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

[Vixen]

No. you made that up. there was no mandate at that time for automatic buoys.

Float Free does not mean automatic activation
Float Free means they were not fixed systems that were part of the ship's radio outfit.
It does not mean automatic activation.



Official documents and the actual testing say otherwise.

Do look up that SOLAS resolution of Nov 1991 which mandated it came into effect 1 Aug 1993. I don't care for your argument 'people take a long time to adopt new regulations', as both Commander Montonen and marine electronic navigations expert Asser Koivisto for the JAIC confirmed the specs of Estonia, and indeed, you can witness with your own eyes Rockwater, Dec 1994, video in which they collect the HRU from one of the buoys.

End of.

 

[Vixen]

Europa was acting as coordinator and command.

How do you think a ship picks someone up that is in the water?
Do you think they put a ladder or net over and make them climb out?

What does SOLAS say about rescue boats?

Montonen himself says that at the time Estonia did not have SART on its life rafts but that transponders should be effected ASAP.

The Estonian alarm was given by a VHF telephone, which is the most common radio device in traffic in the Baltic Sea. The VHF message will come to the rescue center from all over the Baltic Sea, as a network of remote base stations has been built for the rescue centers in Turku, Helsinki and Vaasa. A similar network collects messages from the high seas to the maritime rescue centers in Härnösand, Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden. There is no equivalent in Estonia yet. Estonia was a 14-year-old ship and its lifeboats and life-rafts did not have a sart system to speed up the search. According to the new international security system, merchant ships must have such a transponder for at least two liferafts or boats. The SART sends beams to the radar of the searching ship or helicopter, which intensifies as the target is sent. Thus, a long-drifted liferaft can be quickly found. "We were already to be found ..." There are no VHF stations in Estonia yet

ibid

You can read the amazing accounts of how Mariella literally did lift various people out of the water if you do a search. This was extremely dangerous as several fell against the side of the ship and were lost.

 

[JayUtah]

I don't care for your argument 'people take a long time to adopt new regulations'...

And that affects the facts exactly how?

...as both Commander Montonen...

Not an expert in what equipment was fitted aboard some particular vessel.

...and marine electronic navigations expert Asser Koivisto...

Not an expert in EPIRBs.

...video in which they collect the HRU from one of the buoys.

"Release" is not "activation."

End of.

What about you giving everyone else the last word?

You've scrounged up a bunch of early press reports from before all the facts were known and tried to make it sound like that should be authoritative.

 

[Andy_Ross]

At the end of the day 104 people were rescued by helicopter and 34 by ship.

The rescue operation should have started with prompt evacuation of all the passengers and crew, then there might have been a better chance than just 79 passengers out of 981 surviving, bearing in mind young children were not even on the passenger list as they travel on their parent's ticket. That is the cold objective reality. This is why the problems with communications and the speed of the ship sinking should have been better investigated.

If only 300 people got to the upper deck, it should be obvious that these were the only people who could be rescued and yet less than half of them were, so maybe now you can see why every minute counts.

Which is the fault of the command team for not declaring an emergency sooner and evacuating the ship.
They should have been more concerned with the already leaking bow long before they sailed in to the storm.
The ship should not have been pushing at full speed in the conditions.
More concern should have been shown when noises were heard and the ship started to list.
Lifeboat alarms should have been sounded a lot earlier and the crew should have been better trained.
A Mayday should have been sent straight away long before the ship was sinking.

Ships and helicopters arrived as soon as was possible after the receipt of the mayday.

Rescuing people at night in a storm is always difficult.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Do look up that SOLAS resolution of Nov 1991 which mandated it came into effect 1 Aug 1993. I don't care for your argument 'people take a long time to adopt new regulations', as both Commander Montonen and marine electronic navigations expert Asser Koivisto for the JAIC confirmed the specs of Estonia, and indeed, you can witness with your own eyes Rockwater, Dec 1994, video in which they collect the HRU from one of the buoys.

End of.

It was not a 'mandate' it was a recommendation.

Automatic buoys were not mandated until the 1995 IMO conference.
An 'HRU' is not a buoy.
You have been shown the IMO and SOLAS proceedings.
You have been shown that an 'F' model is float free, not automatic activation, that is a later model with a different designation.

