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

[Andy_Ross]

Were the anti-tamper tabs still in place over the switches?

They are designed to stop accidental activation, once they are removed they can't be replaced.

If the buoys had been turned on then turned off again it would be obvious to whoever found them.

There is a separate test button for checking the battery.

 

[Vixen]

You really have no idea on what you are talking about.

Channel 16 was not down - you can listen to the recorded VHF traffic between Estonia and the other ferries on several youtube videos.

MF 2182kHZ is specifically used since it has a longer range than VHF - it's not "a local call".

Any disturbances from a Russian radio on CH16 would not disturb VHF traffic towards Sweden, since VHF is a line-of-sight transmission.

Sure, Estonia of course used Channel 16...except the message was not received by anyone at all, except nearby ships Viking Mariella and Silja Europa, both heading to Stockholm from Helsinki. The captain and mate of these vessels reported the signal was extremely weak. They had to contact the Coast Guard on 2182.

In other words, if Channel 16 is not being received or the signal heavily interfered with, then it is as good as down.

1st Officer Teijo Karl Peter Seppelin of Silja Europa : It was Wednesday, i.e. the 28th, and the time was about 01.20 when I heard the Mayday on Channel 16. The call was weak and I could not make out the name of the broadcasting vessel. In this instance the radio traffic did not come through as normal, crystal clear. I immediately responded: "Who called and transmitted a Mayday"? After this I got in contact with the ESTONIA [JAIC Statement]


Ingmar Hans-Göran Eklund, mate of the Viking Mariella: I heard on Channel 16 that ESTONIA said one time 'Mayday'. I think that the following words were "blackout" and "heavy listing". I asked the master to come up and that's what he did. I replied immediately to ESTONIA but they did not answer. Also after the master had come up to the bridge I continuously tried to get contact but ESTONIA did not answer.

<snip>

While I was taking care of the navigation, the master was trying to get in contact with Helsinki Radio, first over VHF and then on MF 2182 kHz, both of which failed. He finally managed to get in contact with the shore by mobile phone.


Captain Jan Tore Thörnroos of MARIELLA T: They were calling 'Mayday' and I jumped into my clothes and up to the bridge which took maybe just 20 seconds.

A[ 06.10.94 Criminal Inspector Lars-Erik Andersson, Stockholm] : Mayday, was this all that came?

T: Yes, "Mayday, Estonia", he called and so he called again, and so he called for us and so he called for SILJA EUROPA, but he - one could hear that he was in full panic. Therefore we got no reasonable explanation, but then they were shooting up emergency rockets. But we got no contact with them ........ . This went on for 1 or 2 minutes. Then he called again "Mayday, Estonia" and we tried again to establish contact, but then EUROPA got contact.

<snip>

After they had called out the emergency messages it was only EUROPA and we who confirmed to them, and we really had big problems establishing contact with the coastal stations. It is not as they told the media that they picked up the emergency messages. They did not do that. They did not do that before we called them over mobile phone. EUROPA phoned Turku by mobile phone and we phoned Helsinki by mobile phone. After they had sent out the emergency messages it was just EUROPA and we who replied to them.[= Estonia's Mayday message.]

A: Does this mean that the Rescue Services ashore never confirmed the receipt?
T: They never confirmed anything.
A: Not the receipt of the messages?
T: No, they never did so before we stirred them up by mobile phone. At first we didn't even know whom to call.We tried at once after he had received the information from ESTONIA about her position and so on, and after the contact was interrupted we both tried, we and EUROPA, to contact MRCC and Helsinki Radio, Mariehamn radio. At first over VHF Channel 16, the emergency channel. No reaction at all. Nobody was listening in and not even in Stockholm. So we changed over to 2182, which covers the whole Baltic Sea, and were calling and calling. No contact whatsoever. The only thing we heard was somebody else calling. He spoke to EUROPA thereafter. He heard that we were calling and we heard that he was calling, but there was no reaction from ashore.A: That means in summary that ESTONIA was sending a Mayday which was immediately only received by MARIELLA and EUROPA. It was just you two confirming receipt?
T: Yes, that was, in any event, what we heard.
A: You then tried to contact the Rescue Services?
T: Yes.
A: Both in Finland and in Sweden.
T: Yes.
A: And you did not get any reply?
T: No.

