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

[Vixen]

There's a very large amount of middle ground between "all ran smoothly" and "telecommunications were down".

The argument here is all about people objecting to your repeated insinuations that there was a suspicious series of coincidental failures which together suggest a coordinated deliberate sabotage of communications. People are not pretending that communication worked flawlessly so kindly stop claiming they are. All people are doing is pointing out the flaws in your claim that "communications were down".

Let's say from the moment the series of bangs were heard and a shudder felt at 0100-ish, through to a weak Mayday at 01:21:55 and the formal mayday put out by Helsinki Radio at 0154, we can safely say that there was zero orderly evacuation of the passengers, zero lifeboats launched, except perhaps one or two by luck, probably landing upside down anyway and there certainly was no effective rescue from outside on the way. As the ship had sunk at 0148, it is accurate to say the telecommunications were completely down between 0101 and 0148 as far as Estonia was concerned. The weather was bad but no more so than normal in late September. With the EPIRB's also quietened, the whole thing is extremely suspicious.

 

[Vixen]

What are 'submarine tracks along the bed' ?

Submarines do not leave tracks, they tend to be floating, not dragging.

The tracks can be seen in the Uni Stockholm presentation. IIRC they themselves said it was a submarine track in the conference, according to the the newspaper articles.

 

[Vixen]

Wow.

No less than 5 vessels responded to the call to ready their helicopter decks to receive incoming helicopters. And possibly more, since some were on channel 6 or channel 10.

You want the recording of the channel 16 traffic (that you say was blocked)? Is that what you want? Fine. It is 30 minutes of not very happy listening, but it certainly wrecks your idiotic claims.

For anyone else, it is subtitled for convenience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5tbah19qo8. Yes, On the channel that Vixen claims to be blocked, for helicopter decks she claims they don't have. One even states that hey have readied their conference rooms as reception for casualties.

I did not "yt" tag it. Don't click it, unless you want to see the lies that are spouted by some people.

But 16 minutes in, 5, read it, 5 of the responding ships prepare their helicopter decks. Over a channel that is claimed to be blocked

Stockholm was only reached 0202, some fourteen minutes after Estonia sank. You can hear for yourself Europa and Mariella having great difficulty getting a response back from Estonia .

Just because you can hear Mariella and Europa talking, doesn't mean Estonia could hear them back except badly.

You seem to equate Tammes making his mayday at 0122 as proof of effective communication, when the truth is, rescue did not start until the ship was on the seabed half an hour later.

Yes, suddenly after 0154 everything starts working normally: Stockholm is reached. Nul problemo now.

Between 0100 and 0154 Big Heap Problem.

 

[Vixen]

They were all incompetent. They did not realise there was a problem until it was too late to do anything about it.

They used a handheld because when the ship turned on it's side and power was lost that is all they had.

The captain seems to have lost control of the situation very early on.

The ship's generator came into power as expected (battery operated) when the engines cut out. The navigator system was designed so that the generator would take over and in the interim, the light showing location would continue to be readable for about fifteen minutes in such an event.

Whilst the crew may have had a criminal element I don't think the accident can be pinned on them or the captain if there was a saboteur who was determined the ship would terminate there and then at that spot or thereabouts by hook or by crook, and this included attack from two fronts: the bow and the side, and by blocking communication. Warfare tactics which has the fingerprints of a certain skilled strategist.

 

[Vixen]

They could have swithed one or both EPIRBS on. The rescuing vessels could not have got there any quicker somehow. Not enough to save any more people. Just how grim it is, did you notice the convo about how it is to avoid running over people? That's a thing in maritime rescue.

The 'E' in EPIRB stands for 'Emergency'. That is why the automatic ones are designed to be hydrostatically released in contact with sufficient water so that in a mass hysteria panic it works anyway. That is why the crew would not have needed to worry about minutiae in a crisis.


Mariella was also worried about striking her as objects in the sea can cause a lot of damage to one's own vehicle. It is a miracle Mariella and Europa saved as many as they did, each life precious, especially the twelve-year-old boy.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Let's say from the moment the series of bangs were heard and a shudder felt at 0100-ish, through to a weak Mayday at 01:21:55 and the formal mayday put out by Helsinki Radio at 0154, we can safely say that there was zero orderly evacuation of the passengers, zero lifeboats launched, except perhaps one or two by luck, probably landing upside down anyway and there certainly was no effective rescue from outside on the way. As the ship had sunk at 0148, it is accurate to say the telecommunications were completely down between 0101 and 0148 as far as Estonia was concerned. The weather was bad but no more so than normal in late September. With the EPIRB's also quietened, the whole thing is extremely suspicious.

