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

[abaddon]

"WPIRBS"? Really?

And they were located on Oct. 2. At sea. By two separate fishing vessels. One each in case you couldn't work that out. And they were not activated.

Seriously? Sorry, you cannot rehabilitate your CT that way. Record keeping, tracking, technology have all move on a bit since then, don't you think?

Oh, come off it. First or early reports are always iffy about any event.

Irrelevant. HOFE would have sunk in deeper water. Are you simply claiming that HOFE should not have stopped sinking? Instead it should have sunk beyond the sea bottom? Would that make it a "subterranean" ferry?

From HS

TALLINN - Satellite passenger buoys (EPIRBs) on the Estonian passenger ferry have been found, the Estonian Ministry of Transport announced on Monday. Experts are now investigating why the buoys were not operating at the time of the accident. The radio transmitters in the buoys should have automatically reported the exact position of the vessel via satellites after being submerged. The satellite buoys were found as early as Saturday and were transported to the Estonian Maritime Administration. The Estonian news agency's EEA telegram did not mention where the buoys were found (STT).
13.12.1994
https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000003390961.html


Again, on 28.1.1995, HS reported that they were automatically-activated EPIRB's and should have automatically signalled on coming to the surface.

Estonia's emergency buoys had forgotten about the tuning

Tukkimäki Paavo

28.1.1995 2:00

The two emergency stalls of the car ship Estonia did not send a signal to rescuers because they were not tuned on board. The emergency buoys came to the surface properly as the ship sank.

The International Commission of Inquiry into the accident has investigated the operation of emergency buoys stranded off the coast of Estonia. The buoy batteries were in full reserve, but they could not send anything untuned," says Commissioner Kari Lehtola .

The Commission concluded its two-day meeting on Friday in Helsinki.
The so-called EPIRB emergency buoys had recently been maintained and were placed in place in accordance with the rules. However, during the setting phase, the activation of the buoys was forgotten: the protective cover must be opened and the switch turned on.
The activation of the emergency buoy was one of estonia's tasks for radio electricians, of which there were two on board. The investigation is still ongoing, but the Commission has consulted the radio electrician in this matter, said Asser Koivisto, an expert member of the Commission.

The purpose of the emergency buoy is to send the location of the sunken ship and to inform the searchers of the name of the ship.

ibid

They were operational and although seemingly successfully released into the sea by the hydrostatic release unit, they failed to give off the signal as they were supposed to, as automatically-activated EPIRB's. As they are only released under up to four metres - two fathoms - of water, it is obvious they are not 'manual-activation-only' [although all such buoys can be]. That is simple common sense. The claim they 'operated as they were designed to' is an absurd one.

TALLINN - Car Ferry The Estonian EPIRB satellite buoys were operational, although for some reason the message they sent automatically did not progress to the alarm system. Estonian and Finnish experts tested buoys detached from sunken Estonia on Tuesday at the icebreaker Tarmo. According to Estonian radio, the buoys sent a four-hour radio message that should arrive via satellite at the ground station. Next, we want to investigate the operation of the ground stations to find out where the auto-triggered alarm message disappeared. Satellite alerts in the Baltic Sea area will be received at Bodö, Norway, which will transmit the information to the nearest maritime rescue center. Satellite alerts in the Baltic Sea may also be printed in Falmouth, England, or Toulouse, France. In connection with the Estonian accident, the absence of a satellite alarm was puzzling. The buoys were later found stranded off the coast of Estonia. JORMA ROTKO
25.1.1995

HS

Clear now?

No.

1. The EPIRBs were hydrostaticly released, not activated. They required manual activation.

2. They were released as designed. They were later recovered from the sea, not buried in sand on a beach as you wildly claimed. They were tested and found to be working as designed.

3. The EPIRBs are irrelevant. Everyone already knew the location of Estonia. They would have added nothing.

4. Nobody can "tune" an EPIRB bar an authorised service center. You already know why that is. Either you are mistranslating, misunderstanding or lying. Pick one.

5. We have already established that Koivisto has not a clue.

6.

The purpose of the emergency buoy is to send the location of the sunken ship and to inform the searchers of the name of the ship.

That information was already known well before any EPIRB release.

WTF could an EPIRB add to that?

 

[Vixen]

You're twisting what people said again. What happened to the ship's emergency beacons was of course an important matter to resolve because their signal was never received and it was potentially very significant if they had failed to operate for some reason. That is an entirely separate matter from whether they could have assisted with the rescue of the victims in this disaster (and, as we have discussed several times, they would not realistically have helped).