<snip>

A: And then you used a mobile phone to phone the Rescue Services in Finland?
T: To phone the Rescue Services in Finland and EUROPA they did the same independently of each other. They decided to phone Turku and we decided to phone Helsinki. Subsequently they went out with a PAN PAN message which means 'Man Over Board' and only later with 'Mayday' after they had sent out the PAN PAN. This was Helsinki Radio.
A: What's the name of this message?

T: PAN PAN. It is not as heavy as a 'Mayday' call. This is used when somebody has fallen overboard, for example, when there is no danger for the vessel itself.

A: So, this came from Helsinki Radio?

T: Yes, this came from Helsinki and subsequently I knew that they later also came out with a 'Mayday' relay which we did not hear ourselves, but EUROPA heard it."


A: All this has to be discussed in detail when you come to Stockholm.
T: Yes."[Captain Thörnroos of Viking Mariella 6.10.1994 to Swedish Prosecutor statement.

Do you always mindlessly claim, "you have no idea on what you are talking about," parrotting another poster - as though you have no mind of your own - who also knows little about the case but thinks simply refuting a thing cancels out the facts and puts you one up in the debate, when in fact, it does the reverse, and highlights your ignorance of the night in question?

As a matter of fact, GPS navigators and a communications system is installed on the bridge, together with a separate 32 walkie-talkies amongst the Estonia crews, which comes back into operation when there is a power blackout and the emergency generator takes over, with the coordinate location still lit up on the monitor for about 15 minutes. even when that goes down.

Thus, there obviously was a communications black out/interference that night, with Hummel claiming the entire phone network was down from 1:02 to 1:58 am EET. Heimo Iivonen did tell the JAIC of the continuous iterference with Channel 16 coming from the Russian transmitter on Hoagland Island.

Your disputing this without any foundation or back up information does not make it not so.

ETA: Also in response to this post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13640278#post13640278

 

[Vixen]

Uhhhhhh..... what?

This, I'm afraid, only goes to highlight your ignorance about radio in general, and maritime radio in particular. (The other falsehoods in this post have been addressed and corrected elsewhere.)

Bravo! You spotted a typo!!!

 

[Vixen]

Several ships responded to the mayday and relayed it
If the channel was 'down' how did that happen?
Maybe you need to learn about radio.

Blatantly untrue.

 

[Stamuel]

Ooh look! Is this precisely the same sort of sarcasm and (attempted) mockery that you were telling another poster off for just now? Why yes, yes it is!

And you seem to be missing the point entirely. In your examples, the Russians were targeting specific dissident individuals. And solely those specific dissident individuals. Your hysterical exaggeration about "enough Novichok to kill 5,000 people" is irrelevant: their aim was to use it to kill just two people. The fact that a local nutter searching through bins found the discarded bottle and gave it to a woman he knew who consequently got fatally poisoned.... is neither here nor there. The Russians were targeting only two people, and only a totally unforseen (and unforseeable) development resulted in the death of someone - ONE person - who had not been their target.

By contrast, anyone claiming (incorrectly, of course) that Russia - or any other nation state, for that matter - was behind a plan to sink the Estonia would be claiming that the plan allowed for the very real possibility of killing literally hundreds of innocent people as "collateral damage". The victims' home nations would necessarily require answers as to what caused the disaster which claimed their lives. It's a totally different kettle of fish from the examples you gave here.

It is worse than this: Vixen has consistently argued that the Russians went out of their way to make sure as many people as possible died. They blocked emergency frequencies, planted bombs in multiple places to make sure the Estonia sank as fast as possible, sank it at midnight/1am when passengers would be asleep and when shifts were changing, turned off the EPIRBS, convinced NATO not to send ships to help with search and rescue, and probably a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting. None of these complications was necessary to sink the ship or stop the smuggling. If Vixen is right, then the explicit goal, a goal they went to great lengths to achieve, was to kill as many civilians as possible.

As proof that the Russians would be willing to commit such an atrocity, Vixen gives an example where--far from deliberately killing even one person other than the targets--they tried to kill only the targets. The most you can say is that they provided insufficient safeguards to ensure that no one other than the targets died. That is not very good evidence that the Russian Revenge conspiracy theory makes sense.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Sure, Estonia of course used Channel 16...except the message was not received by anyone at all, except nearby ships ...

