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

[phiwum]

The "German Group" is getting its marching orders from the shipyard that designed and built the ship. The job of the "German Group" is to try to lend weight to alternative theories - any alternative theories, it would seem - that would lay the blame for the disaster somewhere other than at the door of the German shipyard (who, as things stand in the official report, still face considerable liabilities related to poor design and poor construction of the bow mechanics).

So, in other words, the views of the "German Group" can immediately and safely be disregarded as subjective, biassed, and with an overarching need to disprove the official report. QED.

I don't agree. Yes, they might be biased, but to dismiss them purely on grounds that they were hired by the shipyard seems to me an ad hominem circumstantial.

There are some folks here who seem to be knowledgeable enough to evaluate the claims of the German group. I'm willing to let them do so.

I'm not willing to dismiss everything the German group wrote just because they're hired by the shipyard (I'm taking your word for this -- I don't know who hired them and haven't checked).

I am fine with seriously questioning the material on other parts of the website, which is written by someone who is anonymous as far as I know.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well done, you completely missed the point.

My poit was that Anders is such a lunatic that he is willing to ignore reality, including the laws of physics in order to get the results he wants.

Why did you not address my hypothetical example of the expert in Finland? What would you do if I started quoting the hypothetical Jon Jonsson in a discussion on Finland and claimed that Finns obviously speak Flemish because renowned expert Jonsson says they do?

Furthermore you have routinely demonstrated that you are simply not competent to judge if Anders' diagrams and calculations are correct. You have no expertise and you dismiss those who DO have the expertise who have explained why Anders' is to put it mildly, full of it.

Exactly.

And even if one is too blind to see the huge shortcomings in Bjorkman's analysis of the Estonia sinking, one need only look (as you say) at some of his truly ridiculous conspiracy-theory utterances on things like 9/11.

A rational person would look at this (so obviously) unhinged other work, and think to themselves two things: 1) wow, this guy has gone off the deep end and is making himself look foolish and utterly wrong; and 2) it's therefore entirely logical that in the light of this, I should negatively re-evaluate his analysis of the Estonia disaster.

But I guess this does take the ability to apply logic and reason to the situation.......

 

[phiwum]

I'm just saying that just because the bow visor and car ramp was clearly dodgy, or that because they even fell off ipso facto makes them the primary cause of the accident. The JAIC never investigated any alternative cause and this is where it erred. An error in logic over causation and correlation. In fact, one wonders whether it knew perfectly well something was not right about it but decided it would be enough to appease everybody all round.

Failure to respond again.

You've repeatedly said the ship was known to be seaworthy so it couldn't have been a storm damaging the bow visor.

Now you're saying the bow visor was known to be in poor condition, so the JAIC leaped to the conclusion it was the cause.

Hence, you are committed to (1) the ship was known to be seaworthy and (2) the bow visor was known to be in shoddy condition. Those two statements are consistent only if the bow visor was utterly unrelated to seaworthiness, which is silly.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't agree. Yes, they might be biased, but to dismiss them purely on grounds that they were hired by the shipyard seems to me an ad hominem circumstantial.

There are some folks here who seem to be knowledgeable enough to evaluate the claims of the German group. I'm willing to let them do so.

I'm not willing to dismiss everything the German group wrote just because they're hired by the shipyard (I'm taking your word for this -- I don't know who hired them and haven't checked).

I am fine with seriously questioning the material on other parts of the website, which is written by someone who is anonymous as far as I know.

I disagree. The whole endeavour has been put together with almost no transparency or proper oversight. Its role - very clearly - is to deflect blame away from the shipyard. And that's entirely evident in its public pronouncements to date.

To me, it's very much like (say) a chiropractic association which commissions a "scientific" research project to show how effective chiropractic is. But the studies are carried out in an opaque black-box manner, rendering them incapable of third-party scrutiny or reproduction. And the results are similarly reported in a selective manner which meets the requirements of the commissioning group.

I'm afraid I'm wholly prepared to reject both of these out of hand. If there's to be any further scrutiny/analysis related to the Estonia disaster, it absolutely has to be NPOV, open, not beholden to any special-interest parties, and with proper, sanctioned, access to the wreck (As the re-opened official investigation promises to be). For me, anything else is effectively worthless.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As with water on the decks, it simply washes out over the sides. There were side pipes that allowed water to drain off. As soon as the ramp came open, it should all have washed away, as the car deck is above the water line.

