The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Axxman300]

Don't underestimate Russian activity. Up until the fall of the Soviet Union, the Baltic region was one of the most militarised in the world (and it still controls the old Prussia region, now called Kaliningrad, which is one massive Russian military base). Likewise, the remnants of the old Paldiski Soviet base in Estonia by 1994 was one massive military junk yard, after the nuclear reactors were decommissioned. This effectively was like an Iron Curtain / Berlin Wall between East and West. Russian presence, even if unofficial is ubiquitous as was apparent from seabed tracks and acoustic signalling.

Had the Russians been involved in any way with the disaster the Swedes and NATO would still be shouting about it.

Russian military presence includes signal blocking. On the night of the accident 28 Sept 1994, the two nearby cruise liners, Viking Mariella and Silja Europa used their emergency VHF channel 16 from which they'd got the May Day to rescue centre but had to switch to Channel 2182, which covers the whole Baltic Sea. When they received no response they had to call the inland rescue centres on their mobile phones. In addition, because of this signal failure - coinciding with Estonia sinking, the Helsinki Rescue centre used a pan-pan instead of relaying the high alert one.

Your poor research skills apply to old conspiracies related to this sinking:

https://bnn-news.com/18-years-estonia-catastrophe-questions-answers-76700

Although it is seldom mentioned, the Estonia catastrophe occurred on the first day of a 10-day NATO naval exercise called Cooperative Venture 94, in which more than 15 ships and “a number of maritime aircraft” were prepared to conduct “humanitarian and search and rescue operations” in nearby waters, writes Red Ice Creations.

The NATO exercise, which involved 10 NATO member states and the Baltic “partner” nations of Russia, Sweden, Poland, and Lithuania, was to be staged in the Skagerrak, between Denmark and Norway, and the Norwegian Sea, according to the NATO press release about the exercise from September 16, 1994.

The fact that Estonia sank as the submarines, ships, planes, personnel, and satellites from the navies of 14 nations were preparing to begin their 10-day “search and rescue operations” exercise off the coast of Sweden raises several obvious questions that deserve to be answered: First and foremost, if NATO had 15 ships and a number of aircraft assembled and prepared to conduct “search and rescue operations,” why didn’t NATO assist in the early morning rescue operation for the victims from the Estonia catastrophe?

Moreover, the evidence indicates that the Mayday signals from Estonia had been jammed, as were all radio communications in the area. There is a theory that the ferry’s distress call was intentionally blocked . If so, why?

Didn’t the NATO communications units prepared for the “search and rescue” exercise overhear the distress calls coming from Estonia? NATO, with state-of-the-art satellite and airborne surveillance assets in place over the Baltic Sea certainly must know who was blocking the SOS calls.

Red Ice Creations writes that blocking SOS calls and jamming distress signals is a violation of international law. Why has this crime not been investigated?

The purpose of the NATO exercise included “search and rescue” operations, yet when disaster struck, NATO did nothing to help. Why? What was NATO doing that was more important than saving the lives of their citizens? Why won’t they even talk about it? If not the citizens, to whom is NATO accountable? What kind of organization is this?

So here's a OLD bit of information that has slipped past your exhaustive research yet again.

There was also silence at St Petersburg, at Russia's Marine Rescue Coordinating Centre, which links up to Russian and US satellites providing emergency beacon signals that send the exact coordinates of the ship in distress to the rescue centre. You recall, the Europa captain had to wait whilst third mate Tammes* had to go away and find out the coordinates, which he couldn't provide because of a 'black out'. He called back some minutes later and a voice in the background provides Tammes with the corrodinates, which in Tammes' distress he misrelay's once or twice. At this point Tammes says the ship is at 30° - 40°, within minutes it was 90°. So a whole series of totally avoidable delays because the signals were jammed. This COPSAS-SARSAT collection of satellites relay the ships location to the rescue centres. Yet on the night of the accident, just when the ship was fated to sink completely outside of radar within 26 minutes the satellite system was down.

All of this could be investigated independently from te Estonia accident.

When Jutta Rabe and Gregg Bemis made their expedition to the wreck, on approaching they discovered their GPS was suddenly unavailable. They had to use old-fashioned methods of navigation to locate the wreck, not easy as few maps provide coordinates for one object measuring 'just' 155m.

I don't trust them to be completely honest.

