The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Andy_Ross]

I'm assuming it was explosions. - I assume that a few explosive charges were placed in the side locks and the front bulkhead and at least one explosive charge on the car deck and on the front right side. Since the bangs happened shortly before 1 a.m., I conclude that all of the explosive charges were actually supposed to explode at the same time. The heavy vibrations and vibrations that followed the explosions, which were observable throughout the ship and which the survivors likewise unanimously describe, suggest, in my view, the typical setback that is characteristic of explosions.

A lot of assumptions.

 

[phiwum]

Bad Guy #1: We will blow the hood off with shape charges.
Bad Guy #2: Great, I'll go down, wire them up, and blow it.
Bad Guy #1: No, no, it has to look like an accident. You'll have to use a timer?
Bad Guy #2: Seriously, in this weather?
Bad Guy#1: Yes, a timer.
Bad Guy#2 : [shrugs] Okay, lucky I brought one. What time should I set?
Bad Guy#1: After midnight, I'm a Clapton fan.
Bad Guy#2: Okay, the hood gets blown off at midnight.
Bad Guy#1: No, no, you have to blow it in sequence to make it looked like the bow failed.

Bad Guy#2: You're an idiot. I quit.

Bad Guy #1 is an ass. He should credit J.J. Cale, not Clapton, for After Midnight. Sure, Clapton had a hit with it, but it's Cale's song.

As was Cocaine and Skynyrd's hit, Call Me the Breeze. Probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.

But perhaps I digress.

 

[Kid Eager]

A lot of assumptions.

...and a total lack of awareness how cutting charges work - and the visible signs of such.

 

[Axxman300]

Bad Guy #1 is an ass. He should credit J.J. Cale, not Clapton, for After Midnight. Sure, Clapton had a hit with it, but it's Cale's song.

As was Cocaine and Skynyrd's hit, Call Me the Breeze. Probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.

But perhaps I digress.

It's a conspiracy.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

It's a conspiracy.

They're trying to wash Cale out of music history. It's a Cale Cleanse.

I'll get my coat.

 

[Kid Eager]

They're trying to wash Cale out of music history. It's a Cale Cleanse.

I'll get my coat.

It doesn't work on coats.

 

[Vixen]

You specifically said that multiple witnesses reported hearing explosions.

Are you now admitting that they didn't actually report hearing explosions, but bangs, cracks, crashes, etc. and only one actually reported hearing something that sounded like an explosion?

I'm not interesting in reading you ramble on about something else, I want to know if you will admit you were wrong that multiple survivors on the Estonia actually said they heard explosions.

If you are going to quote me, please do so in proper context. what I actually said was here. So stop cherry picking and in future quote me in full.

 

[Vixen]

You are ignoring the very real issue under discussion. You have no clear statements from witnesses supporting the claim that there was an explosion. You have one person (who I mistakenly referred to as "she" previously -- it is Altti Hakanpää, a man) who said "I thought it sounded like an explosion." Otherwise absolutely no mention of explosions.

So, no, there is no significant eyewitness evidence of explosions, though there's lot of eyewitness evidence of various sorts of loud noises.

In short, at this point, you cannot be said to be mistaken. You are flat out lying about the eyewitness evidence.

I leave the rest of your comments to others.

What I actually said was:

"What do you mean there 'is no evidence of an impact'? So 29 survivors, out of just 79 passengers who escaped alive, gave an eyewitness account at the time of having experienced a series of two or three explosions and/or a collision/crash/scraping as though against rocks is not evidence?

So Captain_Swoop knows better than people who were there and were the lucky one in ten to get out alive. Yet their experience counts for nothing in his view."

I also pointed out that English was not the language used in the witness statements. Your picking out one word and trying to make out the survivors didn't experience what they said they experienced is the real lie.

Please show some respect for the victims of the Estonia accident and stop grandstanding with self-congratulatory and frivolous JJ Cale references. <sfx coda Cocaine riff fades >

 

[Vixen]

To someone with only a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

You couldn't address the points the first time I raised them, and you still can't. I'm a licensed professional engineer with decades of experience that a includes forensic engineering investigation. So yes, I am more qualified than Braidwood to investigate such matters. And more qualified than you to interpret the claims of others' investigations. Whether you or he likes it or not, twinning in metals is not conclusive evidence of high strain-rate deformation such as occurs in an explosion. It happens for a number of reasons. But if you tell a lab to look for evidence of explosives, and they find twinning, they will have satisfied your request. If you ask them to compute the detonation rate of an explosion that would have produced such twinning -- assuming it came from high strain-rate deformation -- they will certainly comply. None of that proves that damage was caused by explosives.

