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

[Andy_Ross]

For crying out loud. Putting out an emergency call at 01:20 when anyone still left inside had virtually zero chance of escape is not an evacuation by any stretch of imagination.

Which is down to the incompetence of the command team on the ship.

If you had read the report you would know that by the time the lifeboat alarm was sounded passengers were already being helped by the crew to get to the upper decks and some already had life jackets on and were releasing life rafts.
SOme of the crew and passengers weren't as stupid as the officers in charge it seems.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

For crying out loud. Putting out an emergency call at 01:20 when anyone still left inside had virtually zero chance of escape is not an evacuation by any stretch of imagination.

Did anyone claim a mayday call is an evacuation? I didn't see that claimed.

 

[JayUtah]

The HRU's are standardised for the automatically activated Epirbs.

Because they all use the same plastic body and therefore all release in the same way, regardless of what turns them on. Releasing is not the same as turning it on.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is not for me to show sabotage. That should have been the JAIC's responsibility.

Considering the evidence was their responsibility. They did not see sabotage.

 

[JayUtah]

It is not for me to show sabotage. That should have been the JAIC's responsibility.

You're claiming sabotage. If you're the one arguing sabotage, it's absolutely up to you to prove it with evidence, regardless of what some other body did or didn't do.

 

[Andy_Ross]

They were stored side by side, along with the other tools recovered.


I am guessing the other Epirb was on the other side of the bridge.


Remember: the Epirb itself was missing.

Both of the buoys were in containers on the top of the bridge wings.
They are in positions where they have nothing overhead and one each side of the superstructure so they have a better chance of floating free if the ship sinks.

Even automatic buoys are supposed to be taken out of their containers, activated and released by the crew. This is to ensure they are properly released as after the ship sinks there is a good chance they will become snagged or trapped and not reach the surface if the automatic deployment is relied on. It is a backup, not the main method of use.

Man Overboard buoys and beacons are also on the bridge wing where they can be quickly released if an alarm is sounded.

On RN ships when the sea is cutting up a bit a lookout is always posted on the wing and assigned the duty of releasing the MOB if the alarm sounds.

They are nothing to do with the EPIRB system.

 

[LondonJohn]

The Rockwater Report clearly states:

This really has entered the world of the absurd and incomprehensible now.

Do you not even read the quotes you're providing?

Here's the quote you provided (together with your own highlighting):

Also under the direction of the authorities, divers accessed the Bridge of the vessel and retrieved a number of navigational aids, a man-overboard beacon and the hydrostatic release mechanism for one of the vessel’s EPIRB beacons. The bodies of 3 of the victims of the disaster were found on the Bridge.

Now, Vixen: have another read of those words you highlighted. Pay particular attention to the third of those highlighted words: the word "release".

Because that word "release" refers specifically - and solely - to the physical detachment of a buoy from its housing. Nothing more or less than that. The words "the hydrostatic release mechanism" refer specifically - and solely - to the automatic immersion-triggered mechanism that untethered the buoys from their attachment points on the ship, thereby allowing them to rise back up to the surface and remain surfaced even though the ship itself sank.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the activation of the buoys' circuitry and transceivers. The EPIRBs on the Estonia (while they did have automatic hydrostatic release mechanisms) did not have any form of automatic "switching on" mechanism - they had to be switched on manually by a crew member. And we know this with absolute certainty: firstly, because the JAIC Report explicitly make reference to it; and secondly, because we know that the relevant international regulatory body SOLAS acted directly upon the knowledge that no crew member aboard the Estonia remembered to manually switch on the EPIRBs, to make it mandatory for EPIRBs to be automatically activated from that point onwards.


Quite how you can interpret the words "the hydrostatic release mechanism" to mean "the hydrostatic activation mechanism" is totally beyond all reason and comprehension. Especially when the truth of this matter has been explained to you - and demonstrated with reference to primary-source evidence - time and time again within this thread.

 

[LondonJohn]

Rationalisation, rationalisation. You do know that there were about 300 people who escaped the ship? Most of them died from hypothermia or drowning, or other serious internal injuries. 137 are just the ones who came out alive, 58 of whom were crew.

Yes, I know. That's precisely why I wrote "...137 people were rescued and survived". Please try reading my posts properly before attempting a response/rebuttal.

You are far from well-informed.

LOL

(By the way, Vixen: do you have anything to say wrt all the other things I covered off in that post of mine which you were addressing above)

 

[LondonJohn]

As soon as it was submerged in a 40°, which was shortly after 01:00, instead of which the Swedish naval base was alerted a whole one hour later.

Given how fast the ship sank, the circumstances: networks apparently down, Channel 16 weak and interference, Captains of nearby ship having to use NMT mobile phones instead, zero evacuation of the passengers - and this cannot have just been the crew's fault, everybody was taken completely by surprise; you can hear it in the voice of the Europa Captain, 'Estonia, are you calling...Mayday?' - the JAIC should have investigated the possibility of sabotage instead of writing off all of these issues as just one of those things.

The JAIC investigators knew full well how and why the Estonia sank. They knew the cause with total certainty. Their certainty was based upon a proper understanding of all of the available evidence, together with their collective expertise, experience and intellect.