It made no difference anyway. Ships knew the location of the Estonia and were on the way within minutes of the Mayday message that gave location details.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Montonen himself says that at the time Estonia did not have SART on its life rafts but that transponders should be effected ASAP.

ibid

You can read the amazing accounts of how Mariella literally did lift various people out of the water if you do a search. This was extremely dangerous as several fell against the side of the ship and were lost.

So?

 

[LondonJohn]

Fair point. However, I recall understanding that Europa was the ship that had a large helipad, which seems to have been an obvious factor for making it the focus of activity, and as mentioned in the police statement of 1st officer Teijo Karl Peter Seppelin, who took the Mayday call. Europa was 22,000 tonnes heavier than Mariella. Some of these Swedish helicopters are huge.

In addition, Seppelin, too, had issues with channel 16 and 2182 and had to call MRCC by NMT.

(He said he did not notice any jamming though.)

Re Captain Esa Mäkelä was interviewed in 2014 in his retirement by MTV. He believes Estonia should have floated upside down.

MTV Uutiset



Captain Mäkelä doesn't believe the sinking was simply due to the bow visor.

It's bollocks deflection such as this - which is an intellectually-dishonest gambit you've repeatedly tried on in this thread now - that renders most of what you write utterly unreliable and without merit.


(Oh and a multitude of much more expert and experienced minds than a ship's master - a ship's master who will have had no experience whatsoever in the physics underpinning the sinking of a large ship - have already correctly determined that there's zero reason why the Estonia should have floated upside-down for any period of time after capsizing. Nor is there any evidence to support such a notion. Plus there's plenty of reliable documentary evidence, including video recordings, showing that large ships both can and do sink in a 90-degree capsized orientation - and that some large ships can/do actually sink in a keel-down orientation. So we can very safely discount the ship's master's opinion here.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Nonsense. All passenger cruise ferries have a helipad.

You can see the full list of helicopters in Chapter 7 of the JAIC report. They include Super Pumas.

HS

Jeebuz Christophos. It was YOU who'd originally made the (fatuous and entirely unresearched) claim that the ships coming to the Estonia's assistance didn't have helipads.

You're really quite something. Again: try sometimes writing the letters "s" "o" "r" "r" and "y" in that order, with no spaces in-between.

 

[LondonJohn]

Silja Europa rescued just one person. Mariella rescued 'about 40' (Thörnroos).

Truth is these vessels are as tall as an apartment block. Getting people out of the sea at that height - if they could even see them - was extremely hazardous.

However, forty-one is better than none at all.

You have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about.

Are you really of the opinion (and it appears that you are...) that these ships were trying to effect the rescuing of survivors from the water.... by somehow plucking them out of the sea and raising them up to "that height" onto the ship?


DO. SOME. RESEARCH. BEFORE. TYPING. CRAP. LIKE. THIS.

 

[LondonJohn]

As I already stated, at least one of Estonia's EPIRB was mandatorily automatically designed to activate on submersion with water.

HS

When they they were found as reported 13.12.1994:

Helsingin Sanomat

25 Jan 1995 The testing:

HS


These news reports should dispel any further disinformation (ignorance?) that they were 'manual-activation-only' models.

Mikko Montonen was the MRCC commander the night of the accident.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Farcically, you start by repeating your (bogus and incorrect) claim that at least one of the EPIRBs on the Estonia was rigged for automatic activation upon immersion in the sea.

And then you immediately go on to "support" that claim by linking to evidence which - clear as day, Vixen refers solely to an EPIRB which is capable of floating free.

Are you really so ignorant as to (continue to) think that "free-floating" somehow equates to "automatic activation".

Your posts in this thread are a sad joke. A parody. A disgrace.

 

[LondonJohn]

So what was all your stuff about preparing a Forecastle for helicopters?

It was an empty-headed, uninformed, unresearched "factoid" pulled straight out of thin air.... is what it was.

As has been so, so much of what Vixen's written in this thread. It's a stain on the thread, frankly.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do look up that SOLAS resolution of Nov 1991 which mandated it came into effect 1 Aug 1993. I don't care for your argument 'people take a long time to adopt new regulations', as both Commander Montonen and marine electronic navigations expert Asser Koivisto for the JAIC confirmed the specs of Estonia, and indeed, you can witness with your own eyes Rockwater, Dec 1994, video in which they collect the HRU from one of the buoys.

End of.