I really can't see what point this rambling stuff is trying to make. You exhort us not to dismiss early news reports. Unless they're from "lowly" witnesses. Or maybe if the news reporters are actually intelligence agents in disguise. And anyway, early reports are too early to rely on. But don't dismiss early news reports.

Not at all. I found it striking that Lehtola was pushing the 'bow visor and car ramp fell off' version from virtually Day One, and citing Sillaste, who according to the JAIC report when interviewed 28.9.1994 never said anything of the kind. He was the only member of crew interviewed on that date so for me, it is bizarre that in an accident involving up to 1,051 people that the JAIC - following Carl Bildt's lead - should seize on the The Herald of Free Enterprise explanation, when issues such as communications and sabotage had not even been looked at.

Lehtola on 30.9.1994, when the ship was yet to be located and a sonar image seen:

30.9.1994 2:00 Suspicions of a passenger ship for betraying estonia's bow gate were confirmed on Thursday. "Something has happened in it," says Kari Lehtola, Member of the Research Commission. "People's observations of it are vague, but there are none."

According to Lehtola, it is possible that both the liftable visor and the waterproof bow gate behind it have failed. However, he says they have by no means opened up. At least no serious omissions have occurred so far in the fastening of the trucks.

According to Lehtola, the amount of water entering the car deck and the speed of the car deck is impossible to say. He does not yet dare to give an estimate of the speed of tilting and sinking. The time fork between tilting and sinking has now stretched between five minutes and an hour, after half an hour at the top on Wednesday. There are major differences in observations, mainly because some of the interviewees have woken up to the ship's tilt later than others.

As early as Wednesday, it was believed that water was released from the bow gate to the Estonia car deck and brought down the ship. Henrik Sillaste, an Estonian machineman who survived the accident, said he saw on the TV monitor in the engine room control room that water was spraying in from the gate seams.

HS

Lehtola must have been truly psychic to ascertain all of this within hours of the accident from the words of one witness who was actually down in the Engine Room and never mentioned the bow visor being absent, or even water coming in at the top of the car ramp.



From HS 30.9.1994, within 48 hours of this massive catastrophe it seems others, with marine expertise [Lehtola was a lawyer] had different suspicions:

30.9.1994 2:00
TALLINN - "The Estonian was sunk by some abnormal factor: an explosion or an underwater collision." Johannes Johanson, managing director of the Estonian side of the shipping line, is sure of his point.

"By the way, the event is incomprehensible. A car boat the size of an Estonia does not overturn even if all the trucks are stacked on the other side of it," Johanson says.

The strangest thing, he thinks, is that the ship was going around in five minutes.

Rumours have circulated in Estonia that there was a mafia from which Estline would have banned tithing. Johanson denies any talk of blackmail.

"Admittedly, a year ago there was a threat through internal channels that something would still happen to one of the great passenger ships in the Baltic Sea, but it was not in any way directed at Estline and nothing was required," Johanson says. At that time, the whole thing was forgotten idly and left unexplored.

Johanson marvelously considers the stories of the survivors to be miraculous, that something resembling a rock would have appeared near the surface. There are no kars in the vicinity of the sinking site.

Jan Stern told me she heard a loud bang before the alarm signal. The narrator had thought it was a bigger wave than normal.

Captain Aleksander Gorbachev of the Russian Baltic Fleet told the BNS news agency that there were no Russian navy ships or submarines in the area.
JORMA ROTKO

HS

So of course this aspect - especially with 39 survivors hearing a series of bangs, or bang and/or a collision sensation and with experienced sea captains saying they expected to find Estonia semi-submerged (turtled) on arrival yet only finding flotsam.


Sillaste's testimony according to the JAIC report:

6.2.3 Summary of testimonies by the third engineer

The third engineer was interrogated seven times:

l. 29 September 1994 in Turku by the Finnish police. 2. 29 September 1994 in Turku by the Estonian State Security Police. 3. 29 September 1994 in Turku by Commission members.
4. 3 October 1994 in Tallinn by the Estonian police.

5.17 October 1994 in Tallinn by Commission members.

6. 31 March 1995 in Gothenburg by Commission members.

7. 28 February 1996 in Tallinn by the Estonian police.

This summary is based on the earliest testimony When subsequent interrogations reveal more information or contradict the earliest testimony, the later testimonies are referred to in square brackets. During the loading of the ESTONIA the third engineer heard on his portable VHF radio the order from the chief officer that the cars must be carefully lashed because hard weather was expected.