They didn't do what you're doing - which is to jump to a conclusion and then look for "evidence" to support your conclusion. Instead, they collected all the relevant evidence and testimony first, and then used that evidence/testimony to arrive at a conclusion.

All the things you've listed in your second paragraph above are nothing more than a mixture of falsehoods, misunderstandings and ignorance.

 

[BazBear]

It is not for me to show sabotage. That should have been the JAIC's responsibility.

So their job is to find sabotage, no matter what the evidence shows? They didn't find any evidence of sabotage because there was no evidence of sabotage, no matter how desperately you want there to be.

 

[LondonJohn]

Stop lying. He said:

"Strangely, I seem to recall that 137 people were rescued and survived."


Out of almost 1,000 people on the ship it is a stupid comment, as if that shows the rescue effort was a success, when even of those 300 or so who got onto a life raft about half of them perished anyway.

How ignorant to consider rescue of 137 (58 of whom were crew, many of whom were well-prepared), so jusy 79 passengers.

Stop personalising your comments. Your persistent reading comprehension jibe is childish and pathetic, better suited to the playground.

*sigh*

1) You stated, wrt the people aboard the Estonia: "They had zero hope of rescue"

2) I responded to that statement of yours by pointing out that in fact 137 people had been rescued and survived.

3) My statement of fact therefore totally negates and nullifies your statement that there was zero hope of rescue.


I feel like we're in some sort of parallel universe by this point in time..........

 

[Andy_Ross]

Just to note, the EPIRB cage recovered by the divers was not inside the bridge.

It states in the report:

The EPIRB beacon cages were traced on top of the bridge and one was recovered. They were both open and empty.

 

[LondonJohn]

They were stored side by side, along with the other tools recovered.


I am guessing the other Epirb was on the other side of the bridge.


Remember: the Epirb itself was missing.

Why on Earth do you (apparently) think that the EPIRBs should have been still attached to the ship after it had sunk?

Do you actually know what EPIRBs are, what their intended purpose is, and what needs to happen in order for them to be used for their intended purpose? Because your continuing attempts to imply that the EPIRBs' absence from the wreck of the Estonia is somehow indicative of malpractice/subterfuge..... strongly suggests otherwise.

 

[Axxman300]

As soon as it was submerged in a 40°, which was shortly after 01:00, instead of which the Swedish naval base was alerted a whole one hour later.

Given how fast the ship sank, the circumstances: networks apparently down, Channel 16 weak and interference, Captains of nearby ship having to use NMT mobile phones instead, zero evacuation of the passengers - and this cannot have just been the crew's fault, everybody was taken completely by surprise; you can hear it in the voice of the Europa Captain, 'Estonia, are you calling...Mayday?' - the JAIC should have investigated the possibility of sabotage instead of writing off all of these issues as just one of those things.

JAIC didn't write it off as "just one of those things". There was no evidence of sabotage and thus no reason to investigate every daft theory that comes along.

Let's get stupid and say it was sabotage, had the crew done its job more people would have got to the lifeboats.

and this cannot have just been the crew's fault, everybody was taken completely by surprise

No **** Sherlock.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited for rule 10

But they only had themselves to blame. The crewman phoned the bridge after the loud bang which was followed by excessive water surging past the ramp on the car deck. There was no damage-control party sent forward to inspect the situation, the captain had engineering check TV monitors - which in 1994 is criminally stupid. My job is monitoring 12 security cameras, and we're on our second evolution of this technology since 2005. The new cameras are a vast improvement on the ones they replaced, and I can't imagine the resolution on Estonia's cameras.

And even with our cameras I still have to physically inspect the property as they only reveal so much.

The decision to use cameras to monitor the situation on the car deck signed Estonia's death warrant.

The MAYDAY call came almost forty minutes too late. The closest Swedish naval base was well over an hour away.

You really need to familiarize yourself with the basic facts of this disaster.

The Estonia was sailing TOO FAST directly into the waves in that storm.

After having passed the breakwater (see Chapter 19) ESTONIA proceeded between the mainland and the Island Nayssaar and - after having passed the buoy off Suurupi Lighthouse - altered course to 262° on the gyro-compass. This was confirmed by passenger Anders Ericson, who had been on the bridge between 20.00 - 20.30 hours ET - see his statement Enclosure 20.239 - and saw the course digitally shown to be 262°, which is actually the true course to the waypoint on 59°20' N; 022°00' E. He also realised that the wind speed was then already 20 m/sec.
The apparent fact that ESTONIA had taken her normal route was further confirmed by the observations of the meeting vessel AMBER. The M.V. AMBER is a Polish Ro-Ro vessel, then on voyage from Gdynia to Helsinki when she met ESTONIA. The watch officer of AMBER has only recently been traced and questioned.
According to his testimony AMBER passed ESTONIA at 22.15/20 hours CET = 23.15/20 hours Estonian time. ESTONIA was on a course of about 260/265°, at a position about 18 nm before the waypoint on 59°20'N; 022°00'E. She was running apparently on full speed against heavy head seas which the watch mate on board of AMBER described as follows:

»The ferry was brightly illuminated and appeared to proceed against wind and sea at full speed, which I could hardly believe. According to data from the ARPA her speed was about 18-19 kn. She was pitching heavily and I saw how she was taking a lot of water on the forecastle deck which smashed against the superstructure and was thrown up to the bridge windows and spray was all over the vessel. When her bow smashed into the waves I had the impression that she almost stopped and subsequently built up speed again when the foreship rose. In my opinion those in charge on the bridge of the ESTONIA must have been crazy, absolutely incompetent and inexperienced. I had never seen anything like this before.«

Source: https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/estonia final report/Contents.htm

[I even used a CT site for you.]

