The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

Perhaps the initial report of a sonar image of the bow visor was mistaken? I'd guess that the interpretation of sonar results still allows for errors, but someone who actually knows something about sonar could convince me otherwise. Anyone here with some knowledge about sonar?

How would Lehtola have known virtually straight away that the sonar image was mistaken, when a sonar image is as good as 'seeing is believing', when as of that time, it was not known 'the bow visor was missing'* and nor had divers confirmed it. So how did Lehtola 'know' the sonar image was a sundry piece of metal plate (that matched perfectly the density, shape and dimensions of the bow visor and was in its intuitively correct place, albeit several metres below the bulbous bow (now upside down)?

*Lehtola's memo showing the sonar image was issued circa 8 Oct and withdrawn circa the 9th. The bow visor was not 'found' by the Swedish/Finnish navy until 18th October. If the bow visor showed up in a sonar image why did Lehtola claim it was still missing ten days before anyone knew it was missing?

 

[Vixen]

I'd guess that Vixen believes that to be important, that the treaty would have to be discussed in Parliament before being ratified. I'd guess again that Vixen believes that this either didn't happen and as such, is evidence of a cover up. Or it did happen and as such, is evidence of a cover up.

No, the point being made is that when British citizens request the document setting out the reasons the UK signed the Estonia Treaty - a reasonable request when it is nowhere near the Baltic - those persons have the right under the FOI Act to receive that information. If it was a signed off treaty then we know that such a document must exist as it has to go before parliament.

 

[Vixen]

Look, it's fine that you report the opinions of those you don't agree with, but you should point out precisely what you're advocating, insofar as you have some theory at all.

You've been saying for some time that there were bombs planted at the bow visor (at least that some folks claim so). Now you're saying that the theory the bow visor failed and water rushed in is a post hoc fallacy because the ramp was still in place[1]. If so, the whole theory that explosions blew the visor off would also be rejected.

So, you do need to figger out this: Was there damage to the visor that occurred, in your opinion? Or did the only damage that allowed water to come in occur at the one hole on the starboard side (rather smaller than the opening at the bow ramp) and that was the entire reason the ferry sunk within a short time?

I do like, however, the addition that this wasn't just about intelligence smuggling. Now Bill Clinton himself is secretly running guns to Israel on a ferry traveling to Sweden! That's good. But don't talk yourself out of the bombs planted at the bow visor. We really do need the explosions and the minisub planting a mine in the storm doesn't really do it for me. It's creative, but I just can't see it. So, please, whether the minisub stays or goes, we need some proper bombs for the story to work.

[1] You are, of course, confused when you call it post hoc. A post hoc fallacy is when one recognizes that event A occurred before event B and concludes fallaciously that A therefore caused B. When one commits such a fallacy, the error is in presuming the causal relationship. It doesn't follow that A didn't occur at all.

If for argument's sake the bow visor fell off as a result of either explosives or because of a collision, then it becomes a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacious reasoning as being the cause of the accident.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Balderdash. It didn't take any time at all. Swedish PM Carl Bildt declared it a foregone conclusion it was the bow visor that fell off due to a few strong waves within sixteen hours of the investigation and his number one military chief Svensson who also said within a day or two of the 'accident' in a press conference that the bodies should not be recovered. And lo! and behold! it came to be. All the JAIC did - the Swedish head guy appointed directly by Bildt - was to elaborate on this foregone theory [the 'halo effect' scientists are supposed to guard against] - and spend the next three years providing hundreds of page of bow visor specifications and a summarised version of three or four Estonian lower rank crew members testimonies - as all the senior ranks died - including one boatswain trainee, the third engineer and a general seaman, who all had to be interviewed up to seven times over the years with one imprisoned shortly after for nine years for drug smuggling - that is all the JAIC did. It provided a glossy coffee table brochure explaining how the bow visor fell off taking the car ramp with it. It stated plainly that the vessel was seaworthy, the 'only damage was to the bow and car ramp' and that the vehicles had been lashed down correctly for the weather conditions. The Swedish government even set up an Information Defence Department to encourage the public to believe the report.

Have you read the report?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is pretty much a certainty there were explosives applied to the bow bulkhead and side locks. .

No it isn't.