In addition, all of the Estonia emergency buoys transmitting EPIRB were mysteriously switched off on the night of the 'accident'.

Wrong. They were NEVER TURNED ON BY THE CREW.

The telephone company concerned said its entire network was down from 1:03 to 1:58 within the exact time frame of the accident, from the time of the bangs/collision sensation through the May Day and throughout the rapid sinking.

In addition, there was a continuous radio signal from Russia's Hoagland Island transmitter, which a Finnish commission member Heimo Iivonen believed blocked VHF international May Day channel 16.

You need to cite the source for this.

So given the Russians' absolutely undoubted history of stealthy incursions into Swedish and Finnish waters, there is little doubt it had the technology to not only evade sonar listening posts and being registered with an acoustic signature, it likely also had techniques to block the sonar equipment of others. These secret submarine manoeuvres were not even known by Yeltsin and had nothing to do with the Russian Northern Fleet (its official navy) but was run by the KGB and its successor - which in 1991 - 1994 was one V Putin. This is how Yeltsin could categorically deny it had any vessels in the region of the Estonia - even though the Leonid Bykhof was caught just an hour later, about to run into rocks. Yeltsin likely never knew what Vladimir was up to.

And you continue to ignore the fact that NATO and the US track Russian sub activity at every step from drydock to sortie.

So, when Rene Arikas turned up for his eight-day survey 8-16 July 2021 of the wreck for digital imaging - whoa! lo and behold! - strange difficulties in getting a proper signal, as reported in Baltic News.

Coincidence? I think not.

And yet they still got imaging done successfully. Coincidence? Not when you have qualified people working a COMMON PROBLEM.

Whoever wanted those secrets stopped from reaching Sweden, the US and the UK, made darn sure they would not reach their destination...and took almost 1,000 innocent people with them.

Dumb.

If there was some important hardware on the Estonia it could have, and even may have been recovered from the wreck immediately afterward. The Russians would have known this, and it is not their style.

*Re Tammes: we need to ask why was he using a handheld contraption to send the May Day?

Okay, how would you send a distress call if the ship's power is out and your main radio doesn't work? Just asking in the name of common sense.

Where was Captain Andresson?

Likely struggling to get back to the bridge from somewhere in the maze of corridors inside.

How did Tammes manage to get the heck out of the bridge at that late stage? (His body was recovered from the sea.)

It's call a hatch, a seagoing name for "door". He probably made a break for it as the ship began its full list. I would have.

 

[lobosrul5]

To block a radio signal you have to broadcast a more powerful signal to swamp it.
For example in WW2 the RAF used equipment called 'Airborne Cigar' It was fitted to one aircraft per bomber squadron, an extra crewman was aboard to operate it. It scanned the voice frequencies used by the German AA defences and any that were 'in traffic' would have jamming noise transmitted over them. The noise came from a microphone in one of the aircraft's engine bays.

If the Russians were broadcasting signals strong enough to block radio across the Baltic everyone would have heard it over many hundreds of square miles of sea.
It would have been heard.

Similarly, to block Sonar you have to broadcast a noise that will swamp your return echoes.
A/S Escorts I served on had a towed array that produced noise louder than the ship and stopped any subs hunting us from getting a direct fix. It would also attract any acoustic homing torpedoes away from the ship.
It would be deadly for a sub trying the same trick though as the A/S weapons we used had an area effect and anything reasonably close to the sub would overpressure the hull and destroy it.
Subs avoid being attacked by being very quiet.



You have no clue.

Maybe that was the super kewl Soviet 80's tech that Sweden was smuggling out... radio jamming equipment that doesn't use radio!! Betcha never thought of that

 

[Vixen]

LOL. This evidence-free "animator" has the bow of the Estonia ramming a mythical surfaced submarine broadside. On top of many other humungous reasons why this couldn't/wouldn't have happened in this case..... it's rather easy for the captain of a surfaced submarine to avoid being rammed by a large ferry travelling in a slow straight line.

Next!






"Grazing a resting sub"?

Next!





Cars and trucks/lorries sliding around on the flooded vehicle deck, particularly if/when they were sliding longitudinally along the inner bulkheads, would very probably have made metal-on-metal scraping noises which would have transferred throughout the metal superstructure.

Nex......... oh no, actually, no more please.

Why couldn't it have happened? It is well known that storms can interfere with the ability of a sub's sonar system to accurately foresee an object in its path.

