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

[LondonJohn]

This is where you go back to the source material, instead of relying on a newspaper reporting.

I've just gone back to the source material (the recorded press conference), and here verbatim is some of what he says as answers to two separate questions:



Questions were asked several times, so there are some small variations on the answers.

And what a tremendous surprise it is (not) that those of us in this thread who are capable of doing proper, professional-standard research and analysis, and who are sufficiently well-informed of the relevant evidence, have long known - and have long pointed out - that the damage to the Estonia's starboard hull was almost certainly caused on the night she sank, when she first hit the seabed on top of that rock outcrop....

 

[LondonJohn]

It all seems rather conditional at the moment. Of course, some damage from hitting the bottom of the seabed is to be expected. The big question is the extent of it. What is interesting here is that the original JAIC seem to have got the original seabed geological formation slightly wrong, although Kurm suggested recently the vessel has actually slid a few metres because of the several tonnes of rocks poured onto it; that has to be a factor, as well, in causing damage.

Yes. I'm sure you weren't totally wrong (and scientifically illiterate into the bargain) in your own claims as to how the Estonia did - and did not - sustain that damage....

 

[Here_to_learn]

It all seems rather conditional at the moment. Of course, some damage from hitting the bottom of the seabed is to be expected. The big question is the extent of it. What is interesting here is that the original JAIC seem to have got the original seabed geological formation slightly wrong, although Kurm suggested recently the vessel has actually slid a few metres because of the several tonnes of rocks poured onto it; that has to be a factor, as well, in causing damage.

Well, again, had you listened to the conference or looked into the report, you would know that they report that the ship probably has shifted, that the damage to the starboard side matches the exposed bedrock underneath it, and that they can see where the mud/clay/silt on the bottom has moved.

But yes, there were asked about if anything had surprised them in the findings, and they said that "they were a little bit surprised by the amount of exposed bedrock".

But of course none of that matters with regards to the cause of the accident.

 

[Here_to_learn]

...that the damage to the Estonia's starboard hull was almost certainly caused on the night she sank, when she first hit the seabed on top of that rock outcrop....

Well yes, or in the time between the night of sinking, and today. Since the middle of the ship has been/is resting on bedrock, while having more soft bottom at the ends there is high load on the hull. They have measured that the water at times may cause corrosion in the hull. So many years of corrosion combined with the load may cause damage over time, and not just during the initial sinking.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

All I meant by this is that I have presented the factual evidence. I accept I am not going to change the opinion of someone who won't accept it, so I am not going to continue to argue about it.

If I said Paris was the capital of France, what more is there to be said once I have pointed it out on the atlas and presented supporting documents?

If you claim Paris is not the capital of France yet fail to produce one single document that backs it up, why would I continue to argue about it?

So a couple of people have presented a post hoc ergo proptor hoc logical fallacy argument in claiming a different fact must be true if an automatically-activated EPIRB failed to emit signals on bursting to the surface of water, i.e., it now becomes ipso facto a manually-activated EPIRB instead and this becomes the reason it failed to operate as it was expected to.


Yet whilst I have presented hard factual documentation, backed up by a JAIC appointed marine navigation expert and an article in HS (which a poster called a 'finnish [sic] backwater rag'), the fallacious-reasoning party can only express an opinion. and a poorly reasoned one at that.

"Oh people don't comply with regulations until many years later.'

This is garbage. You have presented a Frankenstein's monster stitched from the mangled wreckage of evidence, not the evidence itself.

You haven't claimed "Paris is the capital of France", you've claimed "Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark" in a discussion about the Viking era when it wasn't.

Perhaps you'd like to explain your claim of post hoc fallacy too. Where was that exactly?

Nobody, nobody at all, said "Oh people don't comply with regulations until many years later". That's just your reading incomprehension letting you down again. What was actually said is not all people go to the expense of complying with recommendations until they become regulations, and that can take years.

 

[Vixen]

No, Vixen. The JAIC were not baffled. You're the only one that's baffled.

Did you miss the part in the JAIC Report where they discussed having retrieved the EPIRBs and tested them extensively? And that they found the EPIRBs to be in total working order? And that they pointed out that when the EPIRBs were switched on, they worked perfectly? Leading to the unequivocal conclusion that the only reason why the EPIRBs hadn't worked on the night of the sinking must have been because they were never (manually) switched on by the crew prior to the sinking?

How is it even possible to be so totally wrong about something, for so long, in the face of inescapable proof of that wrongness?

Therein lies the great yawning chasm of faulty reasoning.

 

[Vixen]

You're not exactly giving him the last word.



