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

[Andy_Ross]

On the operations of the SAR Helicopters.

Three helicopters in Finland and four in Sweden had been on stand-by. These were the first to be summoned. In addition, Denmark had two helicopters on stand-by under an agreement to assist in Swedish SAR operations when necessary.
Both in Finland and in Sweden the crews of the helicopters were on stand-by at their homes. The requirement in Sweden is that the helicopter has to take off within the stipulated readiness period. The requirement in Finland is that the crew is obliged to arrive at the base within the readiness period. In practice, Finnish helicopters are also able to take off within this period.

Extremely detailed description of the helicopter SAR operation and timeline details of the actions of each individual helicopter through the night, their operations, flights and passengers recovered.
Including a table that shows the final numbers and dispositions of survivors recovered by the helicopters.

The Government of the Republic of Estonia Final report on the MV ESTONIA disaster

CHAPTER 7 THE RESCUE OPERATION
Section 7.5.4 General considerations, helicopters
Section 7.5.5 Action by SAR helicopters

https://onse.fi/estonia/chapt07_2.html

 

[Andy_Ross]

He probably changed the range on the radar screen, not the frequency.

And Clutter_(radar)^WP is exactly what you expect to get in a storm.

I would say that he was lucky to see anything at all at the ranges involved with the radars fitted to a ferry at the time.

 

[Steve]

Almost certainly not.

Quite unlikely that anyone else here is.

 

[Andy_Ross]

JAIC then relates:





Kärppälä says he can’t remember to whom or when Sweden was called but according to an operations log in Sweden, this was confirmed as 0202 and ETA 0300. (Expected arrival time of the first Swedish helicopter: 3:00am)

Yet JAIC claims the first Swedish helicopter, Q97 ‘took off at 02:50’. If this was local time (for Sweden) that would be 03:50 for the Estonia local time, allowing another hour for it to get there.

At 2:27 (distress transcript) Turku MRCC informs Europa (now designated leader ship)’The first helicopter from Sweden will be here in about ten minutes’.

The Swedish stand-by helicopter Q 97 took off from Visby at 0250 hrs, arriving at the scene of the accident at 0350 hrs. The OSC requested the helicopter to pick up as many people as possible from the sea.
On its first flight Q 97 rescued six survivors from the keels of two upside-down lifeboats. As instructed by the OSC, Q 97 flew them to Utö, where it landed at 0500 hrs. During the stop the crew called ARCC Arlanda, informing about the situation at the scene and asking for as many helicopters as possible.
After refuelling, Q 97 returned at 0540 hrs to the scene and rescued nine survivors, five from a liferaft and four from the water. They were in very poor condition. The pilot decided to take them directly to Hanko on the mainland. Q 97 landed at a sports field in Hanko at 0735 hrs, and local residents quickly summoned ambulances to the field. The crew was advised to fly to the Hanko coast guard station landing field, where they could refuel.
Q 97 took off from Hanko for the accident scene at 0810 hrs and returned to Hanko at 1050 hrs. After refuelling Q 97 returned to its base and finished the mission at 1615 hrs.

 

[Andy_Ross]

What happened to Q64 which took off according to Aftonbladet just after 0200 and with an ETA of 3:00, as stated by Kärppälä in his police statement, in which he confirms Operations in Sweden logged the request for helicopters at 0202 and confirmed ETA at 3:00 (Sweden being one hour behind Finnish time)? [Time is recorded in local time.]

The pilot of Q64, Kenneth Svensson, received a medal for his heroism and according to Aftonbladet the next day, saved nine persons, one of whom was dead, whom he transported to Huddinge Hospital in Stockholm.

What was Q64? have you got the designation wrong? I can't see a Q64.

Do you mean Y64?

