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

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Vixen said:
OK, so you are on a large passenger cruise car ferry. Your ship begins to capsize and it is happening rapidly. You put out a series of Mayday messages but nobody responds. Eventually half an hour later with sinking just five minutes away, the fourth mate at last hears something on his handset. It is Silja Europa with a high degree of scepticism in his voice, 'Abaddon, are you calling...mayday?'

'Need your coordinates'

'Got a blackout, will have to come back to you'.

Two minutes later, Abaddon's mate with the coordinates.

Line goes dead.

Nice.
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How about you take no action until it's too late because you are panicking And incompetent and you have lost power?
 
LondonJohn said:
What are you on about now?

The JAIC investigated the EPIRB issue properly and professionally. They determined - correctly - that the electronic circuitry and transmitter had not been manually switched on as should have been the case. They came to this (correct) finding on account of finding and testing the EPIRBs after the incident, and finding that they worked perfectly as designed as soon as they were (manually) switched on. And therefore, the fact that they hadn't worked on the night of the disaster meant, by definition, that nobody among the crew had remembered to (manually) switch them on.

The JAIC solved the matter of the non-transmitting EPIRBs correctly and thoroughly. The fact that you don't understand this, and that nor do you understand the science behind EPIRBs in general and these specific EPIRBs in particular, is neither here nor there.
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Stop dissembling; the JAIC nowhere says anything of the kind.
 
Vixen said:
No, they are automatically hydrostatically released when submersion of water reaches between three to thirteen feet of water.

I imagine the setting phase is when it is placed in the container with the HRU, possibly a different make, such as Hammar, as illustrated in the Kannad catalogue.
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Why 'imagine' when you can find out?

There is no 'setting phase'

It can be turned on or off, nothing more.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
"If". That is the point we keep making and you keep ignoring. It would be a very big deal indeed if the buoys had been found to be sabotaged or have failed to operate as designed. Nobody (not only the JAIC, but nobody in any authority over safety at sea or in commercial shipping or in marine insurance) noted the buoys not working as they should or thought that they had been tampered with in any way. The only problem with the activation of the buoys was user inaction on the night in question.
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It was a big deal for the marine communications experts. It was Lehtola who waved his hand, waffled about aircraft communications and then said, well it doesn't matter, as it would not have expedited rescue.
 
Vixen said:
As I understand it, ships are obliged to have the channel 16 switched on. Thus, when someone calls 'mayday' everybody in the region hears it. Everybody also hears the response. Normally the nearest MRCC, in this case, Turku, then sets the rescue into operation. However, what happened with Estonia is that no-one heard it, except Mariella, who responded but were not heard by Estonia. Then Silja Europa who had their radio tuned very finely to hear even the weakest broadcast responded, which Estonia heard. Mariella did not hear everything Silja Europa said and vice versa, which was also strange (as the Captain reflected later). Mariella switched to frequency 2182 - which should be heard all over the Baltic as far away as Gothenberg - and when it realised reception was poor, the captain of Mariella contacted MRCC Turku - on a personal mobile phone - who was relayed the Mayday that way. Stockholm never heard it at all.

The Swedish helicopter pilots had problems communicating, too, as the network was down at Arlanda Airport (Stockholm).

It's all very well JAIC only reporting that '14 ships' got the message but then one has to ask why they have glossed over the very real problems which have been widely reported, when they are supposed to be investigating the accident.

An opinion in Helsingin Sanomat 7.10.1994:



This guy is blaming Estonia's radio equipment but Mariella, Turku MRCC and Helsinki Radio had problems, too.
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Nearest ships respond and start to rescue. They do not wait for a third party to 'set the rescue into operation'.
 
LondonJohn said:
Because........ 1) the Estonia was still travelling forwards, and in a haphazard direction, for some time after its last location transmission; 2) in any case, ships don't sink directly below their last surface location (let alone their last transmitted surface location); and 3) you clearly have zero understanding of how difficult it can be to locate a shipwreck in low-visibility conditions, when you have something like 100 square miles to search in.

At the risk of repeating myself: you don't know what you're talking about, Vixen.






Please tell the assembled group what could/should have been done - in your expert opinion, of course - to get ship-borne and helicopter-borne assistance to the area of the sinking "before the horse had bolted".

In detail, please.
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Do not twist my words. The context of my post was in response to Abaddon saying, 'they got the mayday, they got the coordinates, so there were no communications problems'.