Your theory is simply that. Untested and just a figment of your imagination. Pure sophistry.

Yet the survivors can tell you what really happened:

Ulla Marianne Tenman - cabin 1098 - 30 years old

- was in her cabin before the casualty;
- some time before the casualty heard several hard bangs and something beating against something which she considered to be strange and dangerous, therefore she decided to go up to deck 7 and wait to see what would happen;
- after she had been sometime on deck 7 she heard a heavy bang and subsequently the vessel heeled to starboard.


[...]


Carl-Erik Reintamm - cabin 1094 - 26 years old

- went to bed at 23.00-23.30 hours (probably Swedish time);
- woke up when shortly afterwards he suddenly heard 2 strong, strange noises, scraping noises which came from below as if the vessel proceeded through ice (which he had heard many times before);
- he realised that it could not be ice but had to be something different below water and jumped out of the bed while the vessel heeled about 10° to starboard;
- he also realised that there was something definitely wrong and that he had to get up to the lifeboat deck as soon as possible
- he left his cabin at once and found a lot of water in the alleyway;
- when he passed the shower/WC area on his way into the stairway he saw water about 0.4 m high which was rushing along the longitudinal wall with speed;


[...]


Holger Wachtmeister - cabin 1047 - 41 years old

- he was awakened by a scraping noise and a hard bang - the scraping noise continued;
- he got up and dressed and left the cabin when the vessel heeled;
- saw water when he passed the car deck possibly already below in front of his cabin.


[...]


Bengt Nilsson - cabin 1026 - 35 years old

- at ca. 23.00 hours - must be Swedish time - he went to bed, but could not sleep due to heavy labouring of the vessel and something beating frequently against the hull very heavily;
- he noted after an hour or so that it began to roar (scream, howl), squeak, shriek, scrape and finally he heard a sharp metallic breaking noise at the starboard side and aft of him, and formed the opinion that something was wrong;

[...]


Dainis Sleiners - cabin 1015

- went to the cabin at 22.00 hours, there was no water in the alleyway;
- was in bed and woke up, a heavy bang followed by the heeling, the whole vessel was shaking - he believes it was 01.30 hours - he did not hear the engines anymore - which he had done before;
- he remembers having heard low indefinable strange noises when he was still dozing before he was awakened by the heavy bang;

But oh no, LondonJohn knows better. He knows that what all these idiotic passengers heard were just trucks and lorries sliding around.

 

[Vixen]

The answer to that one is easy: The NSA's operations are all clandestine making everything they do "SECRET" by default.

In this case, the NSA obviously monitors friendly counties like Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, and Germany which is awkward. Releasing the file could reveal to what extent we listen to their communications, which would be more awkward.

The NSA eavesdrops, they record communications. They are mostly passive in their collection activities.

But there were no American citizens involved in the accident.

The NSA told author of The Hole Drew Wilson that under the FOIA the document he wanted was exempt under the FOIA, which means 'classified'. Not even a redacted copy is available.

When Paul Barney, one of only two Brits - the other died - asked the UK National Archives (I presume) for the Estonia information explaining why UK signed the Estonia Treaty (when it is nowhere near the Baltic) received no reply at all, yet under the UK FOIA he was entitled to it, or at least a reply explaining why not.

So, it is clearly 'classified' information that the UK can't even disclose it has or has not got a document about it, which it must have, as it signed the Treaty, which are Acts that have to go through parliament.

 

[Vixen]

Had the Russians been involved in any way with the disaster the Swedes and NATO would still be shouting about it.



Your poor research skills apply to old conspiracies related to this sinking:

https://bnn-news.com/18-years-estonia-catastrophe-questions-answers-76700



So here's a OLD bit of information that has slipped past your exhaustive research yet again.



All of this could be investigated independently from te Estonia accident.



I don't trust them to be completely honest.



Wrong. They were NEVER TURNED ON BY THE CREW.



You need to cite the source for this.



And you continue to ignore the fact that NATO and the US track Russian sub activity at every step from drydock to sortie.



And yet they still got imaging done successfully. Coincidence? Not when you have qualified people working a COMMON PROBLEM.



Dumb.

If there was some important hardware on the Estonia it could have, and even may have been recovered from the wreck immediately afterward. The Russians would have known this, and it is not their style.



Okay, how would you send a distress call if the ship's power is out and your main radio doesn't work? Just asking in the name of common sense.



