Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part III

[Vixen]

What's even slightly suspicious about police taking a ferry back from a conference? What's the relevance of rumours about American agents? What would such imagined agents have to do with the Swedish security services? Are you trying to claim the Swedish police run a state security service staffed by Americans?

This is long on innuendo and very short on sense. Or evidence.

Estonia became independent of the USSR in 1991. Their intelligence/security agency had hitherto been the KGB. Bildt was keen to foster the independence of former Soviet states, such as Estonia, by helping them create their own intelligence agency. To this end, the Swedes, the Americans and the Brits (KSI, CIA and MI6, were assisting the Estonians in this matter, and was likely a focus of this conference.

There is nothing suspicious about it but heightens the fears of sabotage, which the JAIC never even investigated. Why keep secret the presence of CIA personnel on board anyway? And why would the UK sign the Estonia Treaty when it is nowhere near the Baltic? Send in a Freedom of Information request, and you won't get a sensible reply, if any at all, even if you are a UK citizen and sole Brit survivor (Paul Barney).

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... There is nothing suspicious about it but heightens the fears of sabotage, which the JAIC never even investigated.

You think they should have investigated possible motives for things they had no evidence even happened? Was that their job?

Why keep secret the presence of CIA personnel on board anyway?

You're seizing on a rumour and demanding to know why it's true.

 

[Vixen]

"Under interrogation" is a weasel get-out phrase here. You know, and we all know, that the survivors could have told lots of people what they experienced. You cannot show that this information was not passed to Bildt, and we all know that too.

Handwaving will not cover your conflation of the ramp with the visor.

The only survivor to have been questioned on 28 September 1994 the day of the accident, and in the presence of SuPo and SäPo and the three prime ministers of Sweden, Estonia and Finland, at Turku Hospital (TYKS) was Henrik Sillaste, and he makes zero mention of the bow visor.

Each survivor was actually placed in isolation from the outside world until they were interviewed. Survivors testify to being refused to phone their nearest and dearest. Even the Estonian Embassy in Stockholm were refused access to Estonian citizen survivors, an issue they strongly protested.

So you are wrong "the survivors could have told lots of people what they experienced".

All of their police statements remain classified and even they themselves cannot access them, nor did they read them back (Carl Reintamm claims his words were changed to 'he saw bits of white stair railings in the water' by the JAIC psychologist when he said he saw something white or bright moving away under its own velocity).

Bildt spoke to Sillaste in the presence of the aforementioned so there is no way any survivor told him the bow visor had fallen off, as of the time of his press release that 'it was the bow visor wotdunnit'.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The only survivor to have been questioned on 28 September 1994 ...

Each survivor was actually placed in isolation from the outside world until they were interviewed...

I think it's plain to see this doesn't get you to "nobody told Bildt".

 

[zooterkin]

How is it 'obvious' if the vessel landed face down like a domino?

What does that even mean when applied to a ship?

 

[Andy_Ross]

How is it 'obvious' if the vessel landed face down like a domino?

It has been resting on it's starboard side over the top of a rock for decades.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Well he reported it to a Swedish newspaper as I recall by 1999. The JAIC took three years to bring out a predetermined report and he came forward because having read the report he was surprised there was no mention of the rupture in the starboard, which he as a former Swedish Navy intelligence officer and expert diver assessed to be a clear act of sabotage, which he identified as a being caused by a bomb which appeared to have exploded inside the car deck.

Mysteriously, the divers had been tasked with assessing whether salvage of the wreck or recovery of the bodies was feasible and viable, and they reported back, 'yes' to both headers, yet the Swedish government declared the site should be covered in concrete instead. This is contrary to Swedish culture of bringing home your dead. These were private citizens not war casualties.

Even the USA today are still bringing home the remains of military personnel who died as far back as the Korean War.

How does that answer the question?
How could he have seen the starboard side when the ship was resting on it?

 

[JayUtah]

As this is a chat forum and not a dissertation then Wikipedia remains a decent reference for quick fact-checking.

The "fact" you gleaned from Wikipedia was wrong, as was easily determined by consulting more reputable sources. When this was brought to your attention, you doubled down as usual instead of admitting error and correcting your argument. Your entire performance here -- I won't call it a debate -- is predicated on the notion that an official finding of fact was deliberately mistaken. Your clinging desperately to a different story, regardless of demonstrable fact, does not give you the moral high ground over that.

 

[JayUtah]

Well he reported it to a Swedish newspaper as I recall by 1999.

Asked and answered. The chain of evidence is murky, as the people who allegedly actually performed the dive are not named. The report of the hole is second-hand at best. The disposition of the wreck makes the claim untenable. And finally, the description of the hole from this alleged dive doesn't match Evertsson's photography.

 

[Vixen]

It has been resting on it's starboard side over the top of a rock for decades.

