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

[Vixen]

1 and 2 refers to the two emergency teams and their muster points.
Suffixes and alarm sounds very relevant.

On a ship that size crew there would not likely be a separate teams for different types of emergency.

On a warship there are separate teams dedicated to fighting fires, flooding, mechanical breakdowns etc.
That is because a warship expects that in war it may have multiple emergencies at the same time. It is on of the reasons that even a small warship like a frigate has a couple of hundred in the crew.

Not sure what you mean by 'overloaded' a single alert call followed by a specific application is how it is usually done.

So Linde and his interrogator were lying when they discussed who belonged to which fire drill team.

Fact is, a fire alarm or bomb alert is not a trivial event that can be mixed in with 'Mr Smith, please come to reception'-type messages.

I recall when I worked near Tavistock Square, we had a regular fire drill, which meant having to go to a designated spot opposite, away from the building. One day, knowing it was another drill, I decided I wanted to finish a sentence I was writing in the system first. My boss, who was also the designated 'fire officer' went ballistic that I hadn't raced out like everybody else. I was only a few seconds behind. Two fire engines would turn up.

Of course a fire drill/bomb alert is taken seriously and is quite separate from other coded messages. One staff member said that on hearing the 'hairtse' alarm (emergency) staff had to go to a designated spot and hand out life vests up on deck and standby for lifeboats.

It is crazy to think that one alarm covers all situations.

 

[Kid Eager]

Note Sillaste says he was in the control room. This is the engine room! The engine room is in the hull, very lowest deck. Truth is, he and Treu were 'up to their knees in water' in the engine room. The hull is where the 'flooding' was happening.

1.The vehicle deck is in the hull too.
2. Are you certain that the control room and the engine room are the same location?
3. Unless water flow uphill when a ship floods in the Baltic because of Russians or something, it ends up going to the bottom, hence why ships have bilge pumps.

 

[Vixen]

Don't try and deflect from the point with faux outrage.

It's been pointed out multiple times that your claim that Mr Skylight was the fire code is wrong. At this point it's either that you're ignoring us and deliberately being intellectually dishonest or you're simply lying and trying to gaslight us.

Stop trolling. It is neither amusing or endearing.

 

[Vixen]

Yeah, cheers! That explains it.

I wonder if Vixen might care to comment?

It wouldn't surprise me if someone of a criminal mindset would have that idea if, say, he was smuggling a load of drugs or illegal stuff and has been tipped off that police and customs were waiting at the port to intercept. Someone willing to put illegal drugs or weapons on the black market and ruin the lives of impressionable kids looking for party kicks, encouraging them to get addicted so they keep coming back for more in return for a very large sum of money, is also going to be wreckless with the safety of ordinary passengers if it means avoiding a ten-year stretch in jail and your assets confiscated under the proceeds of crime law by getting rid of the contraband ASAP. However, he wouldn't be able to do it by himself, he'd need a conspiracy of other crew, so I am doubtful about this theory.

I do think, though, that it is a good idea for the vehicles present in or around the vessel to be checked against the Bills of lLading and consignment notes. Especially the one the Swedish prosecutor was interested in which had no registered driver (and thus should not have been allowed onto the vessel) and may have contained up to 174 Kurdish illegal refugees/asylum seekers being people smuggled via the vast Russian terrain from Asia (this is as documented in Swedish papers but the prosecutor closed the case, not having made any progress). So that type of inventory would be interesting. They have the registration number (whether real of fake) of this suspect container lorry so that could be checked for a sad cargo.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Stop trolling. It is neither amusing or endearing.

I'm not trolling. Please explain how you think I'm trolling.


You've been shown that you are making a false claim. Either admit that you were wrong or continue to double down on it and show us just how dishonest you are.

What was Mr Skylight?

 

[Andy_Ross]

What I want to know is the difference between an alarm for a fire and an alarm for "Hey, we're sinking"? I could be wrong but unless your tasked with fighting the fire your job is to get the passengers to the lifeboats. And if you're a member of the crew who fights fires why have you not been trained to deal with hull breaches?

With a crew the size of the one on the Estonia there would not be enough of them to make separate dedicated teams.

'Domestic' and passenger facing crew would be detailed off for directing passengers to lifeboats and rafts etc. I wouldn't expect them to have firefighting or flooding training.

 

[Vixen]

In your post at 1141 you showed a diagram which clearly shows the ramp and the visor were linked at the top where it tucked inside the lip.

Make up your mind

That is the JAIC diagram.

The JAIC says the bow visor falling off, took the car ramp with it, except a couple of witnesses claim to have climbed down the car ramp as the ship was on its side.

