The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Steve]

Share the joke then.

You mean that Vixen has not provided inconvertible proof that the loud noise was the sound of shaped charges cutting the bolts that secured the bow clamps combined with the sound of the collision with a Russio/Swedish submarine sailing on the surface? The timing of the two events was impeccable and a credit to the coordinated efforts of the militaries involved.

 

[Axxman300]

If they were heading NW and the waves were SW they would e driving on to the starboard bow. That would result in the ship rolling as well as plunging into the waves.
It would also mean the stress on the bow was uneven.

And the Estonia already had a slight list due to improper loading of the car deck. The bow was leaning slightly chin-down into the waves and wind. I doubt any bow clamps of her vintage were designed for that kind of punishment. The fact that all ferries installed updated clamp designs after the accident is all anyone needs to know.

It was a sad, freak accident.

 

[Axxman300]

I like your elegant argument of bathymetry. I did mention in an earlier post that seas, being relatively shallow, did have more wave activity than say, an ocean, but Captain Swoop slapped me down and said the North Atlantic was far rougher than anything the Baltic could provide.

Captain Swoop is correct about the North Atlantic - on average, but we're talking about one storm on one night. That's all that mattered. Wave action is predicted by the convergence of two or more powerful currents, and or bathymetry combined with wind with tidal flow. I'm putting my college education to use to suggest that the Estonia had transited into an area where larger waves were possible and the chance of a rogue wave had increased.

Again, you have to work the data from that night.

The testimony is a crewman said the first loud bang was in concert with a large wave striking the bow hard enough to send more water than normal into the car deck. There was no damage inspection performed and the Estonia never slowed down. The Titanic would have sank faster had she not stopped.

All that matters were the events and decisions made onboard Estonia on that night.

The issue with the uneven sea bed doesn't really start happening until you get to the archipelgo,

Not true.

The barometrics show a nice long fetch converging on a sharp rise in the area where Estonia was struck by the wave(s). It was just bad luck and perfect timing.

The waves on 28 Sept 1994 are estimated to have been 6m - 8m high. The Estonia in its various different names had made at least 300 crossings over the Baltic and in far worse weather than that, so I can't see there was any one wave that was particularly strong that it could unhinge an atlantic lock plus loosen the two side locks and bolts, and the two hydraulic arms. Poor maintenance in theory might leave them vulnerable.

And yet a wave or a set of waves knocked the bow-cover off. Estimates are not point data, and the bridge crew is still in place on Estonia so we don't know what they saw.

 

[Axxman300]

If the crew were used to operating with water coming in the bow to the extent they had materials around it to absorb the water, why should they have been worried by water coming in the bow?

It It is not the usual operating condition for the bow visor. It should have been reported and the company should have taken steps to have it properly examined and fixed.

A case of 'familiarity breeds contempt'

Yes.

The point I should have made was the amount of water coming in was enough to cause the crew member to call the bridge to report it.

 

[Axxman300]

The Estonia in its various different names had made at least 300 crossings over the Baltic and in far worse weather than that, so I can't see there was any one wave that was particularly strong that it could unhinge an atlantic lock plus loosen the two side locks and bolts, and the two hydraulic arms. Poor maintenance in theory might leave them vulnerable.

Last year my truck's engine seized up after over-heating due to a hose clamp failing where the radiator connects to the engine. I had 330,000 miles on my truck at the time. Nobody had bothered to check the hose clamps. Hoses? Yes. Clamps? No.

My hose clamp failed on a stretch of road undergoing repairs and was thus uneven. I had driven on worse roads in the 27 years I've owned the truck.

Age catches up with everything.

Estonia's sister ship had been pulled from service to have her clamp mechanism checked and serviced, but the company didn't think to do the same for Estonia.

I wonder if the Germans think my truck was sabotaged?

 

[theprestige]

The Estonia in its various different names had made at least 300 crossings over the Baltic and in far worse weather than that, so I can't see there was any one wave

If understanding were a snake, it would have bit you right about there.

 

[Steve]

Last year my truck's engine seized up after over-heating due to a hose clamp failing where the radiator connects to the engine. I had 330,000 miles on my truck at the time. Nobody had bothered to check the hose clamps. Hoses? Yes. Clamps? No.

My hose clamp failed on a stretch of road undergoing repairs and was thus uneven. I had driven on worse roads in the 27 years I've owned the truck.

Age catches up with everything.

Estonia's sister ship had been pulled from service to have her clamp mechanism checked and serviced, but the company didn't think to do the same for Estonia.

I wonder if the Germans think my truck was sabotaged?

Don't know about the Germans, but there is this poster.......

 

[Axxman300]

Don't know about the Germans, but there is this poster.......

Germans make more sense...

 

[Vixen]

Using your figures, it is 0.31%, not 0.004%. Reminds me of when you presented an explosive detonation velocity as a force. When you repeatedly get basics like this wrong it casts doubt on the rest of your many alternative narratives.

Whoops, I misread the -3 on my calculator. That is correct. 0.31% is vanishingly tiny, whichever way you look at it.