Timeline from the report, Chapter 7 Section 7.3.3 recorded distress traffic.

01:21.55 from Estonia - Mayday
01:22.14 from Mariella to Estonia
01:23.19 from Silja Europa to Estonia
01:28.52 from Estonia to Silja Europa - Position Fix.
01:29.01 from Silja Europa to Estonia - confirmation on the way.

This was the last radio contact with the ESTONIA.

At least five radio stations, including MRCC Turku, logged the 2nd Mayday call as received at 0124 hrs. Counting backwards in tape recordings from this moment, the most probable time of the 1st Mayday call was just before 0122 hrs. However, this time is uncertain, the margin of error being plus/minus two minutes.

Speed of response

0132 The MARIELLA turns towards the scene of the accident.
0133 The Finnjet turns towards the accident site.
0140 The SILJA EUROPA turns towards the scene.
0150 The SILJA SYMPHONY turns towards the site.
0155 The ISABELLA turns towards the site.
0212 The MARIELLA arrives, as the first vessel, on the scene.

So, from first position fix to arrival on scene was 44 minutes.

In the weather conditions that is as fast as could be expected .

 

[JayUtah]

The tracks can be seen in the Uni Stockholm presentation. IIRC they themselves said it was a submarine track in the conference, according to the the newspaper articles.

http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1611237/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Is this passage on p. 10 what you think is talking about submarines?

"The geotextiles were also laid out to stabilize the seabed. Sand was subsequently dumped over the stabilized area in June 1996. During this work, the daily echo soundings of the seafloor on July 21, 1996, revealed seafloor deformations. It became clear that submarine slides had occurred in the soft clays. After attempts of further stabilizing the seabed by dumping addi- tional material, the work of covering MS Estonia was aborted at the end of July 1996."

 

[Andy_Ross]

The ship's generator came into power as expected (battery operated) when the engines cut out. The navigator system was designed so that the generator would take over and in the interim, the light showing location would continue to be readable for about fifteen minutes in such an event.

The generators cut when the ship went on to it's side. They are not designed to operate sideways, they would have cut out when the oil level fell as they tipped over.

Whilst the crew may have had a criminal element I don't think the accident can be pinned on them or the captain if there was a saboteur who was determined the ship would terminate there and then at that spot or thereabouts by hook or by crook, and this included attack from two fronts: the bow and the side, and by blocking communication. Warfare tactics which has the fingerprints of a certain skilled strategist.

There was no ******* attack from anywhere.

 

[JayUtah]

The 'E' in EPIRB stands for 'Emergency'.

That does not imply automatic activation. We know how the buoy in question was meant to be operated. You're still conflating what you think should have been the case with what we know factually to have been the case.

That is why the automatic ones are designed to be hydrostatically released in contact with sufficient water...

"Release" and "activate" are not the same words. Dozens of pages later, you still can't concede this.

...so that in a mass hysteria panic it works anyway. That is why the crew would not have needed to worry about minutiae in a crisis.

Why would the crew be governed by "mass hysteria panic?" The crew has specific roles assigned to them in an emergency and are trained to respond according to those roles. Granted we are arguing that the crew was to some degree incompetent in this incident, and that might include failing to activate the secondary emergency equipment. But the notion that manual activation of emergency buoys can't be made part of an abandon-ship procedure because the crew would be panicking is just silly.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The tracks can be seen in the Uni Stockholm presentation. IIRC they themselves said it was a submarine track in the conference, according to the the newspaper articles.

Submarines do not leave tracks, that makes no sense at all, they don't drag along the sea bed.
Someone is making things up.

 

[Axxman300]

If a rocky outcrop was rare then that is quite different from an area where it is nigh on impossible to avoid.

So, if the Titanic landed on the one big rocky outcrop in the North Atlantic, then there might be some genuine initial excitement from academics that she landed exactly in this spot.

You are not making any sense.

The point is the ruptures in the hull are a result of impact with the sea floor, and obviously so.

 

[JayUtah]

Whilst the crew may have had a criminal element...

Hypothesizing that the crew is incompetent is not the same as accusing them of being criminal. You have a whole crew of straw men in this thread.

I don't think the accident can be pinned on them or the captain if there was a saboteur...

But since the evidence for sabotage is comically flimsy, and there's nothing that can't be just as easily explained by crew incompetence, we have a parsimonious conclusion.

Warfare tactics which has the fingerprints of a certain skilled strategist.

You say from your vast personal experience in such matters. But it's not a conspiracy theory!

 

[Axxman300]

The tracks can be seen in the Uni Stockholm presentation. IIRC they themselves said it was a submarine track in the conference, according to the the newspaper articles.