Y 64 (Boeing Kawasaki)

Y 64 took off from Berga at 0445 hrs, picked up a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 0552 hrs.
The crew noticed that many rafts were searched more than once because there were no markings showing that a raft already had been examined. Therefore the crew proposed by radio that the rescue men should cut up the canopies of searched rafts.
Y 64 began to rescue three people, one in a raft, one lying in the water tied to the raft and one lifeless entangled in the raft's sea anchor. The helicopter winched down its rescue man to the person in the water. Although the winch wire failed, the rescue man managed to raise him. The next to be lifted up was the man in the raft. He was not wearing a lifejacket. He fell into the water just before gaining the helicopter. The rescue man jumped after him and succeeded in grasping him. The winch now failed totally and another helicopter, Y 74, was called upon to rescue them. However, before Y 74 arrived, the person died.
Y 64 brought the survivor to Utö. The medical personnel on board were left to assist the Finnish nursing staff. As requested by the staff, Y 64 transported 20 survivors from Utö to Turku University Central Hospital. After this Y 64 got permission from the OSC to return to Berga to repair the broken winch, and landed there at 1530 hrs.

As for the Y64 rescue man and the reason for his award.
He worked aboard two helicopters, he was rescued by Y74 when his harness failed and replaced Y74s rescue man who was injured.

Y 74 took off from Berga at 0546 hrs. Carrying a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital, Y 74 reached the scene of the accident at 0642 hrs. Dawn had already broken. At the beginning of the operation, Y 74 found a raft containing a body with the head under water. At the same time the helicopter received a radio message that Y 64 had had to leave its rescue man in the sea. Y 74 went to assist Y 64.
Y 74 had difficulties in locating Y 64 since the OSC lacked exact information on the position of each helicopter. The Y 64 rescue man was holding onto a body, which was winched up to Y 74 with the assistance of Y 74's own rescue man. When the body had been recovered, the Y 74's rescue man fell about one metre, receiving a heavy blow from the harness to the lower part of his body. Nonetheless, he requested that he be lowered to bring up one more body. This body, however, had become badly tangled with the ropes on the raft and could not be winched up.
At this stage the pilot decided to interrupt the recovery of the body, since there might still be survivors in the sea and on rafts. Finally a spare harness was lowered to the Y 64's rescue man and used to winch him up to the helicopter. The injury to the Y 74 rescue man proved so serious that he was unable to do more. The work was continued by Y 64's rescue man.

 

[Steve]

What was Q64? have you got the designation wrong? I can't see a Q64.

Here is a link to a table showing all the aircraft involved, their details and their arrival times.

Where is Q64?

https://onse.fi/estonia/kuvat/suuren/kuva7_7s.gif

A stealth aircraft in support of the conspiracy of course. It was officially never there so naturally will not appear in any official documents.

 

[Andy_Ross]

A stealth aircraft in support of the conspiracy of course. It was officially never there so naturally will not appear in any official documents.

I worked out which helicopter it was and edited the post accordinlgy.

Here is the link to the table detailing all of the aircraft involved, their type, home base, status at the start of the emergency and arrival time at the scene plus the numbers rescued.

Only 5 of them were rescue helicopters, the remainder were ASW or patrol helicopters.

https://onse.fi/estonia/kuvat/suuren/kuva7_7s.gif

 

[Reformed Offlian]

What was Q64? have you got the designation wrong? I can't see a Q64.

Do you mean Y64?

Y 64 (Boeing Kawasaki)



As for the Y64 rescue man and the reason for his award.
He worked aboard two helicopters, he was rescued by Y74 when his harness failed and replaced Y74s rescue man who was injured.

You will, of course, be completely astonished to learn that we've been over this with Vixen already.

 

[LondonJohn]

He probably changed the range on the radar screen, not the frequency.

And Clutter_(radar)^WP is exactly what you expect to get in a storm.

Ah but there's nothing quite so good - and so confirmation-bias-reassuring - as ignorantly ascribing malevolence or misconduct to something which in actual fact is nothing more than the product of bad weather.....

 

[abaddon]

You will, of course, be completely astonished to learn that we've been over this with Vixen already.