 

[Vixen]

I'm confused, maybe this has already been answered, but what is the evidence for Bill Clinton smuggling weapons to Israel on the Estonia?

Just to make it clear Vixen, I'm asking you for evidence that the Estonia was smuggling arms to Israel and that Bill Clinton was involved. That is the question I am asking. Please answer that question and not something else.

The CIA, MI6 and the KSI were, as a fact, helping Estonia establish its own intelligence agency, with the KGB having been kicked out on the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The POTUS at the time was Clinton. The Swedish government confirmed in the Rikstag via Appeal Court Judge Hirschfeldt and is minuted in their version of Hansards of having definitely smuggled out Former Soviet Union military equipment and defence secrets on the Estonia ferry in September 1994. Two eyewitness survivors saw military vehicles together with uniformed troops board the ferry at the last minute on 28 Sept 1994 (Hedrenius and Ovberg). Investigative German reporter Jutta Rabe claims to have seen evidence the cargo was intended for Israel.

One of the survivors, Alexander Voronin was actually an arms smuggler.

Of course the 'classified' order would have been agreed between Clinton, Bildt/Persson and Major.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The CIA, MI6 and the KSI were, as a fact, helping Estonia establish its own intelligence agency, with the KGB having been kicked out on the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The POTUS at the time was Clinton. The Swedish government confirmed in the Rikstag via Appeal Court Judge Hirschfeldt and is minuted in their version of Hansards of having definitely smuggled out Former Soviet Union military equipment and defence secrets on the Estonia ferry in September 1994. Two eyewitness survivors saw military vehicles together with uniformed troops board the ferry at the last minute on 28 Sept 1994 (Hedrenius and Ovberg). Investigative German reporter Jutta Rabe claims to have seen evidence the cargo was intended for Israel.

One of the survivors, Alexander Voronin was actually an arms smuggler.

Of course the 'classified' order would have been agreed between Clinton, Bildt/Persson and Major.

So you have no evidence at all then?

 

[SteveAitch]

So you have no evidence at all then?

Of course not!

The lack of evidence IS the evidence that a conspiracy exists.

 

[JesseCuster]

The CIA, MI6 and the KSI were, as a fact, helping Estonia establish its own intelligence agency, with the KGB having been kicked out on the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

That's not evidence that arms bound for Israel were on the Estonia.

The POTUS at the time was Clinton. The Swedish government confirmed in the Rikstag via Appeal Court Judge Hirschfeldt and is minuted in their version of Hansards of having definitely smuggled out Former Soviet Union military equipment and defence secrets on the Estonia ferry in September 1994.

I didn't ask you for evidence that the Estonia had been used for smuggling Soviet military equipment. I asked for evidence that it was used to smuggle arms that were bound for Israel and that Bill Clinton was involved in the Israeli arms smuggling. None of the above is evidence of what I actually asked for.

Investigative German reporter Jutta Rabe claims to have seen evidence the cargo was intended for Israel.

Someone claims to have seen something that the cargo was intended for Israel is the only evidence you have posted that anything on the Estonia was being smuggled to Israel.

I asked you for evidence that arms were being smuggled on the Estonia, which were bound for Israel, and that Bill Clinton was involved. You've provided exactly no evidence that arms bound for Israel were onboard the Estonia and that Bill Clinton had any involvement.

I'm looking for your evidence that this happened, not unhinged "connecting the dots" type fantasies.

 

[JesseCuster]

Of course the 'classified' order would have been agreed between Clinton, Bildt/Persson and Major.

What classified order? Do you have evidence that there was an actual agreed classified order between those people related to smuggling arms to Israel onboard the Estonia?

Actual evidence.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

This is what is known as post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, i.e., water must have flooded the car deck as in the Herald of Free Enterprise. However, to do this, the bow visor must first have been compromised. Therefore it must have fallen off and taken the car ramp with it but as two people claim to have climbed down the car ramp, then the bow visor must have left a gap at the top of the car ramp for the seawater to seep in.

You want us to believe there are only two possibilities regarding damage to the ramp; either it was so lightly damaged at the top that water could merely "seep in" or it was torn right off the ship. Nothing else is possible, in your opinion. You wish to suggest there is zero chance that it could have been wrenched substantially or entirely open while remaining attached to the ship. And handily of course neither scenario fits with the report.

