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

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JayUtah said:
Imagine having to be the one to get out and turn off the EPIRBs when you submerge.
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Tou just have to be careful.
That’s why the Swedes built their submarine sails so high.
That way the submarine can dive deeper, while still keeping the EPIRBS in less than 4 meters depth. They’re rather smart that way, you know. 😊
 
erwinl said:
Tou just have to be careful.
That’s why the Swedes built their submarine sails so high.
That way the submarine can dive deeper, while still keeping the EPIRBS in less than 4 meters depth. They’re rather smart that way, you know. ��
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Right, and the EPIRBs got knocked off when the Swedish submarine leapt out of the water to strike the ship above the waterline, after the Russian commandos set off the radioactive cesium being carried in the car deck.

ELTs for aviation use work the same way, using the same frequencies and ground networks. They can be activated manually, of course, but they're mostly meant to activate on strong impact, such as in a crash. The key point is that they're a secondary alert system. Normally an aircraft in distress will indicate this to air traffic control, which will already know the aircraft's position from radar. This radio communication often uses 121.500 MHz, which has been the emergency radio frequency since back when I was in flight school. The ELT at 406 MHz becomes the primary alert only in sudden catastrophic situations like midair breakup, where the flight crew does not have the opportunity to communicate by radio.

After Estonia had radioed their position and been acknowledged, it's not really necessary to activate the EPIRBs. We know why they floated free; its how the hydrostatic release unit operates, whether the buoys themselves are turned on. The case for sabotage here is nonexistent. The conventional narrative fits the facts like a glove.
 
JayUtah said:
Right, and the EPIRBs got knocked off when the Swedish submarine leapt out of the water to strike the ship above the waterline, after the Russian commandos set off the radioactive cesium being carried in the car deck.

ELTs for aviation use work the same way, using the same frequencies and ground networks. They can be activated manually, of course, but they're mostly meant to activate on strong impact, such as in a crash. The key point is that they're a secondary alert system. Normally an aircraft in distress will indicate this to air traffic control, which will already know the aircraft's position from radar. This radio communication often uses 121.500 MHz, which has been the emergency radio frequency since back when I was in flight school. The ELT at 406 MHz becomes the primary alert only in sudden catastrophic situations like midair breakup, where the flight crew does not have the opportunity to communicate by radio.

After Estonia had radioed their position and been acknowledged, it's not really necessary to activate the EPIRBs. We know why they floated free; its how the hydrostatic release unit operates, whether the buoys themselves are turned on. The case for sabotage here is nonexistent. The conventional narrative fits the facts like a glove.
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Ah yes, but here's the thing: the "beauty" of conspiracy theories (and their practitioners) is that it's always possible to pull out the "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" gambit.

So in this instance, you and I and most others here and anyone who actually knows anything about the subject....... understand everything you've written above, both in general principle and as it applies specifically to the Estonia disaster. And we all know & understand perfectly that this combination of knowledge, evidence and analysis is a) wholly consistent with the official explanation of the disaster and its causes, and b) entirely inconsistent with anything such as sabotage, subterfuge or cover-up.

But the conspiracy theorist will simply respond by accusing all of us of 1) not understanding the subject sufficiently (often accompanied by the conspiracy theorist herself being privy to "special" levels of information and understanding that the rest of us don't have...); and/or 2) doing nothing more than parroting the bogus misdirection that the powers-that-be want the sheeple like us to lap up.


And that's precisely why, even though events such as the JFK assassination, the Moon landings, and the 9/11 attacks are now extremely well-understood, and their causes can effectively be proven by evidence and the application of the scientific method...... there are still sizeable (though ever-dwindling, fortunately) groups of CTers who either close their eyes and ears to the rational analysis, or are incapable of understanding things properly.

Thus, in the matter of the Estonia disaster, I predict that there will always be a small cadre of people who have convinced themselves that they (and only they) have had the brilliance and insight to see past the misdirection of "The Man", and have uncovered a monstrous conspiracy that was behind the real cause of the disaster.
 
JayUtah said:
Right, and the EPIRBs got knocked off when the Swedish submarine leapt out of the water to strike the ship above the waterline, after the Russian commandos set off the radioactive cesium being carried in the car deck.
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Was this before or after they hijacked the bridge and shot someone?

It was definitely before they escaped onboard a minisub seen slinking away into the water.

There was clearly some sort of screwup with the EPIRBs because they were found in the roof structure of the bridge, floating in the sea and also on a beach 200km away. I think 2 different black ops teams planted decoy EPIRBs in different locations while the Spetsnaz commandos on board the Estonia left the actual EPIRBs on the ship which floated free and got caught in the bridge. Someone screwed up.
 
I doubt this will happen, but it would be nice if the CURRENT Estonia investigation set aside resources to evaluate the original investigation and the actions of the Swedish Government in this matter in order to help future disaster investigations be more transparent, and avoid the emergence of CTs.