Apart from the ship was making 18 kt in to the swell.
How would it 'wash away' through the bow against the water being forced in?
As for draind, how big do you think the scuppers from the car deck are?
Can you point to them on a diagram or photograph of the ship?

 

[JayUtah]

A person can be 'insane' yet still retain their knowledge and expertise in their chosen field.

He retains zero credibility in the field he used to practice not because he has some infirmity which nevertheless leaves his faculties intact, but because he demonstrably malpractices the field in which he was once qualified. He lost his credibility because he can't do engineering anymore, not because he's still somehow brilliant despite some irrelevant affliction.

He is not a credible source.

 

[Vixen]

Well done, you completely missed the point.

My poit was that Anders is such a lunatic that he is willing to ignore reality, including the laws of physics in order to get the results he wants.

Why did you not address my hypothetical example of the expert in Finland? What would you do if I started quoting the hypothetical Jon Jonsson in a discussion on Finland and claimed that Finns obviously speak Flemish because renowned expert Jonsson says they do?

Furthermore you have routinely demonstrated that you are simply not competent to judge if Anders' diagrams and calculations are correct. You have no expertise and you dismiss those who DO have the expertise who have explained why Anders' is to put it mildly, full of it.

If this Jon Jonsson wrote such nonsense, do you really think people can't see it for themselves? It's like urging people not to believe that the Royal Family are lizards. We know David Icke is a career conspiracy theorist and that is how he makes his living, likewise possibly Bjorkman. Bjorkman cites the example of a Russian Lamarkan-style biologist who was regarded as the Establishment Truth on agriculture, which led to the famine disaster in the UKraine. Nobody dared criticise his crazy theories because guess what? He was establishment and therefore, must be right. That is all Bjorkman as I see it is trying to do. Get people to think for themselves. His 'outrageous' statements are his typical nordic humour, the type in which people aren't sure whether it is tongue-in-cheek or serious. And let's face it, so much stuff gets 'classified' by the CIA it is little wonder people do not fully trust all that they are told or have a feeling things have been hidden. That's fine when it comes to genuine national security, but when used to cover mistakes that led to mass civilian fatalities, then it becomes more a case of statesmen covering their backs, rather than any 'national security', and that is wrong. It doesn't mean to say Icke is wrong on everything just because he sells books on his CT's (for example, Prince Charles' weird relationship with Jimmy Savile).

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

JAIC did not inspect the Estonia to determine its seaworthiness, obviously.

They noted that Bureau Veritas did, exactly like you noted too, so you don't get to cast aspersions on them for doing exactly the same as you.

 

[Vixen]

Failure to respond again.

You've repeatedly said the ship was known to be seaworthy so it couldn't have been a storm damaging the bow visor.

Now you're saying the bow visor was known to be in poor condition, so the JAIC leaped to the conclusion it was the cause.

Hence, you are committed to (1) the ship was known to be seaworthy and (2) the bow visor was known to be in shoddy condition. Those two statements are consistent only if the bow visor was utterly unrelated to seaworthiness, which is silly.

When I said the ship was seaworthy, I was stating a fact, insofar it was definitely certified as seaworthy by Bureau Veritas. And as confirmed by the JAIC.

This is the legal situation as of the time of the accident.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

The ship was rated to carry 3000 tons deadweight. Adding 2000 tons of highly mobile seawater on top of the original load is a really, really big problem.

 

[Vixen]

Apart from the ship was making 18 kt in to the swell.
How would it 'wash away' through the bow against the water being forced in?
As for draind, how big do you think the scuppers from the car deck are?
Can you point to them on a diagram or photograph of the ship?

I have seen images of them somewhere (I called them drainage pipes as the word 'scuppers' had momentarily escaped me). You yourself said that all the captain needed to do was turn the ship away from the waves-onslaught.

 

[JayUtah]

I don't agree. Yes, they might be biased, but to dismiss them purely on grounds that they were hired by the shipyard seems to me an ad hominem circumstantial.

It's common in the field for engineering companies implicated in disasters to maintain positions of innocence and try to deflect blame, often by conducting their own investigations that emphasize other potential causes. Boeing, for example, maintained for quite some time that the crashes of its 737 MAX airplane were due to pilot error, not their faulty software. It's certainly a public-relations exercise in all cases, but increasingly it's also legal protection. Expertise is more likely to be weaponized when it may become necessary to defend oneself in court. It is absolutely defensible to presume that the purpose for convening such an inquiry is to deflect blame.