Likely struggling to get back to the bridge from somewhere in the maze of corridors inside.



It's call a hatch, a seagoing name for "door". He probably made a break for it as the ship began its full list. I would have.

Yes, and the last time NATO had an 'exercise' in the region, the Russians managed to sneak out a submarine undetected to a bunch of Iranians.


Here's one source, the Estonian Postiee quoting from Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. The quote is mentioned already was by Heimo Iivonen, chief coastguard for Finland (iirc) explaining why the distress signal was so long getting noted by the rescue centres. After all, Finnish mainland was just a few miles away.

Russian soldiers silence "Ešt0fl! 3" call for help "Estonia" The call for help on the 16th international radio channel was silenced by a Russian military transmitter on the island of Hogland, the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbiadet" reported. The newspaper refers to Heimo Iivonen, a member of the International Commission of Inquiry, who said that a Russian military envoy based in Hoglandll had prevented him from attending the emergency call. Since September, a Russian radio transmitter has disrupted radio communications on the southern coast of Finland. Even on the night when "Estonia" sank, the transmitter was working and blocking the emergency call frequency. Therefore, it was difficult to understand the "Estonia" call for help. "The first call for help heard on" Silja Symphony "was partly buried in the Russian carrier frequency coming from Hogland. Later," Estonia "was connected to ..Silja Europa". It is unlikely that "Estonia" tried to sound the alarm in the past. The island of Hogland is a closed Russian military area. Therefore, the Finnish authorities cannot do anything directly to stop the jammer. and also in the Gulf of Finland.Radio stations on ships sailing in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia are constantly tuned to VHF 16. To ensure that calls for help are received. "Iivonen has temporarily failed to intervene in order to take action on this issue." (BNS-,, Aftonbladet 1 ’

Do have a look at Estonia bridge and let me know the means of exit when a ship is near 90°. A heroic act of Tammes to get out of there (and leave it sealed) only to die of drowning in the sea anyway.

By the way, the Estonia EPIRB emergency buoys were SWITCHED OFF, against all known maritime convention.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As for the NATO exercise, it was around 400 or more miles away.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why couldn't it have happened? It is well known that storms can interfere with the ability of a sub's sonar system to accurately foresee an object in its path.

Uhmmm

1) a mythical submarine at the surface (as shown in that animation) would not even need sonar to detect the Estonia's presence and its course;

2) Even if a mythical submarine were submerged (though, inexplicably, only at a few metres' depth - otherwise obviously it would not have been able to have been hit by the Estonia), there's simply no way that its sonar would have been unable to spot the large submerged hull of the Estonia at such a close range - storm or no storm;

3) Even if we suppose that this mythical submarine was in the act of surfacing when it was hit by the Estonia.... there's no way whatsoever that its crew wouldn't have been very carefully checking whether or not there was anything significant at or near its surfacing point.

Your theory is simply that. Untested and just a figment of your imagination. Pure sophistry.

I seeeeeee

(And a timely example of throwing a false accusation of "sophistry" out there in an attempt to besmirch/demean the author of something with which one disagrees....)

But oh no, LondonJohn knows better. He knows that what all these idiotic passengers heard were just trucks and lorries sliding around.

No. LondonJohn is simply saying that there are probably alternative credible explanations as to why passengers might have heard scraping noises - explanations which need not have involved the Estonia contacting with any sort of external object (other ship, submarine, rock, NFL linebacker, whatever).

 

[Andy_Ross]

Do have a look at Estonia bridge and let me know the means of exit when a ship is near 90°. A heroic act of Tammes to get out of there (and leave it sealed) only to die of drowning in the sea anyway.

The bridge will have a door at each end on to the wings and a door on to the rear deck to access the flying bridge above as well as internal access.

Why is it strange that he wasn't on the bridge?
Do we know he was on the bridge at the time of the sinking?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, and the last time NATO had an 'exercise' in the region, the Russians managed to sneak out a submarine undetected to a bunch of Iranians.
.

What 'exercise' and what submarine?
If they did take a sub out how do you know it wasn't detected by NATO?

What do you think NATO are going to do to a sub operating legally in peacetime? Russian subs go in and out all the time.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do have a look at Estonia bridge and let me know the means of exit when a ship is near 90°. A heroic act of Tammes to get out of there (and leave it sealed) only to die of drowning in the sea anyway.

