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

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

It's not any paucity of comprehension that landed this thread in the CT subforum.

 

[Andy_Ross]

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

They were close enough to get them.

Start here

https://www.offshoreblue.com/comms/vhf-capabilities.php

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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

Is it because the Russian saboteurs wanted to die?

 

[Vixen]

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.

Er, and Flight MH17 in 2014?

A total of 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members were on board.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling over conflict-hit Ukraine on 17 July 2014 when it disappeared from radar.

A total of 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members were on board.

The plane crashed after being hit by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukraine, a 15-month investigation by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) found in October 2015.

<snip>

The Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) concluded in May 2018 that the missile system belonged to a Russian brigade, and Australia and the Netherlands announced both were holding Russia responsible for downing the aircraft.

BBC

 

[Vixen]

they were never activated. Once they had been activated and were free of their holders who would have been able to deactivate them?

they are designed to separate from the ship, that is the point of them.

And you know they were never activated, how?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Er, and Flight MH17 in 2014?

BBC

Not sure what your point is.

Are you claiming the Russians knowingly shot down a civilian airliner, when the evidence says the Ukrainian separatists they gave the missiles to thought they shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane?

Or are you claiming the Russians sank the Estonia not realising it was a civilian vessel?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

And you know they were never activated, how?

If they have tamper-evident seals over the switches then those might still have been in place when the units were recovered.
Were their Mayday signals ever detected?

 

[Vixen]

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.

The Russian aim would not be 'to kill as many civilians as possible' - they had already sent a warning twice to MI6 and Sweden intelligence to cease smuggling FSU state secrets/space programs/military materiel using the Estonia public passenger ferry. This warning was revealed to a Swedish newspaper some six years before Sweden finally admitted it was true that it had done exactly that on two occasions [it admitted to] during Sept 1994.

Thus, if the Russian intelligence guys were tipped off it was still happening then who is liable and who has vicarious liability, if any?

Even under Criminal Law of England and Wales, you are allowed to assault, even kill, a burglar on your property. In the USA you can shoot them stone cold dead on your lawn, fleeing. And the liability in law is 100% the person carrying out the original tort, with the latter deemed legally innocent.

Change the parties to 'Sweden' and 'Russia' and we can see why Russia might see sabotage as reasonable reaction to aggravated theft of it state secrets, given the two warnings, and given what we know of their propensity to exact revenge for perceived wrongs (for example: bumping off defected ex-spies, killing, looting and raping civilians in former Nazi German territories after WWII).

 

[Andy_Ross]

And you know they were never activated, how?

because if they had been it would have been noted when they were recovered that they had been activated and the signal would have been picked up.

 

[Vixen]

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

Really? The International Channel 16 for ships in distress 'Can only be heard by ships within a short range'?


Think before you commit to wasted broadband width.

 

[Vixen]

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.

I indavertently wrote 'Channel 16 was an international distress signal' when I obviously meant 'channel' not signal' yet, London John thought it worth scoring a point.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The Russian aim would not be 'to kill as many civilians as possible' - they had already sent a warning twice to MI6 and Sweden intelligence to cease smuggling FSU state secrets/space programs/military materiel using the Estonia public passenger ferry. This warning was revealed to a Swedish newspaper some six years before Sweden finally admitted it was true that it had done exactly that on two occasions [it admitted to] during Sept 1994.

Thus, if the Russian intelligence guys were tipped off it was still happening then who is liable and who has vicarious liability, if any?

Even under Criminal Law of England and Wales, you are allowed to assault, even kill, a burglar on your property. In the USA you can shoot them stomme cold dead on your lawn, fleeing. And the liability in law is 100% the person carrying out the original tort, with the latter deemed legally innocent.

Change the parties to 'Sweden' and 'Russia' and we can see why Russia might see sabotage as reasonable reaction to aggravated theft of it state secrets, given the two warnings, and given what we know of their propensity to exact revenge for perceived wrongs (for example: bumping off defected ex-spies, killing, looting and raping civilians in former Nazi German territories after WWII).

What law says you can sink a passenger ship in international waters in a way that will kill the maximum number of passengers?

Why would Sweden not have shouted about this crime if they knew about it?

Murdering all those many hundreds of people and deliberately sinking a passenger ship in international waters is a huge crime and, to be honest an act of war.

It makes claims of smuggling a few pieces of electronics pale in to insignificance.

 

[GlennB]

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.

rigueur
Yet again you fail in trying to look clever. (You will now quote the one website that uses the misspelling)

 

[Andy_Ross]

Really? The International Channel 16 for ships in distress 'Can only be heard by ships within a short range'?


Think before you commit to wasted broadband width.

Yes VHF is only short range. It is 'line of sight' raising the antenna as high as possible and some atmospheric conditions can increase the range. I sent you a link that explains it.

That is why there is also the MF frequency which has a range of 150 miles and more.

 

[Vixen]

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??

The Baltic Sea is 377,000 km². As a comparison, England is 130,279 km².

Are you seriously claiming that a ship in distress should only expect to be heard ten kilometres away?

Stop being disingenuous.

 

[Vixen]

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

You claimed without even checking your facts, "Several ships responded to the mayday and relayed it", when only Europa and Mariella picked up on it and then, not necessarily both of them for each of the calls circa 1:24 with the distinct possibility there was a Mayday half an hour earlier, which no-one at all received.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The Baltic Sea is 377,000 km². As a comparison, England is 130,279 km².

Are you seriously claiming that a ship in distress should only expect to be heard ten kilometres away?

Stop being disingenuous.

Yes, between 10 and 40 miles depending on the antenna height and the equipment.
For example, a 25-watt marine radio will roughly have a maximum range of 30 to 40 nautical miles between antennas mounted on tall ships, but that same radio will only have a range of 5 nautical miles (9 km) between antennas mounted on small boats at sea level. Both ships have the same 25-watt radio, the difference in this example is the height of the antenna.

A battery powered handheld VHF radio has far less power than 25 watts and a small antenna so the transmission range is limited.

That is why there is also the MF emergency band for ships moving further away from the coast.
Now of course there are also satellite phones.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Really? Still??

Once again.......................................................

The EPIRBs on the Estonia were not capable of automatic (via an immersion sensor) activation. They needed to have their transmitters manually switched on by a crewmember.

The transmitters couldn't have been "activat(ed) during sinking" or "deactivated (during sinking)".

The transmitter power switches in those EPIRBs would have been in the "off" position when the ship left Tallinn. Once it became clear that the ship was going to sink, it was incumbent upon a crewmember to flick the switches on the EPIRBs so that their transmitters began broadcasting their distress/locator signals.

The fact that no such signals were ever picked up leads to only one correct conclusion: that the transmitters were never switched on that night. And in turn, that leads to only two reasonable possibilities: 1) nobody amongst the crew remembered to go to the EPIRBs and switch the transmitters on; or 2) nobody amonst the crew was physically able to reach the EPIRBs (in order to turn the transmitters on) owing to the list and instability of the ship by that point.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You claimed without even checking your facts, "Several ships responded to the mayday and relayed it", when only Europa and Mariella picked up on it and then, not necessarily both of them for each of the calls circa 1:24 with the distinct possibility there was a Mayday half an hour earlier, which no-one at all received.

I don't see your problem. the signal was picked up by nearby ships and relayed.
Isabella was the third ship to respond then the Silja Symphony, sister ship of the Europa.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

A paucity of comprehension does indeed seem de rigueur (note the spelling) in this thread - but only on the part of one of its participants.