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

[LondonJohn]

What do you mean, EFD is not a trusted source? Who do you think you are dictating what sources can be used and which not?

What a disgraceful comment without providing any reason for it.

The source looks perfectly fine to me. They seem to have done their homework.

Then your judgement is just as imperfect as theirs. "...done their homework" BAHAHAHAHA.

EFD is not a trusted source because.... in several key areas now, it's been found to have been peddling either inaccuracies, mistakes, misinterpretations or downright lies.

If a source engages in that sort of stuff with any kind of regularity (as EFD does), then, uhm, it does not qualify as a trusted source. Pretty straightforward, I'd have thought.....

It's not I who is "dictating" that EFD is not a trusted source. It's EFD itself which is telling the (critical thinking) world that it is not a trusted source. By publishing material that is not trustworthy. Hope that makes things clearer to you.


And LOL at the accusation that I've been "disgraceful" by not giving reasons: I gave an explicit reason in the very post of mine to which you're responding! Did you miss it? If so, I'll remind you: in this particular instance, EFD was wrong to have stated the following nonsense, which was factually incorrect:

...it has to be assumed that both were left in "switched-on" condition after the test.

So yes, by now - after this and various other errors, and after it's been duly exposed as a partisan group with a particular agenda (rather than a disinterested truth-seeker) - EFD is not a trusted source. If you can't see that, then you're part of the problem.

What do you mean 'my friends'? Presumably my 'friends' also include the BBC and YLE, by your criteria.

I'd have thought this was obvious as well. By "your friends", I wasn't referring to any/every source you'd quoted from (but your disingenuous attempt to make that association is well noted). No: by "your friends", I mean "a group with whom you've now become at least ideologically affiliated (and maybe even more affiliated than that)".

Sorry if you found that confusing. But I hope I've now addressed your confusion sufficiently well.

 

[Vixen]

...says the person who insists we have to respect sources like Anders Björkman, whom we know to be entirely discredited. And who relies constantly upon herself as an authority, despite having no relevant qualifications in ships, shipping, shipbuilding, or forensic investigations of engineering accidents.



But you haven't done your homework, and as such are a poor reference for determining what are good sources on this subject and what aren't. I pointed out, for example, about how you didn't know enough about metallurgy to determine whether their metallurgical analysis was honest and complete. Further, even when the sources are ostensibly reliable, such as professors Amdahl and Westermann, you can't help but restate, "correct," and reinterpret their comments to fit a particular narrative that you've been pushing. You're not a good example of respecting sources.

If all you can muster is performative indignance with respect to challenges to the reliability of your sources and methods, what does that say about what you did to vet them? Your opponents in this debate, who are generally more qualified and knowledgeable than you about the topics it covers, are certainly well within their rights to challenge the neutrality and accuracy of your sources.

I said **** Anders Björkman, which I recall you responded to, yet you still wrongly claim I source his theories. As this thread is about current affairs (i.e., journalism) no specialised knowledge is needed.

 

[Vixen]

Then your judgement is just as imperfect as theirs. "...done their homework" BAHAHAHAHA.

EFD is not a trusted source because.... in several key areas now, it's been found to have been peddling either inaccuracies, mistakes, misinterpretations or downright lies.

If a source engages in that sort of stuff with any kind of regularity (as EFD does), then, uhm, it does not qualify as a trusted source. Pretty straightforward, I'd have thought.....

It's not I who is "dictating" that EFD is not a trusted source. It's EFD itself which is telling the (critical thinking) world that it is not a trusted source. By publishing material that is not trustworthy. Hope that makes things clearer to you.


And LOL at the accusation that I've been "disgraceful" by not giving reasons: I gave an explicit reason in the very post of mine to which you're responding! Did you miss it? If so, I'll remind you: in this particular instance, EFD was wrong to have stated the following nonsense, which was factually incorrect:




So yes, by now - after this and various other errors, and after it's been duly exposed as a partisan group with a particular agenda (rather than a disinterested truth-seeker) - EFD is not a trusted source. If you can't see that, then you're part of the problem.