What's wrong with his logic? The investigators wanted to know why no beacon signals had been detected. The answer was that the transmitters had not been activated. This was deduced from the position of the manual activation switch when found, and the full battery charge. They tested the beacons to rule out any other kind of failure.

Please explain why this is not sound logic.

Why should it be 'deduced' if they were the accident investigators and had all the specs. What you are really saying is that it isyou clutching at whatever it is you are clutching as one can't call it reason. It's rather like saying, 'Oh, my TV remote control doesn't work: that proves conclusively without a shadow of a doubt that my television is a manual-switch-on-tv only, and I'll tell you why: because when I pressed the TV button, why, it came on! Q.E.D.::"

I honestly can't believe you had the audacity to portray yourself as 'King Scientist'.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Therein lies the great yawning chasm of faulty reasoning.

Show us where we're going wrong. Show us the dog that barked in the night.

Show us where the Kannad 406 F had its type approval withdrawn. Show us what the manufacturer did to restore its reputation after its emergency equipment failed to operate in a real emergency. Show us their recall notice. Show us where ship owners were alerted to remove and replace these unreliable models. Show us the alarmed discussion about what the industry could do about emergency beacons it couldn't rely on.

You won't find it because none of this exists. All the documentation you will find simply says the beacons were not switched on. None of it says their automatic activation was disabled, because there is no switch to do that.

 

[Vixen]

And what a tremendous surprise it is (not) that those of us in this thread who are capable of doing proper, professional-standard research and analysis, and who are sufficiently well-informed of the relevant evidence, have long known - and have long pointed out - that the damage to the Estonia's starboard hull was almost certainly caused on the night she sank, when she first hit the seabed on top of that rock outcrop....

Oh dear. This illustrates perfectly the reason why the scientists today on the Arikas expedition press conference of what is ostensibly labelled 'Preliminary presentation' have to keep tagging what should be obvious to the average 12-year-old: 'We have to wait until we have the full findings before we can come to a firm conclusion'.

They have to allow for those at the back not paying attention. It is so tedious for the rest of us.

 

[Vixen]

Show us where we're going wrong. Show us the dog that barked in the night.

Show us where the Kannad 406 F had its type approval withdrawn. Show us what the manufacturer did to restore its reputation after its emergency equipment failed to operate in a real emergency. Show us their recall notice. Show us where ship owners were alerted to remove and replace these unreliable models. Show us the alarmed discussion about what the industry could do about emergency beacons it couldn't rely on.

You won't find it because none of this exists. All the documentation you will find simply says the beacons were not switched on. None of it says their automatic activation was disabled, because there is no switch to do that.

You can use the search function to review all of this. I won't be going through all this again unless there is something new to add that is relevant.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

You can use the search function to review all of this. I won't be going through all this again unless there is something new to add that is relevant.

There's no need to search for the answers to those rhetorical questions. You are blatantly barking up a non-existent tree and, every time it's pointed out, barking all the harder.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Oh, I see. And when the TV accident committee send along a search party to retrieve the remote control and get an expert to present a report as to why it did not work they are just wasting time and money doing something and that anyone on ISF could have told them that, even if they did find the thing.

Chase your analogy too far and it fails. They didn't find a remote control. They found the "on" switch on your TV and reported you hadn't pressed it.

They found the buoys. They manually activated them and they worked. They didn't test the non-existent water activation switch. They didn't test the non-existent automatic activation disable switch. They didn't ask why these non-existent things did not operate. The end.

 

[JayUtah]

Why should it be 'deduced' if they were the accident investigators and had all the specs.

Because having the specs doesn't equate to providing evidence of a failure mode, or ruling out a failure mode, by collecting actual data from the device via subsequent test procedures. If the device is switched off, its battery is fully charged, and its transmitter is in working order -- all things that require additional tests -- then the conclusion supported by the evidence is that no failure mode is evident and the device was never activated. To be fair, that's inductive reasoning for the part where the conclusion is arrived at. But the deductions along the way are that the test procedures establish facts from which a conclusion may be rigorously drawn.

One can deduce that if power is applied to the transmitter, a suitably functioning transmitter will emit a signal at its prescribed frequency. One can deduce that if a battery is measured to contain a certain charge, it will apply that charge to its output terminals via a suitable circuit. One can deduce that if a switch exists in such a circuit, closing the switch will allow current to flow and energize the other parts of the circuit. These deductions are informed by knowledge of the device specifications, but do not substitute for testing those deduced observations. If the deduced actions do not result in the expected observations, then one may infer the presence of any of a number of failure modes and conduct further investigation to isolate it. However, the correct operation of the device when appropriately activated carries those deductions into the realm of proven fact.