 

[Vixen]

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.

56 wouldn't be too old to go diving if that is your hobby and you know what you are doing. Bear in mind, the UK signed the Estonia Gravesite Treaty so he would be in danger of incriminating himself or his divers - if British - by naming them.

It does appear other diving teams have been down there. As the site is constantly monitored by the coastguards and navy, the fact it hasn't been publicised points to authorised navy expeditions.

 

[Vixen]

You sure about that? Figure 13.6 shows the visor swinging up and down. Being attached in the middle leaves it free to seesaw back and forth. Which would result in it rocking up and down.

Are you able to describe the mechanism by which the thing see-saws back and forth?

 

[Vixen]

Atlantic storms make the Baltic look like a paddling pool.

Don't you think that over a decade of hammering in to storms would have stressed the bow visor?

We have been over this at great length already.

We were not talking about storms we were talking about waves. It is a fact that shallow seas are more easily whipped into very high waves than a deep ocean. For example, the Pacific is so named for a reason.

I am sure the Atlantic has terrible storms but the same storm transported to the Baltic would have higher waves, is the theory, ceteris paribus.

 

[Vixen]

If they were heading NW and the waves were SW they would e driving on to the starboard bow. That would result in the ship rolling as well as plunging into the waves.
It would also mean the stress on the bow was uneven.

No, a southwesterly would be hammering the port side.

 

[Vixen]

And the Estonia already had a slight list due to improper loading of the car deck. The bow was leaning slightly chin-down into the waves and wind. I doubt any bow clamps of her vintage were designed for that kind of punishment. The fact that all ferries installed updated clamp designs after the accident is all anyone needs to know.

It was a sad, freak accident.

Even if it was as you call it a sad, freak accident, and even if a strong wave did knock off a bow visor bolted with three different locks, such an occurrence by the laws of physics would not cause a ship of that size to sink in 35 minutes.

 

[Vixen]

Captain Swoop is correct about the North Atlantic - on average, but we're talking about one storm on one night. That's all that mattered. Wave action is predicted by the convergence of two or more powerful currents, and or bathymetry combined with wind with tidal flow. I'm putting my college education to use to suggest that the Estonia had transited into an area where larger waves were possible and the chance of a rogue wave had increased.

Again, you have to work the data from that night.

The testimony is a crewman said the first loud bang was in concert with a large wave striking the bow hard enough to send more water than normal into the car deck. There was no damage inspection performed and the Estonia never slowed down. The Titanic would have sank faster had she not stopped.

All that matters were the events and decisions made onboard Estonia on that night.



Not true.

The barometrics show a nice long fetch converging on a sharp rise in the area where Estonia was struck by the wave(s). It was just bad luck and perfect timing.



And yet a wave or a set of waves knocked the bow-cover off. Estimates are not point data, and the bridge crew is still in place on Estonia so we don't know what they saw.

The testimony of one crew man versus twenty-nine independent and random survivors, including two police officers and a PhD student I wouldn't consider particularly reliable, especially as the crew were interviewed five or six times, with further facts being added each time, culminating in, 'I saw the bow visor was missing' really does smack of Dr. Loftus' theory that when one is asked or urged to recall a memory, witnesses' minds have the tendency to fill in facts that are imagined and seeming 'logical' rather than true of factual. None of the crew reported the visor missing before PM Carl Bildt announced this was the cause.

 

[Vixen]

Yes.

The point I should have made was the amount of water coming in was enough to cause the crew member to call the bridge to report it.

It depends when in the time line he reported it. ISTM this would have been after the bangs and shudders and listing. Would the crew member necessarily be able to distinguish between cause and effect in the height of an emergency? Seeing water seeming to come in the car ramp via the sides doesn't mean it was the cause of the accident.

 

[Vixen]

Last year my truck's engine seized up after over-heating due to a hose clamp failing where the radiator connects to the engine. I had 330,000 miles on my truck at the time. Nobody had bothered to check the hose clamps. Hoses? Yes. Clamps? No.

My hose clamp failed on a stretch of road undergoing repairs and was thus uneven. I had driven on worse roads in the 27 years I've owned the truck.

Age catches up with everything.

Estonia's sister ship had been pulled from service to have her clamp mechanism checked and serviced, but the company didn't think to do the same for Estonia.

I wonder if the Germans think my truck was sabotaged?

The problem is, the JAIC in their final findings certified the vessel to have been seaworthy. So there's a defective conclusion to begin with.

If your truck was over heating, then your maintenance guys didn't do their job properly when you last took it in for servicing.

 

[Axxman300]

The testimony of one crew man versus twenty-nine independent and random survivors, including two police officers and a PhD student I wouldn't consider particularly reliable, especially as the crew were interviewed five or six times, with further facts being added each time, culminating in, 'I saw the bow visor was missing' really does smack of Dr. Loftus' theory that when one is asked or urged to recall a memory, witnesses' minds have the tendency to fill in facts that are imagined and seeming 'logical' rather than true of factual. None of the crew reported the visor missing before PM Carl Bildt announced this was the cause.

