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

[Jack by the hedge]

Look, had I inserted a comma ...

Commas be damned. Stop trying to justify yourself. You wrote ambiguously and some people misunderstood. Move on.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

On responding at 0123 hrs to the 1st Mayday call...

Wrong already. Mariella was first to respond...

Another reading comprehension failure. Please note that "responding to the 1st Mayday call" does not mean the same thing as "responding to the Mayday call 1st".

 

[Andy_Ross]

(It's perfectly reasonable to suppose that there might have been intermittent short-term outages in VHF communication, owing to the bad weather and the interruptions to line of sight in the ocean swells..... but not continuously over some 20 minutes. And given the peril the ship was very obviously in, a bridge officer should have been glued to the radio and trying/trying again in the event of a very-short-term outage.)

We also have to consider that once the ship had a severe list the fixed antenna on the main radio would not be in an optimal orientation.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

But what about Saatchi?

One Saatchi was playing the other Saatchi and vice versa.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Citation please of what reference you are talking about. Show me where Stockholm Uni uses the word 'submarine' to mean 'under the sea' (as an adjective) and that this was a passage I was referring to.

Naughty. The citation ought to be yours; the original reference you were talking about when you wrote the following about the Stockholm Uni report which Here_to_learn and then you previously linked to:

...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...

It seems clear what you are doing here is noting seabed features in the Stockholm Uni report and deciding they are similar to features described elsewhere by Raub as "submarine tracks" and then assuming she meant tracks made by submarines rather than tracks on the seabed.

Feel free to explain that the positions of the commas means you meant something else.

 

[Vixen]

From the Government of the Republic of Estonia Final report on the MV ESTONIA disaster of 28 September 1994

Chapter 7 The rescue Operation

7.4 Initiation of rescue actions
7.4.1 General


At least try.

This is a complete revision of history, because if you took the trouble to look at the source materials, instead of reading the JAIC's misleading and incomplete summary, you would know as recorded hard evidence that it was Captain Lieutenant Mikko Montonen who was the commander who assigned Europa as On Scene Commander. He did not come on duty until 0136, so can you explain how you have Europa as OSC as of 0124?

In addition, the duty officer at Turku MRCC had the time Europa appointed as OSC was 0205.

Estonia's emergency message did not belong to Sweden. In Finland, it is being investigated whether the alarm was slowed down


4.10.1994 2:00

Backman Nils-Eric

TURKU - Information about the Estonian emergency message was forwarded to the Swedish maritime rescue authorities half an hour after the message was received in Turku. Estonia's distress message did not carry as far as Stockholm.

In Sweden, Finns have been accused of slowing things down. Captain Lieutenant Mikko Montonen, who started operations at the Turku Maritime Rescue Center on the night of the accident, denies the allegations.

"Estonia was in Finland's area of responsibility for maritime rescue, so why would I have alerted Sweden first. Of course, I had to alert my own troops first," says Montonen.

In Turku, the distress message was recorded the night before last Wednesday at 1.24. The message was also heard at the maritime rescue centers in Mariehamn and Helsinki, as well as on several ships.

In Turku, the alerting of own units such as patrol vessels and helicopters was started immediately.

The first to be alerted was the guard squadron Super Puma on duty in Turku at 1.25. According to the distress message, Puma had to go and take the pumps to Estonia, which was tilted badly. The mere tilt does not yet automatically trigger an international rescue operation.

Montonen, who was the back officer, arrived at the Turku Rescue Center at 1.36. "The emergency message talked about tilting and black outs, but Estonia was still visible on the radar and we were working on that." 1.45 p.m. Estonia disappeared from the radar of the Maritime Rescue Center. "At the time, it was clear that the ship had sunk and we launched a rescue operation for the catastrophe. That included the Mariehamn Maritime Rescue Center liaising with Stockholm," Montonen says.

The first helicopter left Turku at 2.30 am, and immediately after the sinking of Estonia, helicopters from other parts of Finland had been alerted.

The Stockholm Maritime Rescue Center received information about the sinking via Mariehamn at 1.55. When Turku was contacted from Stockholm at 1.57, Turku also asked for helicopters from Sweden, as Mariella, who was the first to arrive in the sinking area, announced that the ships would not be able to rescue those at sea due to the sea.

HELSINGIN SANOMAT


This newspaper report from that 'finnish [sic] backward rag' as Abaddon calls it, is dated 4 Oct 1994, five days after the disaster, in response to an angry backlash from Stockholm that Finland didn't forward the Mayday until 'half an hour later', in other words after 0148 - as I have already spelt out - as Montonen makes clear, he was the one coordinating the rescue.