It doesn't look like a track from a machine, the caption says "Drag Mark?".

The image is interesting because it suggests the Finish Navy's coordinates for the resting place of the bow visor is the accurate one based the impression in the benthic clay. The gouge is nowhere near either location of where the bow is claimed to have settled on the bottom, and such gouges or marks on the sea floor are not uncommon. The section where it talks about the benthic currents suggests other options.

Also, why are there not similar gouges or "tracks" near the Estonia wreck site?

 

[Axxman300]

Whilst the crew may have had a criminal element I don't think the accident can be pinned on them or the captain if there was a saboteur who was determined the ship would terminate there and then at that spot or thereabouts by hook or by crook, and this included attack from two fronts: the bow and the side, and by blocking communication. Warfare tactics which has the fingerprints of a certain skilled strategist.

Was it one of the dancers? Tell us it was one of the dancers. Was it one of the really hot dancers? At least give us that. You know, a sexy FSB agent who seduces the captain, sinks the ship, and escapes on a mini-sub. But don't make it a Swedish mini-sub because I think I've already seen that movie.

 

[GlennB]

You do know the USA has discreet 'listening stations' in the region (SOSUS) which keeps an eye - or should I say ear - on the comings and goings of Russian vessels. Surely it must be known what submarines were in the area that night, identified or unidentified. One of the Stockholm University pictures shows what looks like submarine tracks along the bed and Jutta Rabe saw some, too, on her expedition, so there are submarines coming and going all the time.

Is this an attempt at humour?

 

[LondonJohn]

With the EPIRB's also quietened,

Because - and only because - no crew member remembered to (manually) switch either of them on. But pray, continue.....

the whole thing is extremely suspicious.

No, Vixen. No it isn't. Not in the slightest.

It's only "extremely suspicious" to conspiracy theorists. Such as you.

 

[LondonJohn]

The tracks can be seen in the Uni Stockholm presentation. IIRC they themselves said it was a submarine track in the conference, according to the the newspaper articles.

He was talking about your (fatuous) words "....along the bed". Words which clearly indicate that you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[LondonJohn]

Stockholm was only reached 0202, some fourteen minutes after Estonia sank. You can hear for yourself Europa and Mariella having great difficulty getting a response back from Estonia .

Just because you can hear Mariella and Europa talking, doesn't mean Estonia could hear them back except badly.

Why, pray, would this have made any difference whatsoever to the timing or efficacy of the rescue operation? As soon as the other ships - and by extension, the shore-based rescue services - knew 1) a reliable fix on the Estonia's position 2) the fact that the ship was in very serious trouble and required major assistance and 3) a broad understanding of the number of souls on board, no further communication after that would have made any difference either way. Why on Earth do you think what the Estonia crew might or might not have heard should have been relevant in this context?

You seem to equate Tammes making his mayday at 0122 as proof of effective communication, when the truth is, rescue did not start until the ship was on the seabed half an hour later.

It's almost amusing how you appear to think that major maritime rescue operations can take place almost at the drop of a hat. But perhaps you can enlighten us by telling us all - in your esteemed opinion - how the rescue operation could have been a) initiated more quickly than it actually was, and b) carried out with greater efficacy than it actually was.

Yes, suddenly after 0154 everything starts working normally: Stockholm is reached. Nul problemo now.

Between 0100 and 0154 Big Heap Problem.

Isn't this the part where you add in your ignorant misinterpretation of "Kemo Sabe" to your lamentable appropriation of Native American patois?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

If a rocky outcrop was rare then that is quite different from an area where it is nigh on impossible to avoid.

So, if the Titanic landed on the one big rocky outcrop in the North Atlantic, then there might be some genuine initial excitement from academics that she landed exactly in this spot.

Well, why is that relevant? The only person here I can remember expressing any hesitancy that the Estonia might have landed on a rocky outcrop is you. This smacks a little of those times Trump declared "people don't know that" over some commonplace he just discovered.

 

[LondonJohn]

The ship's generator came into power as expected (battery operated) when the engines cut out. The navigator system was designed so that the generator would take over and in the interim, the light showing location would continue to be readable for about fifteen minutes in such an event.

Whilst the crew may have had a criminal element I don't think the accident can be pinned on them or the captain if there was a saboteur who was determined the ship would terminate there and then at that spot or thereabouts by hook or by crook, and this included attack from two fronts: the bow and the side, and by blocking communication. Warfare tactics which has the fingerprints of a certain skilled strategist.

Oh good grief. You're sooooooooooooooo far down the rabbit hole at this point.

(By the way: remember back when you were pretending that all you were doing was presenting others' opinions and putting them up for discussion, and that this was all you were doing? Ah, happy days!)