That said, you are correct that one can fall into the ad hominem fallacy by levying such expectations. And to validate those suspicions, as you say, one needs to find actual examples of error. Bias must result in indefensible findings in order for it to matter.

There are some folks here who seem to be knowledgeable enough to evaluate the claims of the German group. I'm willing to let them do so.

I did, for example, in the case of the metallurgy analysis, where it was concluded that certain damage was consistent with the use of demolition explosives. What they left out, however, was that the metallurgical findings were also consistent with the primary cause for metal fatigue.

A juror lay person won't know that such an alternative finding is possible. The finding is not a lie; but it's not the entire truth. In court (whether formally, or in the court of public opinion) it would require someone else with expertise to reframe the findings. The gambit is that the company's partisan findings won't be evaluated by anyone else with expertise.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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

I have no idea what you're referring to here. What lie do you mean? Are you referring to the two emergency crews being known as "fire crews" because that was their primary purpose? If so don't waste your breath. Nobody is going to dispute what the crews were called, the thing you're being called out on is the obviously false claim that on this occasion they were called to deal with a fire.

 

[Vixen]

JAIC did not inspect the Estonia to determine its seaworthiness, obviously.

They noted that Bureau Veritas did, exactly like you noted too, so you don't get to cast aspersions on them for doing exactly the same as you.

I was not tasked with investigating the accident. Many people contacted the JAIC to let them know of their experiences with the vessel from the POV of poor maintenance. As many of these related specifically to the JAIC star theory of the bow visor, then it should have at least investigated the numerous reports of recent past failings. If the bow visor really was in such a poor condition that a huge gap at the port side was left open on almost every journey and that cars and lorries could not exit the boat for hours whilst they tried to fix it (suppose they had needed to get out in an emergency???) then don't you think the shipping line managers should have been hauled up before the courts to answer the charges of gross health and safety negligence by wilfully endangering people's lives, in failing to rectify the dangerous condition of the bow visor and car ramp as constantly reported?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

That is not what the report says.

 

[JayUtah]

When I said the ship was seaworthy, I was stating a fact, insofar it was definitely certified as seaworthy by Bureau Veritas. And as confirmed by the JAIC.

It is a fact that a certain bureau issued a certificate of seaworthiness. It is a fact that the JAIC accepted this. But such determinations are made according to a uniform schedule of inspections which, although thorough, is not globally comprehensive. As we do not yet all know the ways in which a ship can come to lose buoyancy, we can apply only a subset of what we know in making the determination that a carrier has successfully avoided known causes of disaster. A certification of seaworthiness is not a guarantee that the ship is free of defect.

This is the legal situation as of the time of the accident.

But it's not the physics situation. Plenty of airliners crash with perfectly valid certificates of airworthiness posted outside the flight deck. A declaration of worthiness to carry passengers is not a promise that the vehicle is free of defects and that the crew is precluded from abrogating their duties.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

THE DIAGRAM OF THE BOW VISOR IS THE ONE PROVIDED BY THE JOINT ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE.

The visor was NOT swinging upwards like a car boot door which someone failed to shut properly.

That is not what the JOINT ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE report says.

 

[Vixen]

The Russians are getting nervous!

So yet another Russian boat has turned up to keep a beady eye on RS Sentinel, this time from Kaliningrad (the former Prussia), a strange part of north Europe that is one gigantic Russian military base, a leftover from WWII as punishment to the Germans.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

You can talk about gross generalisations all you like. I am talking about this specific ship, the Estonia, and as set out by the JAIC report itself: 'Mr Sylight 1 and 2' were the specific fire drill codes as agreed and as practised by the crew in their regular fire/bomb drills, and as confirmed by Linde and his interrogator in his interview of 2002. That coded message on the Estonia told crew to go to their designated fire station ASAP.