So you base this opinion on what, please?

 

[JesseCuster]

Therefore it must have fallen off and taken the car ramp with it but as two people claim to have climbed down the car ramp, then the bow visor must have left a gap at the top of the car ramp for the seawater to seep in.

Earlier in this thread you claim that the water came rushing in through the bow ramp at 2,000 tonnes per second which caused a deafening roar.

Are you going back on that claim and now think it merely seeped in?

 

[Mojo]

Let's get back into context. Captain_Swoop asked what evidence there was of a collision that the JAIC must have known about. I pointed out early newspaper reports and 34 eye witness passenger survivors, explaining that eyewitness testimony is considered 'direct evidence' in a court of law ceteris paribus. [Obviously, subject to being called to testify and cross-examination. It is a perfectly valid form of evidence.

Witnesses reporting that they heard a loud bang is direct evidence that there was a loud bang. It is not direct evidence of a collision or explosion.

 

[JayUtah]

Each party gets to cross-examine the other party. If a court holds that an eye witness is a credible witness then the other party cannot appeal against it.

The existence of the right of cross-examination is predicated on the premise that what a witness might say in a declaratory deposition might not be accurate. So the admissibility of a witness is quite separate from both the value of the witness' testimony in determining fact and the degree to which the trier of fact believes the witness.

Your second statement is pure nonsense as far as American courts go. A witness is subject to voir dire to determine whether he is qualified for the role he plays in the court. The role of a fact witness is to bear witness to events he actually experienced. Voir dire determines whether those circumstances hold, otherwise his testimony is inadmissible. After that, the degree to which a witness is credible is entirely up to the trier of fact. There is no incontestable declaration by the court that a witness is "credible."

Yes, I have court experience. I've been a plaintiff. I've been a defendant. I've been a fact witness. I've been an expert witness. My spouse is a court litigator, so our dinner conversation revolves around how courts treat evidence. As usual, you have no idea what you're talking about.

By declaring that the "eyewitness" testimony of the survivors (none actually was eyewitness to a collision) would be acceptable in court, you seem to be trying to argue that it should be taken as read. But in fact, admission into a court merely starts the process of examining that evidence to see how credible it is. Admissibility and credibility are not at all the same thing.

 

[JayUtah]

Er..he is an influential figure.

So what? Here in America we have celebrities pontificating all the time on things they know nothing about, influencing possibly millions of people. That doesn't mean they are factually correct.

You say you're disinclined to believe him compared to other witnesses because he may have political bias. We've shown that no Swedish submarines existed that could have inflicted the damage observed on the starboard side of the ship. Yet for some reason you seem to think his claims still merit attention. Why are you reporting things you don't believe, and which can't be true? Why are you compelled to defend him when his testimony is challenged?

Please try to understand the difference between report and advocate.

I know the difference, but it's not clear that you do. You constantly vacillate between the motte argument that we have to pay attention to him because he allegedly has insider knowledge or that he's a well-known figure, and the bailey argument that he's just a political hack and you're reporting what he says out of general interest, and you shouldn't be held accountable for what he says, or to reconcile it with your other reporting.

The problem with most conspiracy arguments -- yours in particular -- is that while real investigation and real journalism are trying to go toward any of several possible conclusions, conspiracism is all about running away from one conventional narrative. If you declare the conventional narrative the thing that you must abandon as a premise to your own study, then there are infinite directions in which to run away from it. And many conspiracy theories -- yours especially -- try to go in all those directions at once. As such they fail to provide a compelling alternative narrative. Just because you conclude that the conventional narrative is flawed doesn't mean you can't also conclude that some of the alternative narratives are also flawed and should be abandoned for the same reasons you abandoned the conventional one. Because in the end you have to provide a single coherent narrative that stands against the conventional one, and is sensibly more supported by evidence. Clinging to any and all stories that dispute the conventional narrative accomplishes nothing.

In a real investigation Kurm's statements would have been rejected long ago and never thought of again. In a conspiracy theory, they keep popping up only because they dispute the conventional narrative (i.e., they support the running-away mode), not because they contribute to any better understanding of what might actually have happened.

