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

[zooterkin]

Why do some posters think deliberate lying is an acceptable form of debate?

• The float free type (automatic activation):
• KANNAD 406 F/P: Container made of polyester with an internal membrane (CAL87).
• KANNAD 406 FH/PH: Container fitted with a HAMMAR release system (CAL 89).

Attached is the image of what it looks like. Compare and contrast with the one Koivisto has at his presentation.

I believe you are quoting from a manual of a later date than the sinking of the Estonia. Please find a contemporaneous reference showing the specifications of the 406-F that were on board.

 

[zooterkin]

From google:

"What is float free EPIRB?
Float-free Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (FF EPIRBs) are water-activated distress beacons fitted in a float-free bracket. They are designed to activate when a vessel capsizes to a depth of 1–4 metres. They use a hydrostatic release function and a water activated switch."

And where are you quoting that from? What year was that manual printed?

 

[Mojo]

…the Marquess of Bow Belle riverboat disaster…

The what?

 

[Vixen]

No-one has claimed that, Vixen , and you know that.

You claimed, back in post #1171, that



Various posters have repeatedly told you that GPS enabled EPIRBs were not available until 1998, not that "satellite identification of location was impossible before 1998".

Whether you are being deliberately dishonest, or merely struggling to comprehend, I don't know, and don't care to speculate.

I was obviously quoting the YLE article, which used that term.

On 27 January 1995, the navigation expert Asser Koivisto in Helsinki presented his study of Estonia's EPIRB buoys: radio buoys on the command bridge which, in floating position, are to start transmitting an exact GPS position and trigger a major international alarm.

YLE/svenska

So the journalists used a colloqualism but everybody knew what they meant. It is not the end of the world if they used the technically inaccurate term to describe satellite communication involved which did exist at the time.

 

[junkshop]

And where are you quoting that from? What year was that manual printed?

It's from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. There are no dates, but it appears to be current.

 

[junkshop]

I was obviously quoting the YLE article, which used that term.

YLE/svenska

So the journalists used a colloqualism but everybody knew what they meant. It is not the end of the world if they used the technically inaccurate term to describe satellite communication involved which did exist at the time.

No you were not. Your post #1171:

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.

quotes wikipedia, nothing else. The claim that EPIRBs had 'inbuilt GPS' in 1994 is yours. The error is yours.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

Stop making up strawman claims which nobody has made. It's dishonest.

 

[Andy_Ross]

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.

From the report Chapter 16 Analysis of the evacuation
Section 16.4
"Some individual crew members, however, took responsibility and initiative for alarming, and organised the evacuation locally by guiding passengers, helping, arranging human chains, distributing lifejackets and releasing liferafts. Divers' findings of ropes and a lifeboat rope ladder down the staircase aft at deck 6 are further evidence of efforts led by crew members to rescue those inside."

(Snipped speculation on behaviour of individual crew member)

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.

Again from the same section of the report
"Individual members of the deck and engine crew, however, took responsibility for passengers and fellow crew members. Some of these crew members, including two who did not survive, made heroic contributions and were very active, apparently disregarding their own safety. Passengers also helped and supported each other, often sticking together in twos or in small groups. A few especially energetic and active passengers also helped to organise and to direct others."

 

[Andy_Ross]

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.

I suggest you read chapter 16 of the report.

https://onse.fi/estonia/chapt16.html#4 Analysis of the evacuation.

 

[Andy_Ross]

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.

Where have I claimed that?

We know how the system works. You are the one that suggested GPS was involved.
It was pointed out that the system did not integrate GPS until after 1998.
Until that time the position of the buoy had to be triangulated by satellite before it could be located.
This still has to happen even when the buoy sends a GPS location, it just speeds the process up from several hours to under an hour.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The JAIC report very plainly states they were Kannad-406 F type. That is, automatically activated and housed in casing with an HRU.

No the F was not an automatic buoy.
You haven't shown that.
It is stated in the report that the buoys were found switched off floating in the sea.

When activated they worked as they should.

If they were automatic they would have activated on release and they would have been found discharged.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Suppose the damage to the ship was so intense the bridge had no time to make a Mayday and zero time to execute an evacuation of the passengers? The Bridge could hear all of the walkie-talkie messages and also see the same screen monitors as the engineers in the engine control rooms in the hull. The persons in the ECR saw the ramp was shut and claimed to have seen water coming in at the sides. Problem is, the sides constantly leaked in rainy weather so who knows whether that was due to the usual rainy weather or the bow visor off. Nobody saw the bow visor fall off. A couple of Estonian athletes claimed to have climbed down the car ramp, so it must have been shut. Linde had been in the car deck before doing his watch rouind to the upper deck. Unfortunately, he has changed his timeline so many times he cannot be held to be a credible witness.

They did have time to send a mayday message.

They sent several and they were received by both ships and shore stations in the area.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It was COSPAS-SASART enabled using AIUI six weather station satellites for pinpointing location. COSPAS-SOSART was invented 1979. Stop claiming satellite identification of location was impossible before 1998.