The third engineer was on duty from 0000 hrs. His work station was the engine control room. Wind velocity was 20-25 m/s (according to the ship's anemometer) and the ship's speed 15 knots. The run seemed normal despite the heavy weather. At 0030 hrs [3, 5] the stabilisers were activated. When he started his watch he looked at the instrument panel and observed that the ship had a starboard list of approximately one degree. The fourth engineer, who had the watch before the third engineer's, told him that he had tried to compensate for the list, which was due to the distribution of the cargo, by filling the port heeling tank. However, the tank was already full and the list could not be fully compensated.

In the control room there was a monitor connected to video cameras on the car deck and in the engine room. The cameras scanned automatically every five seconds but it was possible to stop the scan manually and to keep a desired picture.

He saw on the monitor that the AB seaman on the watch was on the car deck at about 0100 hrs or five minutes later [4]. In another testimony [7] he stated the time to be 0055-0059 hrs, that he saw the AB seaman at the ramp and that there was no water at this time.

At 0115 hrs he perceived two heavy waves, one after another, and they could really be felt. Later he stated that the time was Ol 10 hrs [2], 0114 hrs [6] and also that he looked at his watch which said 0113 hrs [7]. He had never before experienced such powerful blows against a ship. The ship was sailing practically straight into the waves and consequently their full force was directed towards the bow. He immediately looked in the monitor. At 0115 hrs he saw in the monitor [2] that water was coming in from the bow or - as stated in another testimony [4] - that a huge amount of water was pressing in from the sides of the ramp [- later testimony].

Nothing at all about the top of the ramp being open or the bow visor being missing.

Continues:

At the same moment he heard the AB seaman on the watch report "water on the car deck"*. In other testimonies [3, 5] he said that the AB seaman's words were "Bridge from watchkeeping seaman: there is water on the car deck". The inflow of water was enormous. In fact, the monitor picture became unclear because the camera was sprayed with water. He locked the camera on the ramp and, according to him, the same picture was displayed on the bridge monitor [5].etc

6.2.3 Summary of testimonies by the third engineer JAIC Report

*In an interview with a Swedish newspaper the AB Seaman, Silver Linde only said he heard 'a noise' from the car ramp not water, in any case he carried on with his duties nonetheless.

 

[Vixen]

No one has said they were unimportant, only that their activation or non-activation - manual activation - made no difference as to how quickly the rescue effort began. Of course, you know that, and that's why you have to mischaracterize what people have been saying.

You do like strawmen, don't you? The early reports are not being simply dismissed out of hand. But again, you know that, so yet again you're disingenuously trying to discredit your critics arguments. All in the hope of somehow rehabilitating your failed conspiracy mash-up quasi-narrative I suspect.

The issue is not only about speed of rescue - which was considerably delayed by lack of radio communication - but also the ruling out of sabotage or crime, given the unusually rapid sinking. Simply fobbing people off with an anodyne story based on another car ferry accident is not going to inspire confidence.

 

[zooterkin]

The issue is not only about speed of rescue - which was considerably delayed by lack of radio communication

No, it wasn't.

 

[abaddon]

There was nothing to 'tune'
They are sealed units that are set up at the factory.
There is nothing that can be done by anyone on the ship to 'tune' them.
When they were turned on they worked as they should, their transmission was picked up and lasted for over 4 hours as designed.

Whatever Koivisto is saying is either being mistranslated somewhere or he is wrong,.

Imagine the logistics. Every ship would have to have a fully equipped lab and Cospas would be swamped with test transmissions before every ship left port. Every single one. Everywhere around the globe. Every port. Every ship's departure.

One might as well claim that everyone should always dial 999, 911, 112 before leaving one's home to make sure they are operational. Otherwise one could not be safe outdoors. How long do you suppose one might wait before getting an unfriendly visit from the cops?

 

[LondonJohn]

So what about 2182? Or the NMT mobile phones? Arlanda Airport (air traffic controllers!) all without radio communications for the duration of the sinking. OK, so it might be due to 'the storm' or natural events. However, the JAIC didn't bother investigating this. It just claimed a snafu with MRCC Turku but how were Turku to know Stockholm did not get any communications. It is Catch-22 is it not? Are you claiming none of the senior officers on the bridge had an NMT device. That it was down to the third and fourth officers, hanging on to a lopsided desk and using a walkie-talkie designed for in-ship communication. In any case, Herma managed to find the coordinates so it must have been lit up on their navigation system, even if it was a 'blackout' (as described by Ainsalu to Europa)

.

Look, Vixen: the very fact that the crew (in the individual and collective sense) of the Estonia demonstrably left it until the ship was already heeling so far to starboard - thereby knocking out their higher-power & longer-range VHF capabilities - that the only means of ship-ship comms was via their low-powered portable sets....