Antti Arak and Ain-Alar Juhanson are the two persons on the bow of M/S Estonia. They say (actually lie!) that they walked on the horizontal side of the ship to the bow and climbed down on a closed ramp, the ship was rolling in full storm, when the list was 90° at around 01.30 hrs ... and that the visor was missing!

Heiwa.co

You can also see from the Strathclyde University reproduction of the shop at 90° list how this might look.

In addition, neither Sillaste, Kaduk nor Linde could possibly have seen 'the bow visor was missing' from the monitor showing inside the car ramp, which showed the car ramp up, as does Sillaste's numerous drawings of what the car ramp looked like - it was shut every time, with water at the sides, not the top - so the idea the car ramp was pulled down is just a theory to back up Bildt's Day One hypothesis.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Note Sillaste says he was in the control room. This is the engine room! The engine room is in the hull, very lowest deck. Truth is, he and Treu were 'up to their knees in water' in the engine room. The hull is where the 'flooding' was happening.

Why would you not expect the lowest point in the ship to collect water?

We went through this. Water from the car deck made it's way down stairways and ventilators to the lower decks.
Engine rooms are open while the engines are running, they need large amounts of air for the machinery to operate and to keep them cool.

 

[Vixen]

What I want to know is the difference between an alarm for a fire and an alarm for "Hey, we're sinking"? I could be wrong but unless your tasked with fighting the fire your job is to get the passengers to the lifeboats. And if you're a member of the crew who fights fires why have you not been trained to deal with hull breaches?

The alarm for 'we are sinking' is a continuous 'häiriste' (distress) one throughout the ship with the followup message, please make your way to the nearest deck (this was all in Estonian, which was another criticism of the evacuation). This is a loud foghorn type highly irritating noise that passengers and crew cannot fail to miss. Problem is, it was activated far too late to have been any use in this scenario.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yet Bureau Veritas - considered highly respectable - signed it off as seaworthy. The JAIC said the vessel was seaworthy. Full stop.

You said the JAIC are right. Can't cherry pick.

In a calm harbour what would the inspectors have seen to cause concern?

What components and systems are checked?

What is the extent of the check?

JAIC had no way of knowing the exact condition of the ship, they can only go on what was said last time the ship was inspected.

 

[Vixen]

More ignorance. You're implying here that the failure of each of the locks and the pistons was an independent event. And that therefore it was (in your view) near-inconceivable that all of these components just happened to fail at precisely the same time.

The reality is that these were not independent events. Once the lower lock failed, the visor was now able to pivot upwards. A combination of the mass of the visor and the mass of seawater that was now able to move the visor around.... gave huge angular momentum to the visor. And this, in turn, was more than sufficient to overcome firstly the hydraulic pistons and then the side locks. One failure begat the other failures.

After all this time nd you still haven't grasped that the bow visor detached from the top. It was hanging by its hydraulic arms after the side locks failed and was held in place by the atlantic lock at the bottom. The bow visor never 'pivoted upwards' as you falsely claim (and this proves you have no idea what you are talking about and are just improvising with your customary 'would, could, should' pontifications). It hung forwards and downwards, with only the atlantic lock holding it.

See the official diagram and make a note of the position of the bow visor when it supposedly came loose.

 

[Andy_Ross]

AIUI the capacity was limited and even if the car deck was full of water, the air in the hull keeps the ship afloat. Remember it carried a whole load of heavyweight lorries without any problem.

It was designed to carry a 'whole load of heavyweight lorries'

We went through this in detail.

Water on the car deck increases the topweight. It makes the ship unstable. Free surface effect of the water 'sloshing' as the ship rolls amplifies the roll.

Water on the car deck finds it's way down in to the hull through stairwells, ventilators and engine intakes.

Once enough weight of water is in the hull trapped air will not keep it afloat.

 

[Andy_Ross]

So Linde and his interrogator were lying when they discussed who belonged to which fire drill team.

Fact is, a fire alarm or bomb alert is not a trivial event that can be mixed in with 'Mr Smith, please come to reception'-type messages.

I recall when I worked near Tavistock Square, we had a regular fire drill, which meant having to go to a designated spot opposite, away from the building. One day, knowing it was another drill, I decided I wanted to finish a sentence I was writing in the system first. My boss, who was also the designated 'fire officer' went ballistic that I hadn't raced out like everybody else. I was only a few seconds behind. Two fire engines would turn up.

Of course a fire drill/bomb alert is taken seriously and is quite separate from other coded messages. One staff member said that on hearing the 'hairtse' alarm (emergency) staff had to go to a designated spot and hand out life vests up on deck and standby for lifeboats.

