone to bed,” Maria said.
Ronnie tried to help other people climb the stairs when he had actually gotten higher. At the same time, he lost contact with his colleagues. Maria didn't know how she managed to get up the sloping floor to the outside deck.
"I don't know what happened then. When I regained consciousness, I was on the life raft."

Ilta-Sanomat 2019

 

[Vixen]

The ramp is where in relation to the waterline?

*headdesk*

The car deck is above the waterline, part of the superstructure.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

The car deck is above the waterline, part of the superstructure.

Well, I asked where the ramp was, but given your repeated demonstrations of poor understanding of ship design elements (such as where the superstructure begins), let's move on.

Either way, the bow visor (partially, anyways), ramp, and car deck are all above the waterline, great.

So why would "2,000 tonnes" of seawater be assumed to come rushing in as you propose?

 

[Vixen]

The water began coming in after the initial impact with the wave. The bow cover hadn't been ripped off yet. The crewman reported it to the bridge but their' idea of "inspecting the damage" was to look at video monitors. Nobody went down to survey anything. By the time the bow-cover came off there was already a lot of water in the car deck, thus when people woke up to the louder bang the ship was already listing.

I have seen nothing to change the basic explanation of the Estonia's sinking.

Think about it. The JAIC report used a psychologist to edit the witness testimonies. So now we have the crew systematically linking the bangs to the bow visor supposedly flapping in the wind or bouncing about with loud metal clashing against metal. But wait! The bow visor is just 55 tonnes. The vessel is 18,000 tonnes, loaded. Just 0.004% of its total mass. First, the bow visor having fallen off immediately sinks. It doesn't form a buoyant bowl and float because of its triangular shape. One side will let in water as it has no rim, so it sinks.

Secondly, the passengers 130 metres away from the bow at the stern, where the cafeteria was, where people without cabins camped down for the night certainly could not describe any clash of the bow visor on the ship's bow as 'an explosion' or 'a collision' (unless of course there was an explosion at the bow as claimed by the German Expert Group, and this is what Linde and Sillaste refer to when they changed watch and claim to have heard the noise at the bow), as 55 tonnes against 18,000 tonnes would not be particularly loud. More like someone knocking on the door.

Thirdly, it was a gale force storm either Beaufort 7 or 9, depending on which report. However, it hadn't yet reached the worst of the storm, which was further on. Whether it was force 7 or force 9, there is no way a loose bow visor could have been flapping as that type if wind howling towards the northeast, as a southwesterly, is almost directly contra - or about 40° - against the ship travelling in a northwesterly direction, at its port, so anything loose will not be flapping but will be either slammed tight against the body of the vessel unmoving and jammed shut, or it will be in one straight line in the direction of the wind. A gale force wind is not a breeze when you can hang your clothes out and they flap about in the wind to dry. So no, the bow visor cannot have been flapping against the ship to create the bangs that people reported. I'll grant it was ingenious of the JAIC to try to create a link between this and the many reports from survivors of two or three loud bangs that caused the ship to shudder and scrape and then lurch violently towards starboard.

THAT TRIP became the last of five to Hakanpää.
- I was at a karaoke bar with a friend when I heard an unusual sound. I thought it sounded like an explosion. I left immediately. It was a matter of seconds or minutes to get out. That ship collapsed so quickly and no one came to help.

Altti Hakanpää and his friend tried to shout at people. The sight still troubles him.

Ilta Sanomat 2019

 

[Vixen]

Well, I asked where the ramp was, but given your repeated demonstrations of poor understanding of ship design elements (such as where the superstructure begins), let's move on.

Either way, the bow visor (partially, anyways), ramp, and car deck are all above the waterline, great.

So why would "2,000 tonnes" of seawater be assumed to come rushing in as you propose?

That is part four of the scenario as claimed by the JAIC report:

1. Some large waves hit the bow visor (which was deemed sea worthy but of poor design)
2. The bow visor came loose and flapped about creating bangs
3. As it finally fell off, thanks to the waves, it took the car ramp with it, pulling it open.
4. there was an ingress of 2,000 tonnes of seawater - whether gradual or immediate
5. it was this that caused the ship to 'capsize' and sink.

If the car ramp came away then there would be a massive rush of seawater to fill the capacity.