I'd have thought this was obvious as well. By "your friends", I wasn't referring to any/every source you'd quoted from (but your disingenuous attempt to make that association is well noted). No: by "your friends", I mean "a group with whom you've now become at least ideologically affiliated (and maybe even more affiliated than that)".

Sorry if you found that confusing. But I hope I've now addressed your confusion sufficiently well.

Claim you.

Translated: London john disagrees with a current news item, therefore any references to the news item is a 'discredited source'. Claims London John! The font of all knowledge.

 

[LondonJohn]

At the time, they were not required to turn on automatically and the ones on Estonia were manually activated. One of the changes after this disaster was to require automatic EPIRBs.

https://safety4sea.com/cm-ms-estonia-sinking-one-of-the-deadliest-accidents-in-european-waters/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_6NhaMnvx3DcsvYblyuBn2yLOMQKs38TSpSdwlYCANH4-1635425427-0-gqNtZGzNAmWjcnBszQlR

Yes. EFD just keeps on burnishing its reputation as a not-to-be-trusted source, doesn't it Vixen!

 

[Disbelief]

Yes. EFD just keeps on burnishing its reputation as a not-to-be-trusted source, doesn't it Vixen!

I'm curious where they got their information about the specific type of EPIRB on the Estonia, as I can't find it. The Kannad 406F that they say was on there does not come up in a product search (and I'm not assuming it would still be available). I would like some technical information on this specific model as opposed to relying on what they are saying.

 

[LondonJohn]

ISTM that if they were automatically sprung out of their casing whilst the ship was sinking you'd think the same mechanism would also switch them on. Hey ho.

Since nobody saw them bobbing about in the water then who knows how they ended washed up on a beach as found be a couple of fishermen...

According to committee notes of the JAIC:




So that all right then.

So this version has the buoys released OK - rather than caught up in the ship's structures and sunk, to be released later - yet no-one saw them bobbing about. Despite 97 vessels in the rescue parties and dozens of helicopters and aircraft all looking out for survivors in the sea in the aftermath.

Seriously? Are you doing this stuff on purpose?

I'll bold it up so that you see it more clearly:

The EPIRBs on the Estonia required manual switch-on of the transmitter (by a crewmember), which should have taken place once the crew knew the ship was sinking.

The EPIRBs on the Estonia never transmitted. They never transmitted because (and only because) no crewmember remembered to switch them on before the ship sank.


Could you please stop introducing falsehoods and false inferences about this subject matter? Thank you in advance.

 

[LondonJohn]

You would think, but you don't know that or if something had damaged them so it couldn't occur. The fact remains that they were manual and not automatic.

Yes. As plenty of people have been telling Vixen over the past several pages of this thread.

It appears that in Vixen's case, repeated statements of factual truth are worth nothing, while the biassed, untrustworthy nonsense spewed out by EFD is worth everything. Funny old world.......

 

[lobosrul5]

If there was a Mayday half an hour earlier then the bridge controls would have been fully functional.

In any case, it is the opinion of Rear Admiral Iivonen that there was interference from a Russian military transmitter to Channel 16.

Do you have an actual source where he comments on Channel 16 interference, not a conspiracy website. Was he talking in general of Channel 16 interference from Russia in the Eastern Baltic, or specifically concerning the Estonia sinking?

 

[LondonJohn]

So you just made up everything in post #769 above about how the EPIRBs worked and were tested.

Nothing new under the Sun, unfortunately.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Nope. The Finnish word is 'viritys' from virittää = tune, tune up.

So maybe they needed to be tuned to 406khz?

406 MHz, not kHz. Tuning, in the way it's used in English, seems very unlikely to be what they meant. The devices only transmit on the emergency frequency and tuning the transmitter will not be a task for the user. In context, the description seems very clearly to be pointing out a failing; that the devices were not switched on before the ship went down. I have no idea what terms get used in Finnish to describe the act of making a radio begin to transmit, but it's pretty obvious that's what they mean.