Sure. Just as we can see that Europa was Johny on the spot from the recordings of channel 16. Vixen claims Ch 16 was somehow blocked by the evil russians. Europa had no issue, being appointed as closest responding vessel and the pivot of comms. Indeed Europa had no issue doing what it was supposed to do, and tell others to get off channel 16 to reduce radio clatter on a channel that vixen clams was blocked by the evil russians' When it plainly was not to the extent that we have recording of it.One way or the other, as unpleasant as it is, we have those recordings.

It is nobody's fault that you are unable to read. It is yours alone

 

[Vixen]

Well, not quite.

You see, when you want to talk via VHF to MRCC or Helsinki Radio, the transmission does not go through a radio tower in Helsinki or Turku - the coastal radio stations use the radio transmitter that is closest to the position of the ship. So the communication goes through the tower at Utö.

The Hogland transmitter broadcasting on Ch16 would result in noise on CH16 on the closest transmission towers to Helsinki (Espoo for example), but not on Utö. So Helsinki radio and MRCC could use VHF ch 16 and talk to the ships.

So VHF interference is not an issue.

Then EPIRB - I don't think the EPIRBs of the time had GPS built into them. that didn't happen until after 1998. So before that you had to rely on triangulation/doppler effect measurements from the satellites to get a specific position. So I'm not sure if the EPIRBs no Estonia (had they been activated) would have resulted in a position more exact compared to what Silja Europa had initially.

A modern EPIRB is of course a different thing. But so are modern ships.

Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979.

1 July 1988 (definitive agreement signed; preceding memorandums of understanding signed 23 November 1979 and 5 October 1984)

The first rescue using the technology of Cospas-Sarsat occurred in September 1982.[7][8] The definitive agreement of the organization was signed on 1 July 1988. - Wikipedia

So yes, they were in use in 1994. It is a satellite system only, so the EPIRB beacons had inbuilt GPS.

 

[Vixen]

What was Q64? have you got the designation wrong? I can't see a Q64.

Do you mean Y64?

Y 64 (Boeing Kawasaki)



As for the Y64 rescue man and the reason for his award.
He worked aboard two helicopters, he was rescued by Y74 when his harness failed and replaced Y74s rescue man who was injured.

That's correct. It should read Y64.

 

[Vixen]

Sure. Just as we can see that Europa was Johny on the spot from the recordings of channel 16. Vixen claims Ch 16 was somehow blocked by the evil russians. Europa had no issue, being appointed as closest responding vessel and the pivot of comms. Indeed Europa had no issue doing what it was supposed to do, and tell others to get off channel 16 to reduce radio clatter on a channel that vixen clams was blocked by the evil russians' When it plainly was not to the extent that we have recording of it.One way or the other, as unpleasant as it is, we have those recordings.

It is nobody's fault that you are unable to read. It is yours alone

A Mayday should not take eight minutes to get through, and then another half hour of still trying to work out the location. The parties involved clearly state they had signal problems. Couldn't get through to Sweden, the Finnish Coastguard - had to ring Helsinki radio on their NMT mobile phones.

Werner Hummel, the investigator for Meyer Werft shipbuilders, claims the entire network was down from1:02 to 1:58, and indeed Turku MRCC did not log a call with Stockholm until 2:02 (local time EET) and this fact is recorded in their operations log.

Instead of ignoring the issues with the radio signals, telecommunications and the EPIRBs and ascribing it to bad luck or incompetence, JAIC should have investigated the issue.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979.

1 July 1988 (definitive agreement signed; preceding memorandums of understanding signed 23 November 1979 and 5 October 1984)

The first rescue using the technology of Cospas-Sarsat occurred in September 1982.[7][8] The definitive agreement of the organization was signed on 1 July 1988. - Wikipedia

So yes, they were in use in 1994. It is a satellite system only, so the EPIRB beacons had inbuilt GPS.

No, not all beacons had inbuilt GPS

 

[Andy_Ross]

You don't have a ******* clue
You distort, lie and ignore sources when it suits you
You ignore and distort citations given by other posters.

What do you hope to gain by this?