Sorry, but Estonia sank as a direct result of the actions of the command crew and the engineering crew...or lack thereof in this case...

 

[Axxman300]

Stop lying. He said:

"Strangely, I seem to recall that 137 people were rescued and survived."


Out of almost 1,000 people on the ship it is a stupid comment, as if that shows the rescue effort was a success, when even of those 300 or so who got onto a life raft about half of them perished anyway.

How ignorant to consider rescue of 137 (58 of whom were crew, many of whom were well-prepared), so jusy 79 passengers.

Stop personalising your comments. Your persistent reading comprehension jibe is childish and pathetic, better suited to the playground.

Excuse me, but the rescue of the 137 was no small feet. Putting helicopters in the sky over those seas was dangerous. Putting rescue swimmers in the water in those seas was dangerous. Keeping the other ferries on station in those seas was dangerous.

Hats off to everyone involved in those rescues.

 

[Vixen]

The Herald of Free Enterprise got into trouble and sank until it hit the bottom in a couple of minutes. How long did it take the Estonia's sinking to progress as far as that?

Stop lying.

The ship left harbour with her bow door open, and the sea immediately flooded the decks; within minutes, she was lying on her side in shallow water.

The ship ended up on her side half-submerged in shallow water 1 kilometre (0.5 nmi; 0.6 mi) from the shore. Only a fortuitous turn to starboard in her last moments, and then capsizing on a sandbar, prevented the ship from sinking entirely in much deeper water.

wiki

 

[Vixen]

Which is down to the incompetence of the command team on the ship.

If you had read the report you would know that by the time the lifeboat alarm was sounded passengers were already being helped by the crew to get to the upper decks and some already had life jackets on and were releasing life rafts.
SOme of the crew and passengers weren't as stupid as the officers in charge it seems.

No, they were not 'being helped by crew', they made they own way to the upper decks. It was utter chaos. Sure, Silver Linde mentions he helped an elderly couple to their feet and he helped someone out of the water into a life raft, but hey, so would any normal passerby. Lucky Linde, he was dry and warm on his own raft with his fellow crew before the Mayday was even sent. Unlike 95% of the passengers. Sounds to me as though he wasted no time getting out of there.

Certainly wasn't around to help the passengers! Lucky Sillaste to have escaped at 1:30 via the funnel on the other side...and to have the good fortune of climbing aboard Silve, Treu and Kadak's raft which by amazing good luck happened to be passing by just that moment.

I don't blame the crew but I don't think they were any use either as far as the passenger were concerned. You have a strange idea as to what 'evacuation' means.

 

[Vixen]

Excuse me, but the rescue of the 137 was no small feet. Putting helicopters in the sky over those seas was dangerous. Putting rescue swimmers in the water in those seas was dangerous. Keeping the other ferries on station in those seas was dangerous.

Hats off to everyone involved in those rescues.

We were talking about timeliness of evacuation and rescue. Most survivors after their terrible ordeal of having to jump 20 feet into a raging sea in the pitch black of night, some fatally wounded as they hit the side or a propeller, sinking right down and then struggling to resurface, swimming like crazy, too weak to climb the high sides of the life raft, reliant on others to pull them up (in the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Marquess of Bow Belle riverboat disaster, men were trampling over women, in the former, they had to be shot to stop them getting into the boats ahead of women and children, there were mass brawls in the life boats as those inside, resented anyone else embarking in case they capsized all together, people were shooting each other), after all that, having to wait hours for rescue as huge waves lapped over them every few minutes throwing them out. Sole Brit Paul Barney was rescued some six hours later. He had one of the lowest body temperatures the hospitals had ever seen. (Hypothermia). Saving just 79 passengers was tragic. No small feat but not a particularly successful one either, thanks to all the signal blockages, rapidity of sinking and zero evacuation.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Stop lying.



wiki

Stop evading. It's not a difficult question and you do insist you have no problem with comprehension.

Let me try once more. You say the Estonia sank faster than could be considered "normal". So compare it to the HOFE. That ship listed and sank until its further descent was halted by the shallow bank it was steered towards. How long did it take the Estonia to list and sink as far into the water as that? Was it less time or was it, as everyone else knows, many times as long?

 

[Vixen]

An EPIRB with an Integral GPS navigation receiver didn't become available until 1998

COSPAS SARSAT was invented circa 1979 and the international treaty fully operative by 1988. Stop falsely claiming satellite signals were not available to pinpoint location and that there was no such thing as an automatically activated EPIRBs.