The ship was ruptured on its starboard side. That is why it listed violently to the starboard side. The bow faces almost directly south, face down. The aft part of the vessel lies on the slope, with the starboard side to the east of it, on the upper side, and the aft port side on the lower slope. The forward part of the ship is on soft mud, as is most of the port side.

The fact the vessel landed on a slope is pure coincidence. The ship sank stern first, with a 40° list to aft starboard. Then it capsized onto starboard so that the port side was horizontal and passengers were able scramble along it for a short period. It then turned face forward with the bow rising virtually 90° upright out of the water, as the stern hit the bottom - the 155 metres length of the vessel in about 64 - 80 metres of water - thus, when it fell face forward, due to gravity, the stress would have been amidships - exactly or near the centre, hence the sensation surivivors have in such a sinking ship of it snapping in half, even if it does not actually do so. It fell on its stern, not on its starboard side, which, although nearer to the higher part of the slope, did not actually land on it, except to come to rest.


If there was a stress fracture, it will be seen roughly 75 -80 metres along, across the hull. But the hull looks perfectly smooth and intact, so the vessel appears to have landed relatively gently onto the seabed, after the initial bump on the stern.

LondonJohn's belief the Estonia was, 'just like The Herald of Free Enterprise and fated to land in the sea bed on its side', is unwarranted, unfounded and demonstrates an ignorance of how the Estonia actually sank.

 

[Vixen]

Asked and answered. The chain of evidence is murky, as the people who allegedly actually performed the dive are not named. The report of the hole is second-hand at best. The disposition of the wreck makes the claim untenable. And finally, the description of the hole from this alleged dive doesn't match Evertsson's photography.

If the report of a hole in the hull was reported in a national Finnish newspaper in 1997, then it could not have been caused decades later by stress caused by shifts and wear and tear. It must have been there at the time.

 

[JayUtah]

If the report of a hole in the hull was reported in a national Finnish newspaper in 1997, then it could not have been caused decades later by stress caused by shifts and wear and tear. It must have been there at the time.

Asked and answered.

 

[JayUtah]

If there was a stress fracture, it will be seen roughly 75 -80 metres along, across the hull.

What is your training and experience in analyzing structures for stress? What is your training and experience in fracture mechanics?

 

[lobosrul5]

Carl Bildt knew about the accident before anybody else and he remains strangely coy about how he heard of it and when, given the contemporaneous Estonian and Finnish Prime Ministers at the time remember when they heard the news vividly and at what time and where they were. How can Carl Bildt claim not to remember, when in front of many witnesses, he was called aside at his leaving party (having lost the election) in a hotel.

The Swedish intelligence knew about the accident immediately, as it was likely tracking the vessel due to the highly sensitive materiel on board. Plus there were about 70 policemen from Stockholm on board with a rumoured further contingent of American agents (the security services in Sweden are under the police umbrella) returning from a conference in Tallinn.

Truth is, Bildt and Clinton, together with their MI6 conterparts through PM John Major, believed the public were too dimwitted to question the heavily sanitised report and that it would just accept it was another "The Herald of Free Enterprise" unfortunate accident, due to miscommunication between the crew and the bridge and a weak design that was vulnerable to a 'few strong waves'. In fact, Sweden even had to set up a Ministry of Information to encourage the public to accept the JAIC report, because it knew it was unbelievable.

Wait, what, this is new. Clinton as in the then POTUS Do you have any evidence, any at all, that he was somehow involved??

 

[junkshop]

Wait, what, this is new. Clinton as in the then POTUS Do you have any evidence, any at all, that he was somehow involved??

It's not new, Vixen suggested his involvement in this post, back in early September (I'm not sure if that was the first time or not).

No evidence of his involvement was ever presented, much to no-one's surprise.

 

[LondonJohn]

As this is a chat forum and not a dissertation then Wikipedia remains a decent reference for quick fact-checking. Only the dimwitted would think falsifying a Wikipedia entry makes something 'true', that DNA permeates thick wooden doors to fly across a room and land under a corpse or even that the JAIC report stands up to scrutiny. But then, this proportion makes up at least 50% of the population, so it will always be an uphill struggle, even if references are absolutely sound, including an ex-KSI Swedish Navy diver who saw the hole in the starboard in December 1994 and even claims to have filmed it for Rockwater-Smit Tak, the US-Dutch firm given the contract by the Swedish government, of which large sections of the video have been mysteriously censored.

So.... are you saying here that (from your perspective, of course):

1) The Wikipedia entry on the Estonia disaster has been "falsified" to make it look like the JAIC report "stands up to scrutiny"?

2) In reality (again, your reality....), the JAIC report doesn't stand up to scrutiny?

 

[LondonJohn]

The Swedish government outsourced the diving recce and the JAIC should have had access to the video. The original video which comprised over 17 hours footage IIRC was reduced down to about two and a half hours and the Estonians and Finns denied access to it and other documents. The survivors' testimonies were heavily edited by a JAIC-appointed psychologist, Bengt Shlager (_sp?) who himself resigned in protest, the JAIC had to base its entire report on former-PM Carl Bildt's early announcement, 'the accident is a replica of that of The Herald of Free Enterprise but, um, ah, it has a bow visor, so that must have fallen off first and took with it the car ramp, yes, that's right, it was just like the The Herald of Free Enterprise and um, ah, it must have been some kind of, erm, freak wave wot dunnit'.