So you're saying the short range VHF signal was only heard by ships within a short range. Curious.

 

[Vixen]

Once again, the buoys are always off until activated. If they were always on the batteries would go flat and they would be continually transmitting.

Mayday messages were picked up. What channel do you think they would be transmitted on?

You don't know what a Pan message is.

No they were not picked up. They may have been recorded by some to be seen in retrospect but no-one picked up ATT.

The convention is to respond with the name of the ship you are calling follwed by your name, as in Silja Europa - Estonia.

ONLY Silja Europa and Viking Mariella received the Mayday call at the time and they were the only ones to respond. Even then there was communication to which only one of the ships heard, even though both were listening. These were roughly within nine kilometres of each other.

Do buck your ideas up.

 

[GlennB]

Bravo! You spotted a typo!!!

His "what?" was nothing to do with the typo, as is shown by his highlighting of the sentence the "what?" referred to.

Yet another shameless diversion from you.

 

[Vixen]

After power was lost only battery powered devices would have been available aboard the Estonia. That means hand held devices.

Wrong. The emergency generator came into being. The Estonia sank with all lights ablaze. The reason Tammes was using a hand held device was likely because at 70° list (well beyond his reported 30° at that stage: 1:24) he was almost certainly having to hold himself upright by any means possible. The info was there on the controls just that he could not physically get to them to see them.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Sure, Estonia of course used Channel 16...except the message was not received by anyone at all, except nearby ships Viking Mariella and Silja Europa, both heading to Stockholm from Helsinki. The captain and mate of these vessels reported the signal was extremely weak. They had to contact the Coast Guard on 2182.

VHF is only short range, it would only be picked up by close vessels.

2182 is a long range broadcast.

Did you not read or understand anything??

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is worse than this: Vixen has consistently argued that the Russians went out of their way to make sure as many people as possible died. They blocked emergency frequencies, planted bombs in multiple places to make sure the Estonia sank as fast as possible, sank it at midnight/1am when passengers would be asleep and when shifts were changing, turned off the EPIRBS, convinced NATO not to send ships to help with search and rescue, and probably a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting. None of these complications was necessary to sink the ship or stop the smuggling. If Vixen is right, then the explicit goal, a goal they went to great lengths to achieve, was to kill as many civilians as possible.

As proof that the Russians would be willing to commit such an atrocity, Vixen gives an example where--far from deliberately killing even one person other than the targets--they tried to kill only the targets. The most you can say is that they provided insufficient safeguards to ensure that no one other than the targets died. That is not very good evidence that the Russian Revenge conspiracy theory makes sense.

So the scenario proposed is that Russian saboteurs not only caused the ship to sink, but went out of their way to minimise the chances of anyone surviving. Including themselves. As I seem to keep reiterating, it must have been an interesting planning meeting.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Blatantly untrue.

How is it untrue? you posted exactly this just a few posts above this one!!!!

 

[Andy_Ross]

No they were not picked up. They may have been recorded by some to be seen in retrospect but no-one picked up ATT.

The convention is to respond with the name of the ship you are calling follwed by your name, as in Silja Europa - Estonia.

ONLY Silja Europa and Viking Mariella received the Mayday call at the time and they were the only ones to respond. Even then there was communication to which only one of the ships heard, even though both were listening. These were roughly within nine kilometres of each other.

Do buck your ideas up.

EPIRB buoys do not transmit anything apart from an automatic mayday signal.

Do not confuse the buoys with the VHF mayday message.

It was picked up by vessels close by because it was a low power VHF signal.

Please learn something about maritime radio.

After the power failed only battery powered handsets would have been available to the Estonia.

 

[Here_to_learn]

Sure, Estonia of course used Channel 16...except the message was not received by anyone at all, except nearby ships Viking Mariella and Silja Europa, both heading to Stockholm from Helsinki. The captain and mate of these vessels reported the signal was extremely weak. They had to contact the Coast Guard on 2182.

In other words, if Channel 16 is not being received or the signal heavily interfered with, then it is as good as down.