I can see you're now backpedalling a bit yet you still can't quite admit there was no fire alert.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

If this Jon Jonsson wrote such nonsense, do you really think people can't see it for themselves? It's like urging people not to believe that the Royal Family are lizards. We know David Icke is a career conspiracy theorist and that is how he makes his living, likewise possibly Bjorkman. Bjorkman cites the example of a Russian Lamarkan-style biologist who was regarded as the Establishment Truth on agriculture, which led to the famine disaster in the UKraine. Nobody dared criticise his crazy theories because guess what? He was establishment and therefore, must be right. That is all Bjorkman as I see it is trying to do. Get people to think for themselves. His 'outrageous' statements are his typical nordic humour, the type in which people aren't sure whether it is tongue-in-cheek or serious. And let's face it, so much stuff gets 'classified' by the CIA it is little wonder people do not fully trust all that they are told or have a feeling things have been hidden. That's fine when it comes to genuine national security, but when used to cover mistakes that led to mass civilian fatalities, then it becomes more a case of statesmen covering their backs, rather than any 'national security', and that is wrong. It doesn't mean to say Icke is wrong on everything just because he sells books on his CT's (for example, Prince Charles' weird relationship with Jimmy Savile).

No see, you've missed my point yet again. At this stage I really have to wonder if it's deliberate.

If it isn't, let me break down this wall'o'text "response" to my point and show you where you go wrong. Multiple times.

If this Jon Jonsson wrote such nonsense, do you really think people can't see it for themselves?

Firstly the specifics of the error are not the point. I picked something that was obvious because it's one of the things I know about Finland that I knew there would be absolutely no controversy over.

The point is that you are treating Bjorkman, who is no longer a respected engineer, the same way the fictional person in my hypothetical treats Jonsson. This person is an expert, therefore he is right.

Of course it gets worse if you actually know anything about how badly Bjorkman mangles engineering in support of his lunatic theories. He does the equivalent of claiming that the Finns speak Flemish on a regular basis. In some ways it's worse than the hypothetical because at least Flemish is a real language.

It's like urging people not to believe that the Royal Family are lizards.

Again you've missed the point. I'm directly comparing your attitude towards Bjorkman, whose failures in his crackpot theories rely on him not being a competent engineer.

Someone quoting Icke as an expert on the Royal family does almost exactly the same thing that you are doing with Bjorkman. The only real difference is that Bjorkman was at one point actually capable (presumably).

We know David Icke is a career conspiracy theorist and that is how he makes his living, likewise possibly Bjorkman. Bjorkman cites the example of a Russian Lamarkan-style biologist who was regarded as the Establishment Truth on agriculture, which led to the famine disaster in the UKraine. Nobody dared criticise his crazy theories because guess what? He was establishment and therefore, must be right.

Nope. I know exactly the example you are using and you have it exactly wrong. Specifically you have it completely the wrong way around.

What actually happened with Lysenko is that Stalin wasn't happy with the theory of evolution because it had been discovered by a decadent Westerner and not a noble Soviet. So when a crackpot called Lysenko suggested an alternate theory of Evolution, despite it being totally insane and very, very wrong, Stalin jumped all over it like white on rice because it was a SOVIET idea. He wasn't regarded as right because he was the establishment, he was pushed into being the establishment because Stalin was a total lunatic.

Please, stop trying to talk about Soviet history when you clearly know little about it. It's getting embarrassing now.

That is all Bjorkman as I see it is trying to do. Get people to think for themselves. His 'outrageous' statements are his typical nordic humour, the type in which people aren't sure whether it is tongue-in-cheek or serious.

Nope. He's a deluded weirdo. You seem to forget that many in this thread, myself included, have actually TALKED to this guy. He used to post here until he got banned. He was 100% totally serious with his physics defying abuses of engineering. He's a crackpot. He fails as an engineer. He's not an authority on anything.

And let's face it, so much stuff gets 'classified' by the CIA it is little wonder people do not fully trust all that they are told or have a feeling things have been hidden. That's fine when it comes to genuine national security, but when used to cover mistakes that led to mass civilian fatalities, then it becomes more a case of statesmen covering their backs, rather than any 'national security', and that is wrong.

Assuming multiple facts not in evidence. Are you now claiming that the CIA helped cover up...whatever it was that happened with the Estonia?

It doesn't mean to say Icke is wrong on everything just because he sells books on his CT's (for example, Prince Charles' weird relationship with Jimmy Savile).

No, but again you're missing the point. We aren't claiming Anders Bjorkman is wrong on Engineering because his knowledge of and abuse of cooking (or something equally irrelevant) is wrong, we are claiming his ideas on engineering are wrong because he has a track record, including on this very forum, of being spectacularly, indefensibly wrong on engineering.