 

[JayUtah]

Captain Bleeding Obvious, here.

Yes, it's obvious to the rest of us, but it hasn't seemed obvious to you. Whenever you're confronted with the problems of witness testimony, you make one of your superstitious/magical declarations, namely that eyewitness testimony is _______ in court, where the blank gets filled with a scattergun of words like "valuable" or "accepted" or "credible." You seem to forget that the court exists upon the premise that proffered evidence is of unknown reliability and veracity. You seem to intend your statement to mean that witness evidence should be taken as-is, and can never be questioned or made to reconcile with other testimony or other kinds of evidence, or that it should be held pre-eminent above all else. But that's precisely what a court does with that evidence. So if we perform the same role here as a court would, we should be able to do so without constant verbal molestation from you because of it.

 

[JayUtah]

...explaining that eyewitness testimony is considered 'direct evidence' in a court of law ceteris paribus. [Obviously, subject to being called to testify and cross-examination. It is a perfectly valid form of evidence.]

Straw man. No one is claiming the witness testimony is "invalid." The claim is that it's not evidence of the thing you're asserting, and further that it should be examined critically.

People have been convicted of murder purely on an eye witness account.

And plenty of people have been properly acquitted when witness testimony was shown to be inconsistent with facts ascertained by other means. You're obfuscating the treatment of witnesses by vague words such as "valid." Testimony can be perfectly admissible, yet still be wrong. As usual, you're ignoring the reasons why your critics are treating witness testimony critically and imagining that we must instead be trying to show that it's categorically "invalid" in some way. The straw men in your arguments in this thread are innumerable.

You might avail yourself of the cases taken on by the Innocence Project in the United States. They have won several post-conviction exonerations in cases where the witness evidence against the accused was, by all measurements at the time, properly obtained and presented. Our late and mourned Loss Leader recommended a book on the subject. You might not want to make a case for the reliability of witness testimony on the premise of the results it seems to obtain.

We were talking about what constitutes evidence.

Yes, and you've shown in spades that you have no skill at extracting evidence from witness testimony, or at developing evidence from the natural world. What is evidence is what witnesses actually perceived with senses. What isn't evidence is what they conjectured might have caused those perceptions. That's the case whether the trier of fact is a jury or whether it's a forensic investigator piecing together a narrative.

 

[LondonJohn]

The no-dive matters have zero to do with the Estonia gravesite Treaty.

Yes. Yes they do. Why on Earth do you think they do not?

In fact, there were British divers involved in the Rockwater dive, as outsourced by the Swedish government.

You obviously missed my use of the word "unauthorised" when explaining the situation to you. Please try to read my posts properly before attempting a response.

 

[LondonJohn]

Balderdash. It didn't take any time at all. Swedish PM Carl Bildt declared it a foregone conclusion it was the bow visor that fell off due to a few strong waves within sixteen hours of the investigation and his number one military chief Svensson who also said within a day or two of the 'accident' in a press conference that the bodies should not be recovered. And lo! and behold! it came to be. All the JAIC did - the Swedish head guy appointed directly by Bildt - was to elaborate on this foregone theory [the 'halo effect' scientists are supposed to guard against] - and spend the next three years providing hundreds of page of bow visor specifications and a summarised version of three or four Estonian lower rank crew members testimonies - as all the senior ranks died - including one boatswain trainee, the third engineer and a general seaman, who all had to be interviewed up to seven times over the years with one imprisoned shortly after for nine years for drug smuggling - that is all the JAIC did. It provided a glossy coffee table brochure explaining how the bow visor fell off taking the car ramp with it. It stated plainly that the vessel was seaworthy, the 'only damage was to the bow and car ramp' and that the vehicles had been lashed down correctly for the weather conditions. The Swedish government even set up an Information Defence Department to encourage the public to believe the report.

All of the above has nothing whatsoever to do with the point I made (which - since you've probably forgotten - was to do with the fact that the official report would have been published some time (prob some considerable time) after the official inspections of the wreck).

 

[LondonJohn]

Captain Bleeding Obvious, here.

I know it's obvious. Which is why you should have known it instead of heavily implying (nay, claiming) that witness testimony should be accepted at face value.