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The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

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phiwum said:
That's not Linde's interview. Okay, so you were wrong about the source.

This appears to be the report from the German group. It is in conflict with Linde's description of the two stations as "rescue" not "fire" stations. At best, we must say that we don't know whether Skylight 1 was used exclusively for fire drills. The German Group report says so, but a crew member says otherwise, and the German Group does not give its source for this information as far as I can tell.
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See my post above. Vixen's source is consistent with the JAIC report. She is misrepresentating what it actually says.
 
JayUtah said:
All radio-equipped vessels are required to monitor Channel 16. Its unavailability during a crisis (or, frankly, without one) wouldn't go unnoticed except by just one person.
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Indeed, the JAIC report says as much. You probably know a lot more about such things than I do, but I did notice that the report has a section describing what communications resources are expected to be available and used during an emergency like this. That section comes just before the section describing their availability and use during this emergency.
 
Vixen said:
The purpose of the suffixes was to let the staff know which group was being referred to. Half the crew were 'suffix 1' and they met at one place and the other were no 2 and met at their designated spot.

So if the code 'Mr. Skylight no.2' came up on the tannoy, those staff members in that group knew it referred to them.
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It looks to me like it refers to a specific fire station. As there are two probably a fore part and an after part.

As we know the code is used as a general alert using suffix 3, 4 or 5 etc would make sense for different types of alert.

Fire is probably the most common use as it is more likely than flooding so has a higher priority.
 
Vixen said:
Herewith:

https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/estonia final report/7.3.htm


If you want to deny it, nothing I can do about it.
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N. O.

Stop giving us biassed "interpretations" courtesy of the heavily overinvested estoniaferrydisaster.net.

Seriously, can you not see that the sentences tagged on at the end were (ill-informed) inferences? That they were completely lacking a primary source?

If I created a website (let's name it estoniasank.co.uk) in which I wrote something like "Mr Skylight was the code for opening up the bow and pushing the military vehicles and other military hardware into the sea", would you be OK quoting that as a reliable source about Mr Skylight?
 
whoanellie said:
Vixen's source for her claim that "Mr. Skylight" was a fire drill begins as follows:
i.e. Vixen's source agrees with the findings of the JAIC regarding the various alarm signals of the Estonia.
A problem arises when the 'estoniaferrydisaster' only partially reproduces the finding of the JAIC and then Vixen misrepresents, deliberately or not, what is written on that site.

Compare what is written at 'estoniaferrydisaster'



to what is written in the JAIC



Read properly and in light of it's agreement with the JAIC report, even Vixen's reference does not claim that 'Mr. Skylight' was exclusively used as a fire alarm.
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Good work.
 
Vixen said:
We went through the Channel 16 jamming in great detail and now you are making out you know nothing about it.
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Firstly: that's not what he was doing.

Secondly: yes, there were conversations in the thread about the jamming issue. But as I recall, it was reliably established that a) the Russians may have been engaging in this sort of activity on and off, and b) in any case, the Russians had been doing this on/off jamming for (IIRR) some several months prior to the day of the sinking. And if that was indeed the true situation, then it's objectively very difficult to make a case for any kind of causal linkage between the sinking of the ship and the jamming of the radio channel.
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
It looks to me like it refers to a specific fire station. As there are two probably a fore part and an after part.

As we know the code is used as a general alert using suffix 3, 4 or 5 etc would make sense for different types of alert.

Fire is probably the most common use as it is more likely than flooding so has a higher priority.
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But the only reports of "Skylight" announcements used suffixes 1 and 2, far as I can tell. See the JAIC summary of witness testimony.

If Vixen is right that Skylight 1 and 2 refer only to fire emergencies, that alert would be puzzling. I tend to think that she's not right and that a fire group is called to station for other emergencies. Whoanellie points out that the boat groups were activated by any Skylight alarm, no matter the suffix.
 
phiwum said:
That's not Linde's interview. Okay, so you were wrong about the source.

This appears to be the report from the German group. It is in conflict with Linde's description of the two stations as "rescue" not "fire" stations. At best, we must say that we don't know whether Skylight 1 was used exclusively for fire drills. The German Group report says so, but a crew member says otherwise, and the German Group does not give its source for this information as far as I can tell.

ETA: Some more information....

The German group report that Vixen linked to claimed to be in agreement with JAIC on the use of drills, so I looked up JAIC's comments. Here's what I found (excerpted):


As we can see, JAIC does refer to "Skylight No. n" as referring to "fire groups" and "fire stations".

Now, this leaves open the question: are "fire groups" and "fire stations" limited to responding to literal fires on board, or are they for general emergencies? Linde's interview suggests the latter, but it's not altogether clear to me.

But this is the best evidence I could find for linking "Skylight No. 1" to a fire alarm. It is obviously contradicted by Linde's interview and some of the other citations we've seen, but it's from the JAIC report which is surely a reliable source.
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It also contradicts the evidence that I and others have found (and posted). There are in fact two reliable pieces of written evidence which state unequivocally that 1) "Mr Skylight" is merchant ship code for a general emergency (as opposed to a fire drill specifically); and 2) the Estonia broadcast this code on the night of the sinking. The very clear implication from this evidence is therefore that the Estonia was broadcasting the code for a general emergency. Not a fire drill.
 