The other way to look at it is the testimony of THE ONE GUY WHO WAS ON THE CAR DECK A FEW METERS AWAY WHEN THE WAVE STRUCK THE BOW CAUSING THE LOUD BANG AND WATER BEGIN TO FLOOD THE DECK over 29 people who were not on the car deck. With that logic I'm shocked they haven't interviewed me since I was ten thousand miles away.

 

[Axxman300]

Oh, and while some people are wildly speculating and throwing out silly theories the investigation is on going. From July, 20, 2021:

https://www.baltictimes.com/prelimi...ck_crushed_to_large_extent_on_starboard_side/

Key updates:

Sten Suuroja, head of the department of marine geology and geophysics at the Geological Survey of Estonia, said that the survey was conducted with a boomer system which sends acoustic waves to the bottom of the sea and measures the reflected signal to provide information on sediments and rocks on the seabed.

"The geological composition of the seabed is rather simple in the area of the wreck. It can be seen quite clearly that the middle part of the wreck rests on a hard bedrock," Suuroja said.

"The rock in the middle part of the wreck is so strong it broke our drill," Arikas noted, adding that the clay below the bow and stern definitely offer less support for the wreck.

Arikas noted that the survey focused on damages to the starboard side of the vessel, the bow ramp and the car deck. The vessel's bulbous bow had sustained various damages and scrapes.

And...

When the bow ramp of the vessel opened in the course of the accident, it came into contact with the protruding bulb at the bow, according to Arikas. When the ship hit the seabed, the ramp closed once more.

"According to our knowledge, the ramp was only slightly open, not fully. The 3D sonar showed, however, that we can see quite far into the wreck on the car deck," he added.

The situation was subsequently surveyed with an underwater robot, which revealed that only a small part of the bow ramp remains attached to a hinge, whereas the ramp itself has fallen to the side of the bow, hence leaving an opening to the car deck. The reason why the ramp has become unattached needs to be investigated further, according to Arikas.

The robot also surveyed the car deck which contained much debris.

"We did not proceed further into the car deck because we had not planned to do so, there was also no direct need for doing so and our equipment would not have enabled it," Arikas said.

So the ramp is now open and they can get inside the car deck if they wish.

But wait, there's more...

Surveys of the deck revealed cracks and outward deformations in the plating of the hull, many of them on the opposite side to the one that hit the seabed.

And yes, they surveyed the mystery hole...

Surveys of the stern revealed that the stern ramps were closed. A deformation of 22 meters in length and four meters in height was registered in the middle part of the vessel on the starboard side. The plating of the ship has outward deformations as well as in some inward ones and the side fender has been forced inside the vessel.

As I predicted:

The area of the vessel that has sustained major damages is located next to hard rocks and the deformation matches the geometry thereof, he noted.

And now a new mystery:

A signal that interfered with the sonar was a concern, Arikas said. 3D sonar visibility was 150 meters on the first day of the survey, after which an hour-long interference occurred. Later, the interference was constant, reducing sonar visibility to just 20 meters and preventing the survey crew from measuring the curve of the wreck.

My current theory:

 

[Vixen]

The other way to look at it is the testimony of THE ONE GUY WHO WAS ON THE CAR DECK A FEW METERS AWAY WHEN THE WAVE STRUCK THE BOW CAUSING THE LOUD BANG AND WATER BEGIN TO FLOOD THE DECK over 29 people who were not on the car deck. With that logic I'm shocked they haven't interviewed me since I was ten thousand miles away.

Wrong!

The third engineer was interrogated seven times:
l. 29 September 1994 in Turku by the Finnish police.
2. 29 September 1994 in Turku by the Estonian State Security Police.
3. 29 September 1994 in Turku by Commission members.
4. 3 October 1994 in Tallinn by the Estonian police.
5.17 October 1994 in Tallinn by Commission members.
6. 31 March 1995 in Gothenburg by Commission members.
7. 28 February 1996 in Tallinn by the Estonian police.
At a distance of about 80 metres he saw the ship go down. She was lying on her starboard side as she sank, stern first. During the last few moments the bow pointed upwards at 45 degrees.
He observed that the bow visor was missing and assumed that the heavy waves had torn it away.
The third engineer assumed that he was one of the first to be rescued. He and the others from a lifeboat were picked up by a helicopter at about 0350 hrs [2].

JAIC report


Note the very telling phrase 'assumed'. Assumed makes an ASS of U and ME.

Interrogated seven times but we are not told what questions he was asked or whether any were leading questions, such as, 'Now think carefully, Mr. Sillaste, do you recall seeing the bow visor [when you were in a state of extreme stress bobbing about in the middle of the night in a dark treacherous sea, trying to hang on for dear life as giant waves swept over your raft, sweeping some people away]'

Sillaste <searching his memory, thinks> Ah yes, I remember now. I recall Aftonbaldet and Espressen quoting Carl Bildt saying the bow visor fell off so I can't have seen it. What a stupid question!> Of course I never saw the bow visor!