I understand that there are always unanswered questions, most of which are not worth the time and or effort to address, but at the very least the easier ones should be put to bed by the experts as soon as they pop up before they can faster into a CT soup.

I wasn't knowledgeable about the Estonia disaster, but in the months this subject has been on this board I have taken the time to read the report, news paper stories, and hours of YouTube videos of which the most important being the original diver/ROV footage. The damage at the bow is OBVIOUS, there is zero evidence of the use of explosives of any kind. The modeling of the sinking using both computers and scale models is consistent with what we know happened. The fracture of the hull came after the ship sank, the fact that it has opened up directly along a seem in the hull plating indicates (from my untrained eye) a stress fracture. The fracture is directly above a rocky outcrop which shows evidence of grinding as the hull has shifted on the bottom over the almost three decades, and Marine Geology is my thing.

Estonia sank due to the negligence of the captain and crew who made poor choices at every step of the final voyage.

I suppose if I lost family on the ship I'd want better answers, but that would mean I live in a country where Ro-Ro ferries are common, and something I personally use from time to time, and the idea that those nice people working the boat might not be of any help during a disaster is a tough pill top swallow. For some it is easier to put blame on shadowy spies, and faceless government entities than it is to accept that sometimes the wrong people are put in charge of the safety of human life.
 
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The Estonian service electricians inspected the buoys' activities about a week before the accident and by then those had been operating normally. Those Kannad 406-F (=free-floating) were tested as follows: the buoy's "cage" was carefully opened and the buoy was raised. When the indicator light started flashing, the cap was opened and the switch was turned to the OFF position. In that case, the signal would not yet have emitted. At the time there was no test button.

Both EPIRBs in Estonia were turned off when found, would the buoys have been left untuned after the test?

That is the implication: either the ship's electricians omitted to tune the buoys or they were tuned but were removed.

They were HRU-triggered so the puzzle is why they did not activate on being hydrostatically released? Asser Koivisto* says they were not 'tuned'.

From HS:
Estonia's emergency buoys were forgotten tuning

The two emergency buoys of the car ferry Estonia did not send a signal to the rescuers because they had not been tuned on board. Emergency buoys burst to the surface properly as the ship sank.

Turma's International Commission of Inquiry has investigated the activities of the emergency buoys that drifted off the Estonian coast. The buoys' batteries were fully charged, but they could not send anything untuned, says Commissioner Kari Lehtola.

The committee closed the two-day meeting on Friday in Helsinki.

The so-called EPIRB emergency buoys had been recently serviced and had been placed in place in accordance with the rules. However, during the installation phase, the activation of the buoys was forgotten: the protective cover must be opened and turned on the coupling head. Activation of the emergency buoy was one of the tasks of radio electricians in Estonia, of which there were two on board.
The investigation is still ongoing, but the Commission has consulted the radio electrician on the matter, said Asser Koivisto, the Commission's expert.
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Please note: it is not possible to switch it on and then switch it off without having emitted a signal, unless this is done immediately.

If the epirb was manually activated only, it would not have been in an HRU and there would have been no call for an investigation by JAIC.

Four communications blackouts re the Estonia

  1. Channel 16 - see tanscript of mayday calls - weak to non-existent
  2. the EPIRBs HRU-activated but no signal to COSPAS-SASART
  3. the Captain of Mariella used his NMT mobile phone to ring MRCC Turku coastguard as the radio was down
  4. the MRCC at Turku did not get through to Stockholm until 0202
  5. Helsinki Radio put out a pan-pan at 1:54 - AFTER the ship had already sunk.
  6. MRCC Turku and Mariella in their police statements say they had problems getting Estonia on radar.


There was definitely a mysterious communications blackout surrounding the Estonia. If you look at this interview in in 2008 with Captain Jan-Tore Thörnroos, then Captain of the MS Mariella - which was just nine kilometres away so there should not have been a problem with Channel 16, but there was - he also highlights problems with the radar. Mariella had just had a new system fitted, running parallel with the old yet Thörnroos could not get an image (cf MRCC Turku who had the sonar image of Mariella, Europa and Isabelle, but could not capture Estonia, except later very momentarily, an image almost off screen where she was later found to have been located).

See 2:17 minutes in.




Why did the JAIC not treat this as suspicious? Because information was classified and withheld from them. JAIC understood this so played along with the 'safe explanation' and stuck rigidly to the The Herald of Free Enterprise framework. One only has to read their treatment of the mayday and epirbs to realise they did not treat these as an important facet of the investigation as they steered well clear of any suggestion of sabotage. There is zero mention of the 'nine Estonian crew survivors, including senior officers of the crew' when one would have expected at least a couple of sentences explaining how they came to be erroneously considered 'survivors'.

It is clear the JAIC rather than explain any of the communications problems other than in a superficial descriptive narrative way avoided it completely rather than draw attention to the possibility of intentional sinking.