What a shocker that the exact cause that would have doomed the visor purely accidentally over years of use also produces the evidence discovered in metallurgical examination. But all you have to do is not ask the wrong questions and you can go on blissfully believing the evidence told you what you wanted to hear.

While I have some experience with explosives -- especially the kind used to sever metals on purpose -- I am not a "military explosives expert." However, I do know a shaped charge when I see one, and what has been proffered as "military explosive" doesn't look like any that I've ever used. Fair enough, it doesn't have to be a shaped charge, or it could be outside my personal experience. But it's not like there's an infinite variety of "military explosives." It's one thing for someone to raise his finger pontifically in the air and declare that in his opinion something is a certain thing. But if he has identified the conveniently disappearing package as an example of that certain thing, he should be able to show us other uncontested examples of it to illustrate his point.

If I say that a certain part is a fuel injector from a Wärtsilä marine diesel or a vertical stabilizer lug from a Boeing 767, I should be able to show pictures of that part so that the person to whom I'm reporting can judge the fidelity of the identification. Braidwood should be able to show us a picture of, say, a Swedish Army Börk Type 42 satchel charge so that we can see for ourselves that the photographed object is probably what the author says it is. That is the common practice, and Braidwood doesn't do that. That's suspicious in my book.

You seem to live in this cartoon world where only JAIC are mustache-twirling victims and everyone else who deigns to investigate MS Estonia are honest, straightforward, virtuous experts who only want to know the truth.



Oh, look. Another motte-and-bailey argument. You demand that we take as incontrovertible truth what Braidwood and his labs have said, but you reserve the right to believe or disbelieve as you please -- and this absolves you of any obligation to discuss the evidence intelligently with those who understand it better than you do. You're still stuck measuring "force" in meters per second, so please let us experts do our thing.

You keep saying you are the forensic mechanical hotshot here yet how come your views differ dramatically from the JAIC experts, whose views you claim to support? You claim that the deformations Braidwood claims to have found were simply due to wear and tear completely compatible with a dilapidated shipwreck damaged by explosives. Yet the JAIC makes it abundantly clear that the Estonia was seaworthy.

Therefore your claim that the cause of the deformations Braidwood claims to have found was due to chronic wear and tear, and not the stress of a detonation at up to 5,000m/s, cannot be so.

Care to address this anomaly?

 

[Kid Eager]

You keep saying you are the forensic mechanical hotshot here yet how come your views differ dramatically from the JAIC experts, whose views you claim to support? You claim that the deformations Braidwood claims to have found were simply due to wear and tear completely compatible with a dilapidated shipwreck damaged by explosives. Yet the JAIC makes it abundantly clear that the Estonia was seaworthy.

Therefore your claim that the cause of the deformations Braidwood claims to have found was due to chronic wear and tear, and not the stress of a detonation at up to 5,000m/s, cannot be so.

Care to address this anomaly?

The anomaly only exists in your mind. What you claim was written is not what was written. Stop being so dishonest.

 

[Vixen]

The anomaly only exists in your mind. What you claim was written is not what was written. Stop being so dishonest.

It is nothing to do with me, I am just the reporter. JayUtah is saying Brian Braidwood is dishonest. If the Estonia was seaworthy, how come such severe deformations existed and it can be shrugged off as 'not caused by an explosive force'?

 

[Kid Eager]

It is nothing to do with me, I am just the reporter. JayUtah is saying Brian Braidwood is dishonest. If the Estonia was seaworthy, how come such severe deformations existed and it can be shrugged off as 'not caused by an explosive force'?

No you're not - your re-interpreting and embellishing. Again, stop being dishonest.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You claim that the deformations Braidwood claims to have found were simply due to wear and tear completely compatible with a dilapidated shipwreck damaged by explosives. ?

There were no explosives.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You keep saying you are the forensic mechanical hotshot here yet how come your views differ dramatically from the JAIC experts, whose views you claim to support? You claim that the deformations Braidwood claims to have found were simply due to wear and tear completely compatible with a dilapidated shipwreck damaged by explosives. Yet the JAIC makes it abundantly clear that the Estonia was seaworthy.

Therefore your claim that the cause of the deformations Braidwood claims to have found was due to chronic wear and tear, and not the stress of a detonation at up to 5,000m/s, cannot be so.

Care to address this anomaly?

This was addressed at length earlier in the thread.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is nothing to do with me, I am just the reporter. JayUtah is saying Brian Braidwood is dishonest. If the Estonia was seaworthy, how come such severe deformations existed and it can be shrugged off as 'not caused by an explosive force'?

The deformations did not exist until the sinking.
They have nothing to do with it's seaworthiness previous to that point.

 

[LondonJohn]

They experienced something out of the ordinary. It was something that not one of them aboard, crew included had any experience of unless you can show any of them were on a sinking ship previous to this event.