Is there actual evidence to support this claim?

And what do you mean by your addition of "only to die of drowning in the sea anyway" (my bolding for emphasis of an important word)?

Are you suggesting that Tammes must have known he was effectively certain to drown (or die of hypothermia) anyway, even before he made any effort to escape from the bridge - and thus are you questioning his motivation in escaping from the sinking ship?

 

[Andy_Ross]

By the way, the Estonia EPIRB emergency buoys were SWITCHED OFF, against all known maritime convention.

EPIRB buoys operate automatically when released by a ship sinking. They don't operate until the ship has sunk or the boats / rafts launched. That is their purpose and point.

Many do not have a manual operation to avoid accidental triggering and false alarms. Even those that have manual operation can't be 'turned off' just not manually activated, immersion in the sea will still activate them, that is the point.
They could only be 'turned off' by smashing them.
Is it your claim that they were somehow disabled?

 

[erwinl]

I thought it an interesting detail that perhaps the Russian sub (if that is what it was) had the ability to shoot torpedoes. However, maybe the thing failed to go off or maybe it was designed to fire localised shots enough to sink a ship surreptiously.

This is how one animator imagines the submarine strike:




Maybe it was like the M/S Expess Zamina, which grazed a rock and sunk in 45 minutes. A similar scenario for Estonia could be grazing a resting sub or a mini-sub which attached itself to track the cargo. (There were no rocks in that part of the Baltic Sea were she sank, so could not have been a rock, yet several survivors report 'scraping noises', which the JAIC reported but failed to actually explain.

wiki

Note how people were charged with criminal negligence in the case of Express Zamina, yet whoever was responsible for the Estonia tragedy has never been brought to justice or to answer for it. The Bureau Veritas who certified the ship as seaworthy will have had a detailed specification of all the faults of the Estonia yet seems to confidently hide behind state protection.

If the Estonia 'accident' was labelled 'classified' to save the face of shadowy military activity then that is despicable IMV and the agencies should now come clean.

Torpedoes that hit above the waterline? How?
Please explain how torpedoes could hit above the waterline, in order for this possibbility to be even considered.

 

[Vixen]

Uhmmm

1) a mythical submarine at the surface (as shown in that animation) would not even need sonar to detect the Estonia's presence and its course;

2) Even if a mythical submarine were submerged (though, inexplicably, only at a few metres' depth - otherwise obviously it would not have been able to have been hit by the Estonia), there's simply no way that its sonar would have been unable to spot the large submerged hull of the Estonia at such a close range - storm or no storm;

3) Even if we suppose that this mythical submarine was in the act of surfacing when it was hit by the Estonia.... there's no way whatsoever that its crew wouldn't have been very carefully checking whether or not there was anything significant at or near its surfacing point.





I seeeeeee

(And a timely example of throwing a false accusation of "sophistry" out there in an attempt to besmirch/demean the author of something with which one disagrees....)






No. LondonJohn is simply saying that there are probably alternative credible explanations as to why passengers might have heard scraping noises - explanations which need not have involved the Estonia contacting with any sort of external object (other ship, submarine, rock, NFL linebacker, whatever).

Well it is pure sophistry isn't it, when your response to al of those 29 survivors of just 137 heard scraping noises/bangs/shudders/momentary stopping and you wave it away with 'oh, no they didn't, what they heard were trucks and lorries'. It is pure knee jerk without any consideration that those people were there and they know what they experienced without a forum chat person coming along and saying, 'Ah but it could have been a herd of elephants trampling across the promenade' as though that is the end of the matter.

 

[Andy_Ross]

There is no way the ship had a 'momentary stop'

Think about the 'laws of physics' you like to mention.

 

[Vixen]

The bridge will have a door at each end on to the wings and a door on to the rear deck to access the flying bridge above as well as internal access.

Why is it strange that he wasn't on the bridge?
Do we know he was on the bridge at the time of the sinking?

It's something we'll never know. However, the voice in the background giving him the coordinates in the second call has been identified as second mate, Kaunussaar - whose body is believed to be one of those seen in the bridge by the Rockwater dive crew - so it seems likely Tammes was on the bridge when he made that call.

 

[Vixen]

What 'exercise' and what submarine?
If they did take a sub out how do you know it wasn't detected by NATO?