*In Finland, once a year, we have a national 'jealousy day', when all the top tax payers are listed (= rich list). Every citizen's taxable earnings are listed for those who care to look. In Finland Proper yesterday, we saw Asser Koivisto in 13th place and his wife in 10th place, having paid something like €1m in tax between them (the really big earners are centred around Helsinki). So much for the claim Koivisto is no marine expert when his marine communications business is flourishing.
 
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Vixen said:
Every citizen's taxable earnings are listed for those who care to look. In Finland Proper yesterday, we saw Asser Koivisto in 13th place...
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He is rich...

So much for the claim Koivisto is no marine expert when his marine communications business is flourishing.
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...therefore he is a subject-matter expert. What stunning logic this is.
 
JayUtah said:
He is rich...



...therefore he is a subject-matter expert. What stunning logic this is.
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Nope, he is an expert because he is a marine expert in marine telecommunications and intelligence. He supplies the Finnish Defence forces with AIS systems. Merit=money (as in profit).

You were the one who claimed he was no expert.
 
Vixen said:
Nope, he is an expert because he is a marine expert in marine telecommunications and intelligence.
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Circular reasoning.

He supplies the Finnish Defence forces with AIS systems.
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His company supplies such things. That doesn't make him a subject-matter expert in emergency systems. The people who work for him who actually design, build, at test AIS would probably be considered subject-matter experts in AIS, and possibly other kinds of equipment. Did his company make the EPIRBs fitted to Estonia?

Merit=money (as in profit).
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Converting the conditional. Are there other possible antecedents for prosperity?

You were the one who claimed he was no expert.
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I made no such claim. You're the one posturing him as a subject-matter expert in the EPIRBs fitted to Estonia. I'm simply conducting voir dire on that claim. So far all you've been able to substantiate is that he's a successful businessman.
 
JayUtah said:
Circular reasoning.



His company supplies such things. That doesn't make him a subject-matter expert in emergency systems. The people who work for him who actually design, build, at test AIS would probably be considered subject-matter experts in AIS, and possibly other kinds of equipment. Did his company make the EPIRBs fitted to Estonia?



Converting the conditional. Are there other possible antecedents for prosperity?



I made no such claim. You're the one posturing him as a subject-matter expert in the EPIRBs fitted to Estonia. I'm simply conducting voir dire on that claim. So far all you've been able to substantiate is that he's a successful businessman.
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It is a family business. He is not some venture capitalist whose expertise is in investments and the stockmarkets, buying out firms and selling them on.
 
Vixen said:
It is a family business. He is not some venture capitalist whose expertise is in investments and the stockmarkets, buying out firms and selling them on.
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Straw man. Are there other antecedents to wealth besides merit? Does his 15-person company make EPIRBs? Did it make the EPIRBs fitted on Estonia?

By the way, the company of which I am part owner has several times employees than his, has global sales presence, and is considerably profitable. But I am not even remotely a millionaire. Does that make me not a subject-matter expert? Are you very wealthy? If not, are you not a subject-matter expert in accountancy?
 
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Vixen said:
It is a family business.
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So?

He is not some venture capitalist whose expertise is in investments and the stockmarkets, buying out firms and selling them on.
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Nobody said anything about him being a venture or vulture capitalist.

It's remarkable how often you trout out these odd little strawmen.

"<person x> is not <some strawman nobody claimed they were>"
 
Vixen said:
... Those Kannad 406-F (=free-floating) ...
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What's your source for "F" = free-floating? They all float, and floating free is due to the design of the holder rather than the buoy itself. Are you sure the F in the model name doesn't mean it's fitted with a flashing beacon?
 
Vixen said:
Both EPIRBs in Estonia were turned off when found, would the buoys have been left untuned after the test?

That is the implication: either the ship's electricians omitted to tune the buoys or they were tuned but were removed.
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You and several others previously linked to a 2006 maintenance manual for Kannad EPIRBs. Here's a link again in case you need it: https://manualzz.com/doc/7067387/kannad-406-epirbs-maintenance-procedure

Please show us where it describes a procedure for the users to "tune" any of these devices. Of course there isn't one. No such procedure exists. The users do not have any such control over the circuitry inside the buoy.
 
Vixen said:
The Estonian service electricians inspected the buoys' activities about a week before the accident and by then those had been operating normally. Those Kannad 406-F (=free-floating) were tested as follows: the buoy's "cage" was carefully opened and the buoy was raised. When the indicator light started flashing, the cap was opened and the switch was turned to the OFF position. In that case, the signal would not yet have emitted. At the time there was no test button.

Both EPIRBs in Estonia were turned off when found, would the buoys have been left untuned after the test?

That is the implication: either the ship's electricians omitted to tune the buoys or they were tuned but were removed.

They were HRU-triggered so the puzzle is why they did not activate on being hydrostatically released? Asser Koivisto* says they were not 'tuned'.
Click to expand...


Once again you've stolen the hockey puck and dribbled underwater down the length of the Olympic pool, only to see your shot land in a sand trap. You've been shown in the actual manual that the above is wrong.
 
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