When your own contributions to this thread are consistently inherently unreliable, fake and uninformed, your continued usage of exhortations such as "do look up" this or "do check" this.... leave a particularly faecal taste in the mouth. Do stop doing it, maybe?

 

[Axxman300]

I like how she takes time out of being wrong about the rescue effort's organization table to go back to being wrong about the buoys.

 

[abaddon]

Montonen himself says that at the time Estonia did not have SART on its life rafts but that transponders should be effected ASAP.

ibid

You can read the amazing accounts of how Mariella literally did lift various people out of the water if you do a search. This was extremely dangerous as several fell against the side of the ship and were lost.

That can't be. You already told us that was impossible for such ships. According to you earlier on, such ships have no means to pluck anyone from the sea.

Or were you just making that crap up?

 

[Vixen]

It's bollocks deflection such as this - which is an intellectually-dishonest gambit you've repeatedly tried on in this thread now - that renders most of what you write utterly unreliable and without merit.


(Oh and a multitude of much more expert and experienced minds than a ship's master - a ship's master who will have had no experience whatsoever in the physics underpinning the sinking of a large ship - have already correctly determined that there's zero reason why the Estonia should have floated upside-down for any period of time after capsizing. Nor is there any evidence to support such a notion. Plus there's plenty of reliable documentary evidence, including video recordings, showing that large ships both can and do sink in a 90-degree capsized orientation - and that some large ships can/do actually sink in a keel-down orientation. So we can very safely discount the ship's master's opinion here.)

You have no idea what you are talking about. Captain Esa Mäkelä was a qualified shipbuilder before he became a commercial sea captain. I think he knows all about the physics of sinking and floating better than you do. He was Captain of the leviathan Silja Europa (capacity 2,500 passengers and hundreds of cars and lorries) and was designated On Scene Commander as of the night of the accident.

 

[Vixen]

Jeebuz Christophos. It was YOU who'd originally made the (fatuous and entirely unresearched) claim that the ships coming to the Estonia's assistance didn't have helipads.

You're really quite something. Again: try sometimes writing the letters "s" "o" "r" "r" and "y" in that order, with no spaces in-between.

Stop telling lies. I said nothing of the sort. Only an ignoramus would make that claim. Keep your ill-mannered invective to yourself.

 

[Vixen]

You have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about.

Are you really of the opinion (and it appears that you are...) that these ships were trying to effect the rescuing of survivors from the water.... by somehow plucking them out of the sea and raising them up to "that height" onto the ship?


DO. SOME. RESEARCH. BEFORE. TYPING. CRAP. LIKE. THIS.

Oh do look up Mariella. It did indeed drop down a raft and hoist people up to the surface. There is footage of Carl-Erik Reintaam in nothing but underpants being rescued exactly that way.

 

[Vixen]

That can't be. You already told us that was impossible for such ships. According to you earlier on, such ships have no means to pluck anyone from the sea.

Or were you just making that crap up?

If you watch this interview of Mariella Captain Jan-Tore Thornroos you might get an idea of what he and his crew accomplished that night.



There are English subtitles available.

 

[LondonJohn]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

LOL. Curious gambit there of simply parroting the words I've used to describe (many of) your posts, and hoping it'll work.

Captain Esa Mäkelä was a qualified shipbuilder before he became a commercial sea captain.

Building ships does not make one an expert in knowing how ships sink. Next?

I think he knows all about the physics of sinking and floating better than you do.

1. He demonstrably does not, if he thinks the Estonia should necessarily have floated upside-down for some time after capsizing.

2. It's not simply a question of me knowing better than him. It's a question of the actual experts in the field knowing better than him. And they do. They know that there's no reason why the Estonia should have floated upside-down for some time after capsizing.

He was Captain of the leviathan Silja Europa (capacity 2,500 passengers and hundreds of cars and lorries) and was designated On Scene Commander as of the night of the accident.

...none of which has anything whatsoever to do with how much he would or would not know about the physics of the sinking of large ships. I know exactly what he did on the night of the sinking, and he did an exemplary job.

 

[Mojo]

Only an ignoramus would make that claim.

Here you go:

You really can't grasp it, can you? The ships were only told to prepare their fo'c'sle decks as helicopter pads at 0205 after the profession official coordinated rescue was ordered by MRCC at 0148, the exact time Estonia vanished off the radar.