And here you went wrong, since you apparently still don't understand the concept of radio propagation. There are several reasons for why a VHF signal is weak, for example:

• The broadcast is from a handheld (low-powered) device
• The antenna is not vertical
• A lot of other noise in the background of the sender

They all are more probable compared to you claiming that something "was down".

Do you always mindlessly claim, "you have no idea on what you are talking about," parrotting another poster - as though you have no mind of your own - who also knows little about the case but thinks simply refuting a thing cancels out the facts and puts you one up in the debate, when in fact, it does the reverse, and highlights your ignorance of the night in question?

Horrible thing, that the facts I share may refute your idea on what happened.

What I'm saying is that you are parroting the text about the Russian station without understanding the impact that the station can have. You still haven't shown that you understand the VHF radio propagation, and you still claim that something "is down". In the previous thread I posted a picture about different VHF transmitters, and their range to give you an idea on how far interference can spread. That shows why the Russian station could not interfere with the traffic between Estonia and the other ferries.

As a matter of fact, GPS navigators and a communications system is installed on the bridge, together with a separate 32 walkie-talkies amongst the Estonia crews, which comes back into operation when there is a power blackout and the emergency generator takes over, with the coordinate location still lit up on the monitor for about 15 minutes. even when that goes down.

Really? What source do you have that the "monitor" on the bridge of Estonia keeps showing the Lat/Long of the ship for 15 minutes during a blackout?

 

[Vixen]

If they were active they would be transmitting a distress signal.
They are not active until they are switched on when the ship sinks, either by hand or by immersion.

So in other words, instead of activating during sinking, they had been deactivated. Another unfortunate mishap, together with Channel 16 being down and a wave demolishing the bow visor.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Wrong. The emergency generator came into being. The Estonia sank with all lights ablaze. The reason Tammes was using a hand held device was likely because at 70° list (well beyond his reported 30° at that stage: 1:24) he was almost certainly having to hold himself upright by any means possible. The info was there on the controls just that he could not physically get to them to see them.

Emergency generators would not put all the lights 'ablaze' It has strictly limited function.

Emergency lighting in the ship is battery powered like emergency lighting in buildings.

 

[Vixen]

They poisoned some people. Okay, why didn't they poison the smugglers? Why didn't they set fire to the smugglers' truck? Why didn't they tail the smugglers and shoot them when they got to wherever they were going?

Imagine for a moment you're one of their trained killers. Instead of attacking the people you're trying to stop, or seizing or destroying the cargo they stole, you're ordered to follow them onto a ship and then sabotage it. So the ship you're travelling on sinks in the Baltic at night in a storm. Good plan, eh comrade? Any questions?

Just because this current news item is in Conspiracy Theory due to a paucity of comprehenison, doesn't mean writing very hilarious zany responses is de riguer.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So in other words, instead of activating during sinking, they had been deactivated. Another unfortunate mishap, together with Channel 16 being down and a wave demolishing the bow visor.

No. Instead of automatically activating upon sinking, they were intended to be manually activated. Another unfortunate blunder by the crew.

I've managed to glean this from the explanations people who clearly understand have posted more than once. Somehow you haven't.

 

[Vixen]

You need to learn more about radio.

VHF is short range communications, and CH16 (156.8 MHz) is the distress channel for that band.

MF is medium range communications, and 2182 kHz is the distress frequency for that band.

A ship that is out of range for VHF communications uses MF (or today of course satellite). VHF worked between the ships (short range).

ETA - the Captain is of course faster!

Fact is, only two nearby vessels got the signal. You need to learn more about how come.

 

[Andy_Ross]

So in other words, instead of activating during sinking, they had been deactivated. Another unfortunate mishap, together with Channel 16 being down and a wave demolishing the bow visor.

they had to be manually activated by a crew member, then they are either thrown in to the water or float free when the ship sinks.

They could only be deactivated after they had been activated. If they were not activated in the first place then they could not be turned back off.
It is easy to see if they had been activated then turned off as the anti-tamper tabs would be missing from over the activation switch.
This would show that someone had turned them on then off again.
If a crewman had turned them on and thrown them in to the sea who would have been able to turn them off again?

Do you even know what they are or how they work?

How would Channel 16 be 'down' when the ships nearby heard the mayday and reacted to it?