.... says everything about the incompetence/panicked/deer-in-headlamps of the crew that night.

Why do you think nobody on the Estonia made a Ch16 Mayday (or "May Day" LOLOL) call - over the high-power VHF set - in the time between a) it being obvious that the ship was at the least in very serious trouble, and at worst was clearly going to sink, and b) 1.22am?

(Hint: the answer is not "They probably did try, but the channel wasn't working". The answer is "They didn't try, and here's why I suggest they didn't try....")

Cue response: "Oh well, two ships a week sink" <shrug>.

Despicable. Nothing new though.

 

[abaddon]

The issue is not only about speed of rescue - which was considerably delayed by lack of radio communication - but also the ruling out of sabotage or crime, given the unusually rapid sinking. Simply fobbing people off with an anodyne story based on another car ferry accident is not going to inspire confidence.

Go ahead and explain how the EPIRBs could have changed the response time. Bet you can't.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I found it striking that Lehtola was pushing the 'bow visor and car ramp fell off' version from virtually Day One, and citing Sillaste, who according to the JAIC report when interviewed 28.9.1994 never said anything of the kind...

Yet you go on to quote a newspaper report of what Lehtola claimed Sillaste had said, and does he say "bow visor and car ramp fell off"? No, he does not.

You are a truly terrible reporter of facts. You clearly imply here that Lehtola claimed Sillaste told him the bow visor had fallen off and that is simply not true.

 

[Vixen]

R

For short, we call it "SYN-ACK". In terms you might grok that basically means the discipline of saying "hello" and in the event one does not receive a return "hello", one knows that one cannot rely that the message has been received at all. One of the criticicisms of Europa and Mariella was that they did not follow that discipline. Which they didn't in fairness. The radio traffic was a bit sloppy. That said, they did what they could with the situation in front of them.
Nope. Not when one understands how the systems work.


<snipped>

So how can you say, 'Hello', if you never received the message in the first place?

 

[Vixen]

Yet you go on to quote a newspaper report of what Lehtola claimed Sillaste had said, and does he say "bow visor and car ramp fell off"? No, he does not.

You are a truly terrible reporter of facts. You clearly imply here that Lehtola claimed Sillaste told him the bow visor had fallen off and that is simply not true.

From as 'early as Wednesday' (= the day of the accident itself!):

As early as Wednesday, it was believed that water was released from the bow gate to the Estonia car deck and brought down the ship. Henrik Sillaste, an Estonian machineman who survived the accident, said he saw on the TV monitor in the engine room control room that water was spraying in from the gate seams. Many rescued passengers also reported that the gate had leaked. The actual waterproof bow gate was behind the visor to be lifted up in estonia. If the visor attachment fails, the waves that strike the bow can throw the visor up. The visor prevents the buckthorns from hitting the bow port, which cannot withstand their force. According to experts, five to ten waves are enough to slam so much water on an open car deck that the ship capsizes. The exact location of estonia, which sank on the night before Wednesday, is still unknown. On Thursday morning, the Maritime Administration's Suunta vessel drove into the waters of Utön in search of the wreck, but the intensified wind prevented the work. The wreck lies at a depth of 60-90 meters about 35 kilometers from Utö to the south of the city.

<snip>


The group met for the first time in Turku on Thursday. Visor protects bow gate Wind prevented the search for wreckage Finland named its researcher Helsingin Sanomat

30.9.1994


The wreck had yet to be found and no-one knew at that stage for sure that the bow visor had come off, as no sonar imaging had even been done.

And what about the senior officers - according to early reports, they had Avo Piht alive and well and Andresson drowned. Presumably the sources were checked as accurate.

So what did Piht have to say, or even the group of senior officers in the luxury deck cabins, who must surely have escaped, alongside the Voronin family?

ETA At no time over seven interviews did Sillaste ever claim the visor had fallen off or that the car ramp was open.

 

[abaddon]

So how can you say, 'Hello', if you never received the message in the first place?

That is the point. I do not know how it is possible to get something so simple so wrong, but somehow you manage to do it.

If I say "Hi" and you reply "Hello" then I know you can hear me.

If I say "Hi" and you say nothing back, I know you did not hear me.

Basic radio discipline.

How hard is that to understand. Well, for you....

 

[Jack by the hedge]

From as 'early as Wednesday' (= the day of the accident itself!):

As early as Wednesday, it was believed that water was released from the bow gate to the Estonia car deck and brought down the ship. Henrik Sillaste, an Estonian machineman who survived the accident, said he saw on the TV monitor in the engine room control room that water was spraying in from the gate seams. Many rescued passengers also reported that the gate had leaked....