In colloquial English we say "tuning in" to mean listening to some radio show, whether that means literally adjusting the frequency of the radio to receive the correct station or just switching the radio on.

 

[JayUtah]

I said **** Anders Björkman, which I recall you responded to, yet you still wrongly claim I source his theories.

Because it's obviously where you're getting your claims regarding buoyancy and stability. No one else gets it wrong like he does, so it's easy to identify the source. You've learned not to cite to him, but you haven't forsaken his daft claims. That makes you extra unreliable in determining whether a source is good.

As this thread is about current affairs (i.e., journalism) no specialised knowledge is needed.

The bailey part of your argument. This thread is you posing any of several conspiracy theories regarding how a particular ship sank and how the investigations were allegedly mishandled, and how the real causes of the sinking, according to you, are far more nefarious. You're not just reporting the news.

This thread is all about specialized knowledge and experience. It's gone on now for two or three pages regarding maritime emergency locator beacons -- by my count the third time this point has appeared in the discussion. That's certainly not something they teach in journalism school, nor part of everyone's everyday experiences. And the point has covered the details about how they are made, operated, and maintained -- also specialized topics.

You just don't have the specialized knowledge that is required to discuss the topics you bring up. It's not that the topics don't require it. As do many other conspiracy theorists, you're using various conspiracy-oriented sources as a shortcut to erudition. It may fool the typical layman, but it won't stand up very long against people who actually know these topics for themselves. Complaining that others can see how poor your sources are is itself a poor rejoinder.

 

[LondonJohn]

I said **** Anders Björkman, which I recall you responded to, yet you still wrongly claim I source his theories. As this thread is about current affairs (i.e., journalism) no specialised knowledge is needed.

Ugh not this old donkey again. It's just plain wrong. Even a conversation about last night's football result down the pub requires any participant in it to have a decent level of knowledge about the game and its outcome, if that participant is to contribute anything of any value to the conversation.

Likewise, an awful lot (probably most) of what you've written in this thread does not constitute a valuable contribution.

 

[LondonJohn]

Claim you.

Translated: London john disagrees with a current news item, therefore any references to the news item is a 'discredited source'. Claims London John! The font of all knowledge.

Not "claim I".

"Know I".

And "Knows everyone who actually knows something about this subject and who is capable of rational, effective research/analysis".

 

[whoanellie]

Yes. EFD just keeps on burnishing its reputation as a not-to-be-trusted source, doesn't it Vixen!

As does Vixen. She makes things up and brazenly presents them as facts despite it being obvious that there are people here who will call her out for lying.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm curious where they got their information about the specific type of EPIRB on the Estonia, as I can't find it. The Kannad 406F that they say was on there does not come up in a product search (and I'm not assuming it would still be available). I would like some technical information on this specific model as opposed to relying on what they are saying.

Perhaps. But it's entirely clear from the JAIC Report that these EPIRBs were of the "older" type, which needed to have their transmitters manually activated immediately prior to the ship sinking. Furthermore, the JAIC Report states clearly that a) no signal was ever located from the EPIRBs, and b) when they were recovered, they were found to be still switched off.

Vixen may entertain a grand conspiracy which includes the JAIC telling bold-faced lies about factual matters such as these. But I do not.

 

[JayUtah]

406 MHz, not kHz. Tuning in the way it's used in English seems very, very unlikely to be what they meant. The devices only transmit on the emergency frequency and tuning the transmitter will not be a task for the user.

Speaking purely from an engineering perspective, that's not something you want to allow the end user to do on an emergency device. It just increases the chance that mishandling or other error will cause it not to operate correctly when needed. It's very unlikely for an end user to have the equipment needed to verify that the device is transmitting on the proper frequency. Testing and calibration would be something done by a specialized outside company, if not by the manufacturer. And it would typically want to require access to the internals of the device via tamper-evident closures.

