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

[phiwum]

As confirmed by the Rockwater divers, they were hydrostatically triggered. These buoys of course can also be switched on manually. However, once switched on, they will have sent a signal. No signal was ever sent, so they were not switched on manually. However, Rockwater confirms the hydrostatically-operated case it/they were in was open, implying either they had been triggered by up to twelve feet of seawater and thus should have floated up to the surface and signalled accordingly, or they/it had been removed.

Is there any place where the use the term "hydrostatically triggered" or "hydrostatically activated" rather than "hydrostatically released"? If so, please cite your source and please be sure that it is as close to the divers themselves as possible.

But we go in circles. You've been told many times that release and activation are different and that these particular EPIRBs required manual activation. Why do you refuse to even consider the possibility and pretend that of course they must be hydrostatically activated if they are made to be hydrostatically released?

 

[phiwum]

Erm, the EPIRB's were covered in sand. The EPIRB's were discovered 2 Oct 1994, yet the Rockwater divers 2 Dec 1994 were not informed. However, thanks to this glaring omission, we get confirmation from Rockwater's report that the EPIRB's were of the hydrostatically-operated type, as they were in um, a hydrostatic case, which only fits the standard hydrostatic model.

You'll have to tell me where this information comes from so I can look it up myself.

But whether covered by sand or floating, there is no real significance. If the EPIRBs were found with other floaty stuff from the Estonia, then this is a strike against the claim they were intentionally placed in that location unless all them lifejackets and whatnot were also intentionally placed there. And your own photo suggests there were quite a few lifejackets.

Now, you've been told that hydrostatic release isn't the same thing as hydrostatic activation (and where did you encounter "hydrostatic operation" or is that your own term?). Either show that the particular EPIRBs were designed to activate automatically when submerged -- activate, not just be released -- or move on.

 

[LondonJohn]

For the umpty-ninth time, if it takes four metres of water to automatically detach the buoy then of course it is not one operated "manually only", as if one has to dive two fathoms under the sea to turn it on.

I'm truly, genuinely struggling to see how you're still incapable of understanding this extremely simple concept. It's getting more and more like a bad piece of performance art.

As you've been told numerous times now by me and others, the hydrostatic release mechanism for the EPIRBs is an entirely different - and separate - matter from the switching on of the transmitters of the EPIRBs. And your continued insistence that somehow a crewmember would have needed to find the EPIRB underwater* to turn on the transmitter is as baffling as it is incorrect.

What should have happened on the Estonia that night is this: once the crew had realised that the ship was sinking and would surely end up sunk, one of the crewmembers should have stepped just outside the bridge and manually switched on the two transmitters of the EPIRBs. The same crewmember could also have manually thrown the EPIRBs into the sea if he/she had wanted to do so. But the evidence (and lack of evidence) shows clearly that, in fact, no crewmember actually performed either of these tasks.

What you appear unwilling/unable to understand here is that the required procedure for the particular EPIRBs on the Estonia that night was for a crewmember to manually switch on the transmitters before the ship sank (but once the crew had realised that the ship was going to sink).

How the heck can this be so difficult for you to comprehend??


* Notwithstanding the fact that the EPIRBs would have been hydrostatically released and would therefore be floating on the surface - so even in your misguided misunderstanding around the switching on of the transmitters, you'd have been wrong to talk of nonsense like "div(ing) two fathoms under the sea".....

 

[Matthew Best]

I'm truly, genuinely struggling to see how you're still incapable of understanding this extremely simple concept. It's getting more and more like a bad brilliant piece of performance art.

FTFY

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh dear. Not one of the hundreds of rescue vessels, helicopters and aircraft who surveyed the entire scene until late into the night the next day spotted these 'dumb buoys' floating around.

Why would they even have been looking for the EPIRBs? What purpose would it possibly have served if they'd spent even a second of their collective time looking for these buoys?

I'd imagine that their sole concern that night was looking for liferafts and survivors in the water, then looking for bodies in the water. Wouldn't you?

 

[Andy_Ross]

What is the alternative? First, everyone is wrong and the EPIRBs were actually water activated, not manual-only. The conspirators removed them from the ship and got them to shore without them ever landing in the water, where they would have activated.

Just getting them wet wouldn't have activated them, the automatic function is activated by pressure usually between 1 and 4m, not just getting wet otherwise they would be going off all the time!

 

[LondonJohn]

Hypothetical question. Let's just stick to what did or did not happen, shall we?

I must get my weapons-grade Irony-o-Meter properly fixed and calibrated - though I suspect this post of yours might have kyboshed it once again.