See, also, the attached police witness statement Karppala gave which times assignment of OSC to Europa as after 0202, when Stockholm was finally reached.


These are some of the earliest documents and cannot be dismissed as 'conspiracy theory'.

Your claim Europa was designated OSC at 01:24 is utterly ill-founded and cannot possibly be true.

 

[Vixen]

Yes, indeed.

Frankly, it's somewhat baffling (though perhaps indicative) that Vixen has apparently totally ignored/overlooked the extremely germane and important fact that all the evidence points clearly to extreme incompetence and malpractice on the part of the Estonia's crew in waiting so long before first trying to communicate distress and summon assistance.

As you and I and many others in this thread have pointed out, had the first Mayday broadcasts been made at, say, 1.10am (by which point the crew definitely would/should have known that the ship was sinking), it's very likely that more lives would ultimately have been saved. That error is 100% on the crew of the Estonia.

Really? At 0110, when the JAIC says the disaster did not even start until 0115!

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Did you really just dismiss the official report as an "incomplete summary" and declare a newspaper report to be the "source materials"?

You don't get the secondhand sources thing at all, do you?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Really? At 0110, when the JAIC says the disaster did not even start until 0115!

This is pathetic.

Up to 01:14 - plain sailing, nothing of note.
01:15 - disaster.

Nothing is a disaster until it's an official disaster. Nobody can take charge until they're officially put in charge. It's not a real rescue until it's an official rescue.

It's a bad joke.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Your claim Europa was designated OSC at 01:24 is utterly ill-founded and cannot possibly be true.

Europa in agreement with other responding vessels designated herself on scene commander in accordance with IMO regulations and requirements as implemented through SOLAS

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Silja Europa assumed the role of coordinator.

Your claim Europa was designated OSC at 01:24 is utterly ill-founded and cannot possibly be true.

Reading comprehension failure again. And that's being kind.

These things are not the same. Misrepresenting what another poster said in order to criticise it is dishonest as well as really annoying.

 

[Vixen]

Europa in agreement with other responding vessels designated herself on scene commander in accordance with IMO regulations and requirements as implemented through SOLAS

From JAIC itself, Chapter 7.5.3:

At 0205 hrs MRCC Turku appointed the master On-Scene Commander (OSC). The SILJA EUROPA arrived at the scene at 0230 hrs.

https://www.multi.fi/estonia/estorap.html#_Toc405839446


Do try to stick to the time line. Chronology is all.

When we stick to the verified recorded documented time line, it becomes readily apparent rescue did not swing into operation until 0148, after Estonia had fully sunk.

 

[Vixen]

Reading comprehension failure again. And that's being kind.

These things are not the same. Misrepresenting what another poster said in order to criticise it is dishonest as well as really annoying.

No, it is really annoying when people presume to have read the mind of the various captains and ASSUMED they took on the role. Contrary to CaptainSwoop's claims, Europa did not arrive first and nor was it first to get the Mayday. Mariella was first on both occasions. Also nothing to do with Makela being a better captain.

The real reason Motonen likely assigned Europa as OSC is because she was the biggest ship (at 59K tonnes) and thus safer and more stable for helicopters to land on in rough weather, which can be extremely hazardous for even the most experienced of pilots.

 

[Andy_Ross]

From JAIC itself, Chapter 7.5.3:

https://www.multi.fi/estonia/estorap.html#_Toc405839446


Do try to stick to the time line. Chronology is all.

When we stick to the verified recorded documented time line, it becomes readily apparent rescue did not swing into operation until 0148, after Estonia had fully sunk.

It swung in to action within minutes
Do not conflate the time of arrival on scene with the time it started.

 

[Matthew Best]

Comparatively speaking, most definitely.

Wow. Talk about damning with faint praise!

 

[Here_to_learn]

No, it is really annoying when people presume to have read the mind of the various captains and ASSUMED they took on the role. Contrary to CaptainSwoop's claims, Europa did not arrive first and nor was it first to get the Mayday. Mariella was first on both occasions. Also nothing to do with Makela being a better captain.

The real reason Motonen likely assigned Europa as OSC is because she was the biggest ship (at 59K tonnes) and thus safer and more stable for helicopters to land on in rough weather, which can be extremely hazardous for even the most experienced of pilots.

And here we go again - don't you ever listen?