What do you think NATO are going to do to a sub operating legally in peacetime? Russian subs go in and out all the time.

The point being made is that it wasn't picked up on any acoustic listening post. If the Russians used the opportunity of a large NATO exercise to surreptitiously sell a sub to a hostile nation under all kinds of embargoes and OPEC sanctions by the rest of the world (= like selling a submarine to Afghanistan or North Korea) then it may have taken the opportunity to do so again when the clock struck midnight in Sweden on the 28 Sept 1994.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's something we'll never know. However, the voice in the background giving him the coordinates in the second call has been identified as second mate, Kaunussaar - whose body is believed to be one of those seen in the bridge by the Rockwater dive crew - so it seems likely Tammes was on the bridge when he made that call.

Then he either escaped from the bridge or his body washed out of the bridge.

What is the problem?

 

[LondonJohn]

But there were no American citizens involved in the accident.

Wholly irrelevant wrt the NSA not being willing to divulge the nature of its surveillance of the activities of other sovereign nations.

The NSA told author of The Hole Drew Wilson that under the FOIA the document he wanted was exempt under the FOIA, which means 'classified'. Not even a redacted copy is available.

The NSA is a secret service. It has a blanket exemption on FOI matters. And I'm afraid it doesn't speak highly to the knowledge and judgement of Drew Wilson that he found the NSA's refusal of his request surprising or in any way noteworthy.

When Paul Barney, one of only two Brits - the other died - asked the UK National Archives (I presume) for the Estonia information explaining why UK signed the Estonia Treaty (when it is nowhere near the Baltic) received no reply at all, yet under the UK FOIA he was entitled to it, or at least a reply explaining why not.

So, it is clearly 'classified' information that the UK can't even disclose it has or has not got a document about it, which it must have, as it signed the Treaty, which are Acts that have to go through parliament.

It's not classified at all. The treaty would have been purely concerned with establishing and maintaining the sunken wreck of the Estonia as a recognised grave site. And since the wreck lies in international waters, the only way it - and the trapped bodies within it - can be protected in law against unauthorised diving/recovery in or near it, is for national governments to make it against their own national laws to do so.

The UK Govt signed the treaty because it was the correct and honourable thing to do. And because there are potentially many UK nationals who might have an interest in diving the wreck and seeing what they could find. Had the UK not signed, it would have been impossible for any jurisdiction - including the UK - to prosecute any UK nationals who dived in or near the wreck. There's zero mystery or conspiracy surrounding the UK's signatory status.

Oh, and I can state with certainty that the UK's inclusion to that treaty would not have required a new Act of Parliament. Long, long ago (probably some time in the 19th Century), legislation would have been enacted by the UK Parliament with regard to the preservation and protection of sunken ships that were designated as grave sites. And that Act would have amply covered the UK's inclusion in the Estonia treaty.

 

[Vixen]

Is there actual evidence to support this claim?

And what do you mean by your addition of "only to die of drowning in the sea anyway" (my bolding for emphasis of an important word)?

Are you suggesting that Tammes must have known he was effectively certain to drown (or die of hypothermia) anyway, even before he made any effort to escape from the bridge - and thus are you questioning his motivation in escaping from the sinking ship?

AFAIAA the bridge was intact, until one of the divers removed a window in order to get in. NB: the windows in this type of vessel tend to be reinforced and extremely strong. I believe the divers had to use cutting equipment just to remove it. So presumably Tammes shut the door after himself, probably self-latching.

No, it is a reference to the sad irony of escaping from what must must have been an incredibly near-impossible location to escape from at that point, only to then die from drowning in the open sea.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The point being made is that it wasn't picked up on any acoustic listening post. If the Russians used the opportunity of a large NATO exercise to surreptitiously sell a sub to a hostile nation under all kinds of embargoes and OPEC sanctions by the rest of the world (= like selling a submarine to Afghanistan or North Korea) then it may have taken the opportunity to do so again when the clock struck midnight in Sweden on the 28 Sept 1994.

How do you know it wasn't picked up?

Why would a NATO exercise in a different part of the Baltic be concerned with it?

How would a listening post know that the sub was being sold to Iran?

Why would the Russians at that time worry about sanctions on Iran by the rest of the world?

Are you still claiming it could have been a 'rogue' Russian sub hitting the Estonia or was it an official Russian Navy sub torpedoing it?

You jump around so fast it's hard to keep up.