Not one person aboard had any experience of a ship being rammed or an explosion on a ship.

Exactly. And, crucially, all of the bangs, crashes, lurches and other sensations they reported can easily and credibly be explained* by - and are entirely consistent with - the bow visor coming loose, banging repeatedly against the hull, tearing away from the ship, breaking the bow ramp in the process, water quickly flooding onto the vehicle deck, causing the ship to lurch as the water rushed to one side of the deck, in turn causing cars/trucks/lorries to slide and crash into each other and the hull.


* And indeed, several passengers' recollections are expressly incompatible with any of the conspiracy theories around the likes of submarine collisions or torpedo strikes - those sorts of things would not have caused effects like multiple banging noises over 15 minutes or longer....

 

[LondonJohn]

Also at the other end.

Do you mean it caused you to suffer an involuntary bowel movement....?

 

[phiwum]

What I actually said was:

"What do you mean there 'is no evidence of an impact'? So 29 survivors, out of just 79 passengers who escaped alive, gave an eyewitness account at the time of having experienced a series of two or three explosions and/or a collision/crash/scraping as though against rocks is not evidence?

So Captain_Swoop knows better than people who were there and were the lucky one in ten to get out alive. Yet their experience counts for nothing in his view."

You have said many things. Yes, you were vague in the above quote, that's true, but you also said the following:

I have no idea whether there were explosives or not. All I know is that some survivors claim to have heard explosions - in fact a series of them - and a naval military explosives expert, Brian Braidwood, claims to have identified possible explosive devices at the bow bulkhead.

Now, if you want to admit that you do not really know that some survivors claimed to have heard explosions, fine. Then we will drop that from the current list of dubious claims. But please don't pretend you never said it. You did.

I also pointed out that English was not the language used in the witness statements. Your picking out one word and trying to make out the survivors didn't experience what they said they experienced is the real lie.

I am focused on what they said they experienced. They reported a number of things. I have no evidence at all that they reported hearing explosions.

Now, you say I'm denying what they said. You show me where anyone said they heard or otherwise experienced explosions (with Hakanpää's comment already noted) or else you're just full of crap. I'm not denying what they said, I'm referring to what they said. You, on the other hand, put words in their mouths.

As far as the fact that we're using summaries of translations, it's not ideal. But if you have more information than I do, some actual evidence that they reported explosions rather than bangs and whatnot, then do present it.

Fundamentally, I can't know what they actually said, but I can know that you've presented not a bit of evidence that several people reported explosions. If you have other evidence, by all means show it.

Please show some respect for the victims of the Estonia accident and stop grandstanding with self-congratulatory and frivolous JJ Cale references. <sfx coda Cocaine riff fades >

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP>
Edited for rule 0 and rule 12.

 

[phiwum]

Exactly. And, crucially, all of the bangs, crashes, lurches and other sensations they reported can easily and credibly be explained* by - and are entirely consistent with - the bow visor coming loose, banging repeatedly against the hull, tearing away from the ship, breaking the bow ramp in the process, water quickly flooding onto the vehicle deck, causing the ship to lurch as the water rushed to one side of the deck, in turn causing cars/trucks/lorries to slide and crash into each other and the hull.


* And indeed, several passengers' recollections are expressly incompatible with any of the conspiracy theories around the likes of submarine collisions or torpedo strikes - those sorts of things would not have caused effects like multiple banging noises over 15 minutes or longer....

Right.

If, for instance, the single best explanation for loud bangs was explosions, then the bangs would be some evidence for explosions -- even if the word "explosion" was never uttered by the witnesses.

But that's not the case. Loud bangs are easily explained and consistent with the visor theory, so serve as no evidence for explosions at all.

 

[JayUtah]

You keep saying you are the forensic mechanical hotshot here yet how come your views differ dramatically from the JAIC experts, whose views you claim to support?

Where did I claim to support them? False dilemma.

You claim that the deformations Braidwood claims to have found were simply due to wear and tear completely compatible with a dilapidated shipwreck damaged by explosives.

No, I said the findings of the laboratory were also consistent with cyclic deformation. Straw man.

Yet the JAIC makes it abundantly clear that the Estonia was seaworthy.

That's a meaninglessly vague statement as far as engineering goes. Straw man.

Therefore your claim that the cause of the deformations Braidwood claims to have found was due to chronic wear and tear, and not the stress of a detonation at up to 5,000m/s, cannot be so.

I'm saying, given the whole picture of evidence that Braidwood largely ignores in his rush to judgment, the more likely explanation for the metallurgical condition of the equipment is cyclic deformation, not explosives.

Care to address this anomaly?

Sure. It's just the same old straw-man tactics you can't seem to let go of. You have a real problem remembering and dealing with what people actually say rather than what you seem to think they should have said.