LondonJohn said:
N. O.

Stop giving us biassed "interpretations" courtesy of the heavily overinvested estoniaferrydisaster.net.

Seriously, can you not see that the sentences tagged on at the end were (ill-informed) inferences? That they were completely lacking a primary source?

If I created a website (let's name it estoniasank.co.uk) in which I wrote something like "Mr Skylight was the code for opening up the bow and pushing the military vehicles and other military hardware into the sea", would you be OK quoting that as a reliable source about Mr Skylight?
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The particular link she gave about the Skylight messages was from a section of the EstoniaFerryDisaster site presenting the German Group of Experts report, not the more speculative part of the site. I don't know much about the German group, but I tend to think they're more reliable than the part written by the site owner (or whoever).
 
phiwum said:
The particular link she gave about the Skylight messages was from a section of the EstoniaFerryDisaster site presenting the German Group of Experts report, not the more speculative part of the site. I don't know much about the German group, but I tend to think they're more reliable than the part written by the site owner (or whoever).
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I believe the "German Group of Experts" was assembled and paid by the German shipyard that designed and built the Estonia.

And as such, I believe that (on the basis of English aphorism "he who pays the piper calls the tune") this group was.... *ahem*..... encouraged to seek out alternative narratives for the sinking. Specifically: alternative narratives in which the primary cause of the sinking was anything other than the failure of components* that had been designed and constructed by that German shipyard.


* i.e. the bow visor and the bow ramp
 
phiwum said:
But the only reports of "Skylight" announcements used suffixes 1 and 2, far as I can tell. See the JAIC summary of witness testimony.

If Vixen is right that Skylight 1 and 2 refer only to fire emergencies, that alert would be puzzling. I tend to think that she's not right and that a fire group is called to station for other emergencies. Whoanellie points out that the boat groups were activated by any Skylight alarm, no matter the suffix.
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Whoanellie has posted the entire section of the report that lists other 'Skylight suffix codes used aboard the Estonia. It also shows that the code suffixes one and two do not refer just to firefighting.
 
LondonJohn said:
I believe the "German Group of Experts" was assembled and paid by the German shipyard that designed and built the Estonia.

And as such, I believe that (on the basis of English aphorism "he who pays the piper calls the tune") this group was.... *ahem*..... encouraged to seek out alternative narratives for the sinking. Specifically: alternative narratives in which the primary cause of the sinking was anything other than the failure of components* that had been designed and constructed by that German shipyard.


* i.e. the bow visor and the bow ramp
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I'm not presuming they are reliable, but I tend to think they're more reliable than the primary author of the EstoniaFerryDisaster site. We can at least learn about the backgrounds of the German group (right?) whereas the author of that site is anonymous as far as I know.

So, yes, take the German group's claims with a pinch of salt, but a larger dollop for the original writing on EstoniaFerryDisaster.
 
phiwum said:
I'm not presuming they are reliable, but I tend to think they're more reliable than the primary author of the EstoniaFerryDisaster site. We can at least learn about the backgrounds of the German group (right?) whereas the author of that site is anonymous as far as I know.

So, yes, take the German group's claims with a pinch of salt, but a larger dollop for the original writing on EstoniaFerryDisaster.
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The problem there being we don't know who the author of Estoniaferrydisaster.net is, but their use of only G.E.G sources raises a metric ********* of red flags.
 
Okay, so now it was a fire nobody reported nor saw that sank Estonia?

Not a submarine, mini-submarine, torpedo, plastic explosives, terrorists, WWII mine, Russian limpet mine placed by unknown Rusky mini-sub, or a Spetsnz strike team. Now it was a fire.

Got it.

giphy.gif


Funny thing about fire is that it the first thing out of everyone's mouth when they get on the radio for help. Funny thing about fire is everyone smells it because of, you know, smoke. Funny thing about people who have survived a fire is that this fact is all they talk about for a long time.

"Hey, there was a fire on the ship", not one survivor said ever.
 
Vixen said:
The referee gives you a yellow card. Then he gives you another yellow card. You still persist in going for the ankle and not the ball. You get a red card.


Did the referee not just give you a strong message for ignoring his warnings?
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No, he carried out the action that the first card warned me about. But your incompetent referee is irrelevant to the question.

How does this:
Vixen said:
It immediately declared the incident, 'Nobody's fault' and wanted to cover the whole shebang in concrete without recovering the bodies.
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…indicate that they “got the message”?
 
Vixen said:
The referee gives you a yellow card. Then he gives you another yellow card. You still persist in going for the ankle and not the ball. You get a red card.





Did the referee not just give you a strong message for ignoring his warnings?
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As I understand it, two yellow cards and you're out but I'm an American.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
So to sum up, the following is a list of subjects that Vixen has claimed some level of expertise in before promptly showing that they haven't got a clue what they are on about:

Metallurgy.
Security Studies.
Operation of a port.
Sailing.
Sea wreck reclamation.
Ship design.
History of the KGB and it's Russian replacement.
Operation of an airport.
The specific emergency protocols of the Estonia.
The history of the Baltic Sea.
International shipping.
Submarine operation.
Nautical crash /damage analysis.
Naval regulations.
Maritime law.
Journalism.


Did I miss anything out?
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Football.
 
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