I don't know what the calibration procedure is for the device in question. Nor do I speak Finnish. But the terminology here, as apparently translated, does seem very out of place for that kind of device.

 

[Vixen]

Yes. EFD just keeps on burnishing its reputation as a not-to-be-trusted source, doesn't it Vixen!

The website you unfairly brandish as 'discredited' states:

8.4
Emergency Beacons (EPIRB)

The ESTONIA carried two emergency beacons (EPIRBs) of type Kannad 406F. The last check of the radio beacons was reported to have been made about one week prior to the accident by the radio operator. This check confirmed that the EPIRBs were in full working order.

EDF

Which is a lot more information than the JAIC report gives.

7.3.4 EPIRB beacons

No signals from the ESTONIA`s EPIRBs were received.

What, no mention of how the Rockwater divers found they had discharged them successfully from their cages yet no sign of the buoys in the surrounding seas...? No mention of the type or make/ No mention of servicing or who was responsible for tuning it and switching it on?*


Of course you are happy to see this information suppressed. Mustn't upset your blind faith in 'the authorities' even though lots of little children died - not one single little kiddie over the age of twelve was rescued, and then, there was only one - mostly fit youngish guys and the crew (of 137 survivors 58 were crew). Even then the average age of a missing/drowned passenger was circa 45, male, father of young children - and all you are interested in is censoring anything that does not appear in the JAIC report and anyone speaking up for the victims is disreputable and their websites 'discredited' (...albeit only by London John on his keyboard).

ETA Section of the JAIC also mentions:

8.11 The EPIRB beacons

The EPIRB beacons along with some liferafts and lifejackets were found on 2 October 1994 by two Estonian fishing vessels in the vicinity of Dirhami on the north coast of Estonia. The beacons were switched off when found. On 28 December 1994 the condition of the above EPIRBs was tested by the Finnish experts. The radio beacons proved to he in full working order when switched on.

On 24 January 1995 both EPIRBs were activated on board the Estonian icebreaker TARMO, when they worked without interval for four hours. According to the Russian COSPAS Mission control centre, whose area of responsibility includes the Estonian waters, the radio beacons were transmitting the signal in the normal way throughout the test period.

 

[Vixen]

Seriously? Are you doing this stuff on purpose?

I'll bold it up so that you see it more clearly:

The EPIRBs on the Estonia required manual switch-on of the transmitter (by a crewmember), which should have taken place once the crew knew the ship was sinking.

The EPIRBs on the Estonia never transmitted. They never transmitted because (and only because) no crewmember remembered to switch them on before the ship sank.


Could you please stop introducing falsehoods and false inferences about this subject matter? Thank you in advance.

Wrong! They should be routinely switched on at the start of the journey, not 'when the ship is sinking'.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The website you unfairly brandish as 'discredited' states:

8.4
Emergency Beacons (EPIRB)

The ESTONIA carried two emergency beacons (EPIRBs) of type Kannad 406F. The last check of the radio beacons was reported to have been made about one week prior to the accident by the radio operator. This check confirmed that the EPIRBs were in full working order.

Which is a lot more information than the JAIC report gives.

No, you're wrong. It's exactly the same information the JAIC gives. That text is a word-for-word copy and paste of section 3.4.4 of the JAIC report:

3.4.4 Emergency beacons
The ESTONIA carried two emergency beacons (EPIRBs) of type Kannad 406F.
The last check of the radio beacons was reported to have been made about one week prior to the accident by the radio operator. The check confirmed that the EPIRBs were in full working order.

https://web.archive.org/web/2004062...nettomuustutkinta.fi/estonia/chapt03_3.html#1

 

[Disbelief]

Wrong! They should be routinely switched on at the start of the journey, not 'when the ship is sinking'.

No, because then they would be transmitting a distress signal and location from the start of the journey.