30.9.1994


The wreck had yet to be found and no-one knew at that stage for sure that the bow visor had come off, as no sonar imaging had even been done.

And what about the senior officers - according to early reports, they had Avo Piht alive and well and Andresson drowned. Presumably the sources were checked as accurate.

So what did Piht have to say, or even the group of senior officers in the luxury deck cabins, who must surely have escaped, alongside the Voronin family?

Is any of that supposed to justify your dishonestly implying that Lehtola cited Sillaste for claiming the bow visor had fallen off? Clearly it doesn't.

 

[LondonJohn]

The storm turned me into a newt. The JAIC didn't investigate that either.

I got better.

Ni!!

 

[LondonJohn]

From HS


https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000003390961.html


Again, on 28.1.1995, HS reported that they were automatically-activated EPIRB's and should have automatically signalled on coming to the surface.


ibid

They were operational and although seemingly successfully released into the sea by the hydrostatic release unit, they failed to give off the signal as they were supposed to, as automatically-activated EPIRB's. As they are only released under up to four metres - two fathoms - of water, it is obvious they are not 'manual-activation-only' [although all such buoys can be]. That is simple common sense. The claim they 'operated as they were designed to' is an absurd one.

HS

Clear now?

Jeeeez. This is getting ridiculous.

The things you quoted are saying, exactly, that the EPIRBs should have been manually switched on by the relevant crew members before the ship sank, but that this didn't happen. And then you go on to quote a part about the testing of the EPIRBs once they'd been recovered after the sinking (and remember: when they were recovered, they were a) not (manually) switched on, b) with full batteries, and c) subsequently found to transmit entirely as intended when they were (manually) switched on. Meaning that 1) nobody on the Estonia (manually) switched them on when they should have done, and 2) if someone had switched them on when they should have done, they'd have worked precisely as designed and transmitted successfully.


You're so far off-base on this matter - and, as so often, you don't have the knowledge, understanding or analytical ability to realise how far off-base you are. You truly don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I think I see where the confusion over the buoy activation is coming in.

The so-called EPIRB emergency buoys had recently been maintained and were placed in place in accordance with the rules. However, during the setting phase, the activation of the buoys was forgotten: the protective cover must be opened and the switch turned on.
The activation of the emergency buoy was one of estonia's tasks for radio electricians, of which there were two on board. The investigation is still ongoing, but the Commission has consulted the radio electrician in this matter, said Asser Koivisto, an expert member of the Commission

This section can only refer to the activation switch on the buoy that starts the transmission, it is protected from accidental activation by a cover. There is no other switch anywhere on the buoy.

 

[erwinl]

I think I see where the confusion over the buoy activation is coming in.

What is the 'setting phase' in this case?
Putting the EPIRBS back in their containers after the maintenance?
Or the activation of the EPIRBS during an emergency?

 

[LondonJohn]

I think I see where the confusion over the buoy activation is coming in.



This section can only refer to the activation switch on the buoy that starts the transmission, it is protected from accidental activation by a cover. There is no other switch anywhere on the buoy.

Yes. Clearly the words "during the setting phase" a) are an imprecise translation, and b) must necessarily mean "at the time when it became necessary to deploy the EPIRBs" - in other words, once the crew know the ship is sinking and that they'll need to activate the EPIRBs and get them into the water.

 

[LondonJohn]

What is the 'setting phase' in this case?
Putting the EPIRBS back in their containers after the maintenance?
Or the activation of the EPIRBS during an emergency?

It can only mean the latter. The former makes no sense, in the context of EPIRBs. After all, even the genuinely-auto-activated EPIRBs don't require anything to be "switched on" on them at the time when they're placed into the holders.

 

[phiwum]

That is the point. I do not know how it is possible to get something so simple so wrong, but somehow you manage to do it.

If I say "Hi" and you reply "Hello" then I know you can hear me.

If I say "Hi" and you say nothing back, I know you did not hear me.

Well, or that I cannot hear you. Or perhaps that you were unable to reply, whether or not you heard me (as may be the case in a serious emergency, I suppose).

The point is, of course, that if you do say something back, I know you can hear me. If you do not, I don't know why not.

Just a little pedantry to point this out, nothing of substance.

Basic radio discipline.

How hard is that to understand. Well, for you....

 

[Jack by the hedge]

From some of the descriptions posted here I gather that modern versions might not only have an immersion activation switch but might have a magnetic switch too, allowing them to be left switched on in their holders but prevented from transmitting by a magnet in the holder keeping them turned off.