What you are really saying...

No, what I'm saying is what I actually said. Stop putting your words in everyone's mouths.

I honestly can't believe you had the audacity to portray yourself as 'King Scientist'.

I never did any such thing. Unlike you, however, I do have extensive experience in the design, manufacture, and testing of engineered products, and experience in the forensic determination of failure of those products. You're the one trying to tell everyone what should or shouldn't have been done when you have no relevant knowledge or experience, and explaining the difference between your expectations and those of an expert in terms that insist you must be right and the expert must be wrong. And then accusing the expert of being audacious for disagreeing with you.

Your ego is the only reason this thread is nearing 300 pages in length.

 

[JayUtah]

Oh, I see. And when the TV accident committee send along a search party to retrieve the remote control and get an expert to present a report as to why it did not work they are just wasting time and money doing something and that anyone on ISF could have told them that, even if they did find the thing.

The TV accident committee knows there is no remote control, nor should be. They know by their experience with the equipment that this particular model must be activated with a switch on the device. When they flip the switch, it turns on and behaves in all respects like a fully functioning television. The conclusion supported by the evidence is that the TV was never turned on, and this answers the question of why expected television noises were not heard in the other room.

But then along comes a claimant boasting testimony from a guy who makes VCRs, not TVs, and who is "baffled" by why the TV wasn't turned on from the other room by using the (non-existent) remote control. The answer to that dilemma is clear to anyone who isn't trying to bluff and bluster their way through a discussion they clearly are too ill-informed to carry out.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Koivisto explaining they were switched off when at land but need to be activated by the ship's electrician at the start of a journey
.

Then the man doesn't know what he is talking about or there is a mistranslation somewhere.

EPIRB Buoys are turned off until activated. They have one manual switch and if automatic a sea water activated switch.

If they are turned on then they will transmit a distress.

They do not need to be switched on by an electrician at the start of the journey.
All that can be done by an electrician is a battery test.

 

[Andy_Ross]

All I meant by this is that I have presented the factual evidence. I accept I am not going to change the opinion of someone who won't accept it, so I am not going to continue to argue about it.

It has been demonstrated that the buoys were manual activation by references to both the report and the manufacturers model designation.
What 'fact' have you presented that shows this to be wrong?

If I said Paris was the capital of France, what more is there to be said once I have pointed it out on the atlas and presented supporting documents?

If you claim Paris is not the capital of France yet fail to produce one single document that backs it up, why would I continue to argue about it?

So a couple of people have presented a post hoc ergo proptor hoc logical fallacy argument in claiming a different fact must be true if an automatically-activated EPIRB failed to emit signals on bursting to the surface of water, i.e., it now becomes ipso facto a manually-activated EPIRB instead and this becomes the reason it failed to operate as it was expected to.

You have been shown both the official report in to the status of the buoys and also the manufacturers model designation that shows they were manual activated buoys.[/quote]

Yet whilst I have presented hard factual documentation, backed up by a JAIC appointed marine navigation expert and an article in HS (which a poster called a 'finnish [sic] backwater rag'), the fallacious-reasoning party can only express an opinion. and a poorly reasoned one at that.

"Oh people don't comply with regulations until many years later.'

And yet the official reports tell us that the buoys were recovered from the sea and that they were manually activated buoys.
We have seen that the manufacturers designation and listing for the buoys is for manual activation.

You have been shown that automatic buoys were not mandated until after the Estonia sank and in response to the failure by the crew to activate the buoys that were carried.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That was just tacked on as an after-thought.

What is your evidence for this?

Are you now backing away from the reliability of the team that you were pushing as being the ones that were going to find the truth?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The JAIC were baffled. They even said it was priority to (a) retrieve them, or their bracket/HRU and (b) subject them to intense testing, to understand why they did not operate as expected.

The buoys were retrieved from the sea and found to be in good working condition and when tested they worked as they should.

 

[Andy_Ross]

When I said you could have the last word, I didn't mean the last 'one thousand and one' words.


I love the childlike logic you use, though.

Is this an admission that the buoys were found switched off and when manually activated worked as they should?
It's all in the report. They were not automatic buoys.

Even the manufacturers model listing shows they were not automatic.

From the report. Chapter 8

8.11 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]

Therein lies the great yawning chasm of faulty reasoning.

What is faulty?

Both buoys were recovered from the sea, they were turned off.
When they were turned on they were found to transmit a distress signal for over four hours showing they had full batteries and had never been activated.

No distress signal was picked up from the buoys on the night of the sinking.