That has not been claimed.
You are the one that brought GPS in to it.
That was not available on the buoys before 1998

 

[Andy_Ross]

If a ship had GDMSS then it will have had no problems with automaitcally activated EPIRBs and in fact manually operated ones would have been pointless, except as a man-overboard spare. There is hardly any point having an HRU if the thing needs to be removed manually for it to work.

The buoys are nothing to do with navigation.
They were manual because that is all the operating company supplied to the ship.

They are never used for man overboard.
If an EPIRB was used for man overboard it would be a serious misuse of the system.

If the only cage or container supplied by the manufacturer for the model range is automatic then it has to be used.
.

 

[Andy_Ross]

They do not all release the same way.

In that model range they do.

What other models may do doesn't matter.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Citation please where they say this.

In the report.
They state the damage found.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The massive rupture in the starboard side? The reports by apx 39 out of 79 passenger plus the third and fourth engineer plus A.B. watch reporting a bang or more often a series of bangs and collision effect, enough to slam them into walls and off their feet? The unregistered lorry on board with number plates not matching any registered driver? The bow visor falling off because of waves and not anything else...at Swedish midnight, midday through the journey and as the watch on the Bridge was changing...?


Seriously?

What 'massive rupture'?

You mean the one above the waterline?

Are we going back to the 'collision effects' and being thrown off feet again?

What is your evidence for the unregistered lorry?

Where is it claimed the bow visor fell off because of 'waves and nothing else'?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The vast majority of those 137 survived thanks to their own efforts and the good luck (?) to have been on the top deck at the time, either in the bar or asleep on the cafeteria benches near the promenade deck, the others being Deck 1 passengers just on the deck above the hull who heard the bangs loud and clear, saw water seeping in and got the hell out.

Chapter 16
From Section 16.1 Start of the evacuation

Many passengers, especially in cabins on deck 1 and in forward cabins on other decks, heard, during about 10 minutes, metallic sounds which they gradually found abnormal and alarming. These sounds frightened some of them. A few witnesses left their cabins, certain that something was amiss. Some left to investigate and others for the open deck 7.
The majority of passengers and crew members, however, were not alarmed until the more powerful blows before the first heel. The noise and the subsequent list obviously made them immediately recognise the situation as life-threatening. Many then escaped hastily and without taking the time to put on proper clothing. The reaction pattern varied, however, and some passengers, although alarmed, did not seem to believe or grasp the seriousness of the situation, or could find no options for rational action.
Most passengers and crew members were thus alarmed by the accident itself and started to seek the open decks spontaneously and, in most cases, individually. Alarm signals seem not to have had any significance for the passengers or for most of the crew.

From 16.6 Passengers' and crew members reactions

A majority of those rescued, however, seem to have grasped the seriousness of the situation when the blows and the list came. They also promptly understood what to do and thus reacted clearly and appropriately. Not without fear they yet managed to remain rational and to move effectively.
Many elderly people were seen making no or only faint efforts to escape. A great number of people were panicking, i.e. behaving without control, and screaming. Some of these were moving but not in a rational or purposeful way. Others were apathetic and some only held on to something without making further efforts to save themselves.
A number of people were shocked and seemingly unable to understand what was going on or what to do. Some of these seem to have been incapable of rational thought or behaviour because of their fear, and screamed or moaned helplessly; others appeared petrified and could not be forced to move. Some panicking, apathetic and shocked people were beyond reach and did not react when other passengers tried to guide them, not even when they used force or shouted at them. Other people tried to escape but lacked the strength to continue climbing, became exhausted and held onto handrails, blocking the way for others.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If they were HRU-automatically activated Epirbs and the model Kannad-406F indicates they were,

Where is it indicated that the buoy itself was automatic?

together with the divers retrieving the HRU that would have triggered activation, both to free float them and to emit a beam tot he satellite system,

Why would they have emitted a beam when they were manual only?

then the question needs to be asked, how come they did not activate but were instead found two days later covered in sand near Dirhami about 200km away? They were found to not be 'switched on', yet if the crew had not manually removed them and switched them on, then they should have done so automatically anyway on being submerged. Marine expert Asser Koivisto in a YLE article said they had not been tuned. Who knows if something was lost in translation but the Finnish for 'switched on' is not he same word as 'turned' or 'to set' or to 'activate' but definitely has electronic connotations.

They were not found 'covered in sand' they were recovered separately by two different fishing boats floating in the water.

As they were not automatic they would not have switched themselves on.
that is why when they were switched on they were found to be operating correctly and broadcast a signal for over four hours.

All of them are switched off until either turned on by a crew member or immersed in water.
There is no other way of disabling them.
they are sealed units, they do not need to be set to be activated or tuned.

From the report
Chapter 8
Section 8.1 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 be 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."

https://onse.fi/estonia/chapt08_6.html#5

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is not a CT site. It is merely an individual or individuals trying to make a scholarly attempt at understanding the disaster. The JAIC narrative is a descriptive one as far as it goes. However, what comes into your mind reading that? The vessel was out of control. Captain Andresson was Russian naval school trained. He was a stickler for discipline, not laissez-faire. What happened to Captain Andresson?

His actions do not agree with your description of him.

He may have been a 'stickler for discipline' but as we can see from his handling of the emergency and the state of training of his crew he was not a good captain.