1) Why do you persist in your ridiculous - and entirely unsubstantiated - conspiracy theory that the JAIC "had to" base its report on what Bildt had said - even if (in your world) it (the JAIC) knew that the true cause of the disaster was something else?

2) The JAIC concluded that the fundamental cause of the Estonia disaster was very similar to that of the HOFE disaster because..... that's what the available evidence clearly told them. They'd discovered that the bow visor was entirely missing from the wreck and nowhere even close to it on the seabed; that the part of the mechanism of the bottom lock attached to the hull had very clearly failed (the lugs were all torn open, in a manner entirely consistent with stress and fatigue (and not an explosion...)); that the bow ramp had been severely compromised when the bow visor tore away from the ship; and that, as a direct consequence, large volumes of water had been able to enter onto the vehicle deck very quickly.

3) Are you still - still - parrotting this "freak wave" nonsense? Once again: take another look at that excellent piece of video of the ferry in only rough seas (and seas which were less rough than those on the night of the Estonia sinking). You'll see that the ferry digs hard into the oncoming swell each and every time.

This was some sixteen hours after the sinking and about three weeks before the bow visor was found, even though by 8 Oct 1994, sonar images picked up the outline of...a bow visor...immediately below the bulbous bow visor...yet, the JAIC announced 9 October 1994, the bow visor 'has not yet been found'.

The explanation for this is almost childishly simple: the sonar return did not show the bow visor. You're very obviously unfamiliar with the analysis and interpretation of Sonar captures. Especially 1994-era Sonar captures.

Let that sink in.

Let what sink in? There's nothing to sink in from my perspective. However, by contrast, there's an awful lot of (proper) science and (proper) analysis that you ought to be allowing to sink in.....

 

[LondonJohn]

The ship was ruptured on its starboard side. That is why it listed violently to the starboard side. The bow faces almost directly south, face down. The aft part of the vessel lies on the slope, with the starboard side to the east of it, on the upper side, and the aft port side on the lower slope. The forward part of the ship is on soft mud, as is most of the port side.

The fact the vessel landed on a slope is pure coincidence. The ship sank stern first, with a 40° list to aft starboard. Then it capsized onto starboard so that the port side was horizontal and passengers were able scramble along it for a short period. It then turned face forward with the bow rising virtually 90° upright out of the water, as the stern hit the bottom - the 155 metres length of the vessel in about 64 - 80 metres of water - thus, when it fell face forward, due to gravity, the stress would have been amidships - exactly or near the centre, hence the sensation surivivors have in such a sinking ship of it snapping in half, even if it does not actually do so. It fell on its stern, not on its starboard side, which, although nearer to the higher part of the slope, did not actually land on it, except to come to rest.


If there was a stress fracture, it will be seen roughly 75 -80 metres along, across the hull. But the hull looks perfectly smooth and intact, so the vessel appears to have landed relatively gently onto the seabed, after the initial bump on the stern.

LondonJohn's belief the Estonia was, 'just like The Herald of Free Enterprise and fated to land in the sea bed on its side', is unwarranted, unfounded and demonstrates an ignorance of how the Estonia actually sank.

Yes. In my abject ignorance, I have to admit that (to silly old me) those two images share a lot of similarities.....

 

[phiwum]

Carl Bildt knew about the accident before anybody else and he remains strangely coy about how he heard of it and when, given the contemporaneous Estonian and Finnish Prime Ministers at the time remember when they heard the news vividly and at what time and where they were. How can Carl Bildt claim not to remember, when in front of many witnesses, he was called aside at his leaving party (having lost the election) in a hotel.

The Swedish intelligence knew about the accident immediately, as it was likely tracking the vessel due to the highly sensitive materiel on board. Plus there were about 70 policemen from Stockholm on board with a rumoured further contingent of American agents (the security services in Sweden are under the police umbrella) returning from a conference in Tallinn.

Truth is, Bildt and Clinton, together with their MI6 conterparts through PM John Major, believed the public were too dimwitted to question the heavily sanitised report and that it would just accept it was another "The Herald of Free Enterprise" unfortunate accident, due to miscommunication between the crew and the bridge and a weak design that was vulnerable to a 'few strong waves'. In fact, Sweden even had to set up a Ministry of Information to encourage the public to accept the JAIC report, because it knew it was unbelievable.

Sorry, which current event story mentions Clinton's collaboration?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[Mojo]

As this is a chat forum and not a dissertation then Wikipedia remains a decent reference for quick fact-checking.

Only if you follow up the references. Which you didn’t.

Mind you, I don’t find it remotely surprising that you don’t consider getting your facts right here to be important.