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh dear, here comes Captain Hindsight. The Titanic took almost three hours to sink, despite [we now know] splitting in two and the six watertight bulkhead compartments for'ard of the ship filling with water causing it to sink even faster, when had they been high enough there might have been time for rescue by a nearby vessel on its way. Likewise, it did not have sufficient life boats.

Let it sink in: Titanic for all of its splitting in two and its hull breached via damage from scraping the iceberg at its side took almost three hours to sink.


The Estonia sank in half an hour. It had plenty of life boats. All the personnel on the bridge had to do was press a green button and they would have been released.

Yet another strange omission.

The Herald of Free Enterprise took two minutes to sink. Your point is?


(Not to mention the fact that my post had nothing whatsoever to do with the relative sinking times of the Titanic and the Estonia. It was actually entirely concerned with the relative ease with which the wrecks of these ships could have been located - had (hypothetically) the Estonia sank without having been able to notify anyone else of its imminent demise. Please try to read my posts properly before attempting a reply to them. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.)

 

[Andy_Ross]

EPIRB buoys are less important for coastal sailing where a mayday call has a good chance of being received.

They are of more importance for vessels operating offshore and remote locations where there is a good chance a mayday might not get picked up.

Also once again, the automatic activation is a fallback. It is best to activate them using the manual switch and if possible take them in to a boat or life raft.

If I had two I would activate one of them and keep the other for activation later when the first one stopped working.

 

[Vixen]

Everybody that hear a Mayday cannot respond to the ships that is in distress. If you hear distress traffic where somebody already have responded you listen in and when suitable contact MRCC or the responding vessel and report your position and how quick you can get to the position. On he YouTube clips you can hear other ships report to Silja Europa that they are available.

After some time MRCC will designate one ship as OSC, on scene commander (today called on scene coordinator), and they act as an extension to MRCC making decisions and communication locally. Usually multiple VHF channels are setup for different traffic. For example search vs rescue vs helicopter operations.

First contact was with Viking Mariella at 1:21:55

Ainsalu: Mayday Mayday Estonia please (unclear)

(This seems to indicate some impatience? Perhaps had called before?)
There was a brief exchange.

The first contact with Silja Europe was at 01:23.11, over a minute later.

Ainsalu: Europa, Estonia, Silja Europa, Estonia

This indicates he had Europa showing on his network, to know the name.

Europa takes eight seconds to respond: Estonia, this is Silja Europa replying on channel 16.

Seven seconds later, Estonia repeats, as though not heard:

Ainsalu: Silja Europa

Seven seconds later, Europa repeats:

Estonia, this is Silja Europa on channel 16

No response. 21 seconds later Estonia broadcasts:

Silja Europa,Viking, Estonia

Viking Mariella replies four seconds later: Estonia, Estonia

This is a gap of 24 seconds since it last spoke to Estonia, with: Estonia, Mariella over.

This indicates a lack of communication due to a lack of response. Two seconds later, Estonia states: Mayday Mayday.

Europa calls Estonia two more times and then 31 seconds later without reply, it is now Third Officer, Tammes for Estonia

Tammes: This is Estonia. Who is it there? Silja Europa, Estonia.

In the meantime, Turku MRCC, the operator/communication officer, Ilkka Jouko Kalevi Kärppälä, who was on duty, says he got the Mayday at 1:24. At Nagu MRCC the operator/communication officer, Rauli Tapio Winberg, states he heard the Mayday at 1:23.

This is a whole one minute after Ainsalu called: Mayday Mayday Estonia please (unclear)

For Turku MRCC two minutes later.

The Nagu MRCC officer Winberg also says he didn't have Estonia on his radar but did have Mariella, Europa and Isabella. He says in his police statement, there was interference here.

 

[Vixen]

Are you doing this deliberately?

The units on the Estonia have to be turned on and put in to the water.
If they were still in the brackets when the ship sank it was too late to turn them on.
That is why the regulations were changed to make carrying automatic buoys compulsory.
It is now difficult to even find a manual activation only buoy for sale.

The brackets in use on the Estonia were for use by manual buoys and automatic activation buoys if they were carried.

What are you failing to understand here?

The Rockwater divers who were there on the Estonia wreck, confirm the EPIRB was hydrostatically operated.

Your assumption it was manual and someone forgot to turn it on, is just your guesswork.

 

[Vixen]

You seem to have reversed your position here...

In the colloquial sense of 'not on'.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The Rockwater divers who were there on the Estonia wreck, confirm the EPIRB was hydrostatically operated.

Your assumption it was manual and someone forgot to turn it on, is just your guesswork.

No, they confirm the brackets could be hydrostatically operated.

They never saw the buoys, they weren't there.

 

[LondonJohn]

EPIRB buoys are less important for coastal sailing where a mayday call has a good chance of being received.