It is crazy to think that one alarm covers all situations.

One alarm does not cover all situations, as has been shown at length the initial alert is used with additional alarm words and sirens, bells etc to specify the type of alert.

Once a team is alerted and assembled they will be given further instructions.

No one has said the alert is ever 'trivial'

 

[Vixen]

1.The vehicle deck is in the hull too.
2. Are you certain that the control room and the engine room are the same location?
3. Unless water flow uphill when a ship floods in the Baltic because of Russians or something, it ends up going to the bottom, hence why ships have bilge pumps.

The car deck is two floors above the lowest deck, which contained the engine room, swimming pool and sauna. The rest of this area were airtight compartments (15 in all, IIRC). This is what kept the vessel buoyant.

The car deck is above the water line. Logic tells you it has to be for vehicles to Roll-On-Roll-Off. The car deck is part of the super structure.

 

[Vixen]

I'm not trolling. Please explain how you think I'm trolling.


You've been shown that you are making a false claim. Either admit that you were wrong or continue to double down on it and show us just how dishonest you are.

What was Mr Skylight?

Concentrate on the topic and not on me.

 

[LondonJohn]

AIUI the capacity was limited and even if the car deck was full of water, the air in the hull keeps the ship afloat. Remember it carried a whole load of heavyweight lorries without any problem.

Remind us again how conversant you are with Archimedes' Principle.....

 

[Andy_Ross]

The car deck is two floors above the lowest deck, which contained the engine room, swimming pool and sauna. The rest of this area were airtight compartments (15 in all, IIRC). This is what kept the vessel buoyant.

The car deck is above the water line. Logic tells you it has to be for vehicles to Roll-On-Roll-Off. The car deck is part of the super structure.

Have the last couple of weeks passed you by?

Look at the size of the machinery space. It extends over multiple decks.

It is open to the upper decks when it is in operation, it needs large amounts of air for the machinery and cooling. It has huge air intakes and huge fans that force air in to it. Hatchways are open for additional air and to allow the crew to escape in case of an emergency, more can go wrong in an engine room than flooding.

If the car deck is flooding water will get down in to the machinery spaces, if the ship rolls water will get down the intakes.

As for the other compartments, unless they are closed down they are not watertight. They need the doorways connecting them to be dogged down correctly and then the hatches from the upper decks to be dogged down.

Unless an alert is called and orders to close down given this will not be done. Water will be entering the lower compartments along the ship just like the machinery space.

Once again, the car deck is part of the hull.
Anything below the main weather deck that extends from the bow to the stern is in the hull.

 

[LondonJohn]

So Linde and his interrogator were lying when they discussed who belonged to which fire drill team.

Fact is, a fire alarm or bomb alert is not a trivial event that can be mixed in with 'Mr Smith, please come to reception'-type messages.

I recall when I worked near Tavistock Square, we had a regular fire drill, which meant having to go to a designated spot opposite, away from the building. One day, knowing it was another drill, I decided I wanted to finish a sentence I was writing in the system first. My boss, who was also the designated 'fire officer' went ballistic that I hadn't raced out like everybody else. I was only a few seconds behind. Two fire engines would turn up.

Of course a fire drill/bomb alert is taken seriously and is quite separate from other coded messages. One staff member said that on hearing the 'hairtse' alarm (emergency) staff had to go to a designated spot and hand out life vests up on deck and standby for lifeboats.

It is crazy to think that one alarm covers all situations.

It wasn't a fire drill. It was a general alert, and a command for the #1 and #2 groups to go to their muster points.

Do you still have your fingers stuck firmly in your ears over this issue or something?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

That's exactly what I am doing. What was Mr Skylight? It's a simple question.

If you think I'm "[concentrating] on [you]" report the post. It's pretty clear however that I am trying to get you to retract a false claim you have made and are attempting to build a case around. Which is the topic. This is a pretty blatant attempt to get you to actually address your critics points rather than ignore them. You know, actually hold a discussion rather than attempting to foist opinions onto your critics they don't hold.

What was Mr Skylight?

 

[Vixen]

Why would you not expect the lowest point in the ship to collect water?

We went through this. Water from the car deck made it's way down stairways and ventilators to the lower decks.
Engine rooms are open while the engines are running, they need large amounts of air for the machinery to operate and to keep them cool.

Passengers in the lowest deck deck 1, just below the car deck, say there was significant water in their cabins and in the corridor (cf Reintaam) but there was no water flowing down the stairs, thus the water was rising up from the bottom, not escaping from the car deck, which had a 9cm water barrier at its sealed door, which was shut to passengers during the journey.