OSC has absolutely nothing to do with the ship being more stable for helicopters. OSC is about coordinating the rescue operation. MRCC will assign OSC to a ship that is best suited. They will evaluate things such as:
* Previous experience
* Ability to set staff to the side just to coordinate the rescue operation
* Ability to communicate with all other ships and helicopters, on multiple different channels at the same time
* Personal knowledge of people involved
* Good place on board the ship where the OSC staff can work, with charts, radios, radars and so on, without disturbing the other work happening on the bridge.

Some ships have a dedicated workspace for OSC work. I'm sure MRCC had all these things in mind when then allocated the OSC. I'm also sure that they didn't care at all about the helicopter deck, since that has absolutely nothing to do with OSC. OSC is about leading, coordinating and communicating.

I've seen situation where the OSC is not even taking direct part in the rescue work. Basically all on the bridge were busy acting as OSC, so they stayed out of the way and focused on coordinating the work of the other rescue crafts involved.

And again, the initial coordinating role that Silja Europa took on themselves is separate from the OSC role that they later were assigned by MRCC. The major difference is - during the initial coordinating role they do their work without a formal mandate from MRCC - instead the mandate come from SOLAS/IMO regulations, and an agreement with the ships around.

At a later stage MRCC, when MRCC was fully involved and had taken over the overall accountability for the rescue operation, they assigned Silja Europa the OSC role.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, it is really annoying when people presume to have read the mind of the various captains and ASSUMED they took on the role. Contrary to CaptainSwoop's claims, Europa did not arrive first and nor was it first to get the Mayday. Mariella was first on both occasions. Also nothing to do with Makela being a better captain.



The real reason Motonen likely assigned Europa as OSC is because she was the biggest ship (at 59K tonnes) and thus safer and more stable for helicopters to land on in rough weather, which can be extremely hazardous for even the most experienced of pilots.

This is like performance art. Instead of addressing the point, that you had twisted another poster's words, you change the subject to blaming them for what you imagine is speculating, then twist their words even more, and then do the very thing you complained about by speculating yourself. Astounding.

 

[abaddon]

And here we go again - don't you ever listen?

OSC has absolutely nothing to do with the ship being more stable for helicopters. OSC is about coordinating the rescue operation. MRCC will assign OSC to a ship that is best suited. They will evaluate things such as:
* Previous experience
* Ability to set staff to the side just to coordinate the rescue operation
* Ability to communicate with all other ships and helicopters, on multiple different channels at the same time
* Personal knowledge of people involved
* Good place on board the ship where the OSC staff can work, with charts, radios, radars and so on, without disturbing the other work happening on the bridge.

Some ships have a dedicated workspace for OSC work. I'm sure MRCC had all these things in mind when then allocated the OSC. I'm also sure that they didn't care at all about the helicopter deck, since that has absolutely nothing to do with OSC. OSC is about leading, coordinating and communicating.

I've seen situation where the OSC is not even taking direct part in the rescue work. Basically all on the bridge were busy acting as OSC, so they stayed out of the way and focused on coordinating the work of the other rescue crafts involved.

And again, the initial coordinating role that Silja Europa took on themselves is separate from the OSC role that they later were assigned by MRCC. The major difference is - during the initial coordinating role they do their work without a formal mandate from MRCC - instead the mandate come from SOLAS/IMO regulations, and an agreement with the ships around.

At a later stage MRCC, when MRCC was fully involved and had taken over the overall accountability for the rescue operation, they assigned Silja Europa the OSC role.

Logical decision. Silja Europa had been acting as OSC since the mayday started. Switching the OSC role to a different vessel would just have added a bunch of extra confusion.

 

[LondonJohn]

We also have to consider that once the ship had a severe list the fixed antenna on the main radio would not be in an optimal orientation.

Yes.... but of course the bridge should have known that the ship was in huge peril well before the list got that severe. So therefore they should have been making radio distress calls well before the list got that severe.

 

[LondonJohn]

From JAIC itself, Chapter 7.5.3:

https://www.multi.fi/estonia/estorap.html#_Toc405839446


Do try to stick to the time line. Chronology is all.

When we stick to the verified recorded documented time line, it becomes readily apparent rescue did not swing into operation until 0148, after Estonia had fully sunk.

Are you actually for real? Is this actually a poorly-programmed bot "writing" these posts?

Once again (for the 141,421st time)..... listen to the audio transcripts of the VHF Ch16 traffic. Or refer to several other reliable sources.

By 1.48am (or "0148" LOL), four ships were already converging onto Estonia's last recorded position, and at least two helicopters were already en route to the scene.

Do you genuinely not do any proper research?