They are of more importance for vessels operating offshore and remote locations where there is a good chance a mayday might not get picked up.

Also once again, the automatic activation is a fallback. It is best to activate them using the manual switch and if possible take them in to a boat or life raft.

Yes. They obviously have the potential to come into their own for ships plying trans-oceanic routes.

And as has been pointed out by you and others plenty of times in this thread, they would have been effectively of no use in the case of the Estonia sinking anyhow, even if they had been (manually) switched on and deployed properly before the ship sank - because by that time the ship's position at sinking was already reliably known thanks to the Mayday calls and their responses.

If I had two I would activate one of them and keep the other for activation later when the first one stopped working.

A very wise and optimal approach.

With that in mind, one thing I would say about the Estonia disaster - and, for that matter, other incidents of huge magintude and stress (eg imending aircraft crashes) - is that training, common sense and good judgement can sometimes, often even, go AWOL in the heat of the moment. And that can be true even of experienced, highly-qualified people. For all the disaster preparation and simulation, and for all the well-rehearsed procedures that may form a rigid and optimal part of that preparation & simulation...... nothing can truly prepare someone for a real-life emergency, where their very lives and those of others are in extreme jeopardy.

Not to blow my own family trumpet, but (oh well, OK, if you insist I tell you the story ): my father once (when I was a young kid) was piloting a single-seater single-engined fighter aircraft and practising <100-foot groundhugging, when a bird strike badly damaged the engine and wrecked the under-wing landing gear assembly. He managed to get the aircraft some 40Nm back to base by carefully caressing the engine, and successfully ditched it on grass alongside the auxilliary runway.

Once he'd turned off the engine (which by then was totally on its last legs) and switched off all the electrical systems/circuits, he radioed the tower to say that he was OK, adding "...and could you send a fire truck over to me please". The fact that he hadn't panicked, had acted rationally and calmly in getting the aircraft back and putting it safely on the ground..... and had then been sufficiently calm and courteous as to say "please" in that radio comm..... was all part of his citation for a medal. It wasn't quite Sully Sullenberger and the "Miracle on the Hudson", but, yaknow, it wasn't too bad!

 

[Vixen]

So you're claiming..... what exactly? That because this article was written in 2019, that somehow invalidates it from a reliability PoV? That because it was written 24 years after the event, the author must therefore be assuming stuff rather than relying on facts plus his knowledge & experience?

Is that what you're claiming here, Vixen? Really?

You will find a lot of nonsense on the internet about how the Estonia sank because of water on the car deck, when even the JAIC itself admits that this would not be enough to capsize the ship.

Yes, there are people devoid of critical ability who have assumed that because the EPIRB's did not emit a signal, 'someone forgot to turn them on'. However, if they were in the hydrostatically operated shell and had just been passed as AOK then they should have operated as soon as they were hydrostatically released and reached the surface.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The Nagu MRCC officer Winberg also says he didn't have Estonia on his radar but did have Mariella, Europa and Isabella. He says in his police statement, there was interference here.

Yes there was radar interference, there was a raging storm and Estonia was capsized reducing it's radar cross section.

 

[LondonJohn]

Uhhh I of course meant NM (nautical miles), not Nm (newton metres)

 

[Andy_Ross]

You will find a lot of nonsense on the internet about how the Estonia sank because of water on the car deck, when even the JAIC itself admits that this would not be enough to capsize the ship.

No one has made that claim apart from you.

Yes, there are people devoid of critical ability who have assumed that because the EPIRB's did not emit a signal, 'someone forgot to turn them on'. However, if they were in the hydrostatically operated shell and had just been passed as AOK then they should have operated as soon as they were hydrostatically released and reached the surface.

No because they did not have the capability to activate automatically, they were of a type that only has a manual activation.
It was as a result of the Estonia sinking that the regulations were changed by the IMO to make automatic activation mandatory on commercial vessels.

 

[Vixen]

The Herald of Free Enterprise took two minutes to sink. Your point is?


(Not to mention the fact that my post had nothing whatsoever to do with the relative sinking times of the Titanic and the Estonia. It was actually entirely concerned with the relative ease with which the wrecks of these ships could have been located - had (hypothetically) the Estonia sank without having been able to notify anyone else of its imminent demise. Please try to read my posts properly before attempting a reply to them. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.)

Stop lying. The Herald of Free Enterpise only partially sank.

You are quite shameless.

 

[Here_to_learn]

The Nagu MRCC officer Winberg also says he didn't have Estonia on his radar but did have Mariella, Europa and Isabella. He says in his police statement, there was interference here.

Are you suggesting that the Russian VHF transmitter was interfering with radar?

And by the way, what is the radar transmitters location in relationship to the different ships?