 

[Vixen]

You don't have a ******* clue
You distort, lie and ignore sources when it suits you
You ignore and distort citations given by other posters.

What do you hope to gain by this?

Rude.

 

[Vixen]

EPIRB:

"Strictly, they are radiobeacons that interface with worldwide offered service of Cospas-Sarsat, the international satellite system for search and rescue (SAR). When manually activated, or automatically activated upon immersion, such beacons send out a distress signal. The signals are monitored worldwide and the location of the distress is detected by non-geostationary satellites, and can be located by some combination of GPS trilateration and doppler triangulation.[1]" https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon

 

[junkshop]

Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979.

1 July 1988 (definitive agreement signed; preceding memorandums of understanding signed 23 November 1979 and 5 October 1984)

The first rescue using the technology of Cospas-Sarsat occurred in September 1982.[7][8] The definitive agreement of the organization was signed on 1 July 1988. - Wikipedia

So yes, they were in use in 1994. It is a satellite system only, so the EPIRB beacons had inbuilt GPS.

Ahem:

EPIRBs detected by COSPAS-SARSAT (e.g. TIROS N) satellites provide rescue authorities location of distress, but location and sometimes alerting may be delayed as much as an hour or two...A new type of 406 MHz EPIRB, having an integral GPS navigation receiver, became available in 1998.

https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtEpirb

 

[phiwum]

Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979.
1 July 1988 (definitive agreement signed; preceding memorandums of understanding signed 23 November 1979 and 5 October 1984)

The first rescue using the technology of Cospas-Sarsat occurred in September 1982.[7][8] The definitive agreement of the organization was signed on 1 July 1988. - Wikipedia

So yes, they were in use in 1994. It is a satellite system only, so the EPIRB beacons had inbuilt GPS.

Are you thinking that, because they could communicate with a SAR satellite, they must have been able to interpret GPS signals? Because as far as I can tell, Cospas-Sarsat is a wholly different system of satellites than GPS and sending signals that can be picked up by the former doesn't have much to do with receiving and interpreting signals from the latter.


ETA:
Oh, for goodness sake. I recommend you read more of the military.wikia.org page you cited. You might want to focus on the section titled "Beacon Operation", specifically the subsection titled "Location by Doppler (without GPS)". It gives pretty darned good evidence that some (early?) EPIRBs didn't use GPS and that communicating with Cospas-Sarsat and GPS capabilities are just two different things.

 

[Here_to_learn]

A Mayday should not take eight minutes to get through, and then another half hour of still trying to work out the location. The parties involved clearly state they had signal problems. Couldn't get through to Sweden, the Finnish Coastguard - had to ring Helsinki radio on their NMT mobile phones.

I really don't understand why you insist to repeat this kind of text, when you have been shown wrong so many times? I've tried to post information to educate you on how VHF works, but you don't seem interested in learning, since after some time, you just loop back and repeat the same old text.

We can listen to the VHF CH16 traffic. We can read the transcripts.

We know that Estonia didn't share their position. Strictly speaking, Estonia did not even send out a complete mayday message, since that has a structured format that includes the position. But after the confirmation that Estonia were in trouble, Silja and Viking ferries checked their radar, discussed which echo was Estona, and headed in that direction. So they had a pretty good idea on where to go.

Werner Hummel, the investigator for Meyer Werft shipbuilders, claims the entire network was down from1:02 to 1:58, and indeed Turku MRCC did not log a call with Stockholm until 2:02 (local time EET) and this fact is recorded in their operations log.

The entire network of what? We are talking three different systems here. VHF, MF and NMT. Exacly what is is claiming was "down", and with it being "down", what could not happen that should have happened. Not that with the distances involved, and in a storm, VHF range is limited.

Instead of ignoring the issues with the radio signals, telecommunications and the EPIRBs and ascribing it to bad luck or incompetence, JAIC should have investigated the issue.

Why should we care about your opinion on what JAIC should have done? You have shown many times in this thread that you have no knowledge and understanding of marine radio traffic, mayday protocols and EPIRBs.