The whole point of rescue is to save the passengers and crew. There was no way they were going to rescue the 852 who went down with the ship unless rescue could commence before they went down. Getting the coordinates six minutes before 852 people (at least) perished and putting out the official mayday exactly when they are doomed to perish at 0148 is not in any sensible person's mind 'satisfactory telecommunications on the night'.
 
Vixen said:
Another report from Helsingin Sanomat dated 29.9.1994 at 0200 - almost exactly 24 hours after the accident - which was a Wednesday early hours of the morning - quotes Sillaste and blaming the bow visor and car ramp, when they had not even finalised the accident investigation committee as of that stage.

Helsingin Sanomat
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So now you're trying again with a different newspaper report. That one says Sillaste claimed the water he saw pouring in on either side of the ramp indicated the bow visor was not properly closed. So much for your claim "he never said anything of the kind" (that the visor had broken free).

And does it quote Lehtola as saying Sillaste said the visor had broken free as you claim? Well, it says he said ". Against the gate [bow visor] theory of Sillaste, water could have come out of the ramps,". That's not grammatical English and frankly it's not at all clear exactly what it means. It certainly doesn't support your claim.


Seriously, an accident involving an estimated 1,051 and already on Day One they have concluded ...
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No. Nobody concluded anything. That's a load of crap.
 
LondonJohn said:
Vixen: please stop quoting media reports from the immediate aftermath of the disaster (ie for those published within as long as two weeks after the sinking, and absolutely definitely for those published within the day or two following the sinking).

Why?

Because those sorts of early-stage media reports are often (and provably) wrong. They're often based on semi-informed supposition, and are often under-sourced or even unsourced.

We've been through this several times now. Yet you keep going back to newspapers from as little as a day or two after the incident.
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Er, 'semi-informed supposition' as in Carl Bildt telling a press conference it was the fault of the bow visor and car ramp within 16 hours of the catastrophe.

How is that showing any respect for the families of the affected?

Whilst the marine experts, such as Montonen, IIvonen, Johansson, Silja Europa captain Esa Mäkelä, Estonian PM Laar, Koivisto, et al, expressing deep misgivings, with Johansson and Laar stating outright they suspected possible sabotage, we have a politician and a lawyer utterly convinced it was a perfectly natural The Herald of Free Enterprise -style accident mark II.
 
Vixen said:
You are approaching the issue from the wrong way. If you are appointed as in investigator, you invariably have to start from scratch, as of the point of the accident. It is all very well saying, 'Oh the airbags would not have saved lives anyway', if they are discovered to have been disabled, or mysteriously not working as they should have done.

At that point you do not know if it is sabotage or not.


The JAIC's attitude, 'we do not want to blame anybody' is truly pathetic. It was their task to pinpoint blame.
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Both of the buoys were recovered from the sea. They were in working order but had not been activated.
When they were they worked as they were designed to.

What else is there to investigate?
 
Vixen said:
It was a big deal for the marine communications experts.
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Indeed. Now kindly quote any of them saying the EPIRBs were either sabotaged, tampered with or failed to work as they were designed.

It was Lehtola who waved his hand, waffled about aircraft communications and then said, well it doesn't matter, as it would not have expedited rescue.
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He was right. It would not have expedited rescue. What part of that do you disagree with and why?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
"If" again. How precise were the coordinates Estonia reported in its Mayday? How far did it then drift before it sank? How close to those coordinates is the wreck? How long do you expect locating a wreck to take?



They already had the Mayday and coordinates. The salient issue is that the ships which were closest and could get there first had the coordinates and turned towards the Estonia a good ten minutes before 01:42. They didn't wait for Helsinki Radio to tell them what they already knew, no matter how "salient" you think that is.
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I was answering Abaddon's question about telecommunications. I know perfectly well the 'change of subject issue' movements of Estonia as it sank.

There are professional dedicated sea rescue stations and the chronology of what time they got the message to swing into action is what is the important issue in respect of accident investigation.

Stockholm did not get the officially approved mayday confirmation until Helsinki Radio relayed it at 0154. Stockholm, having heard rumours, rang up Turku almost simultaneously at 0157. There operations duty log shows rescue commenced at 0202 at their end.

Given >500 of the victims were Swedish nationals, do you now understand why the Swedes were upset by the delay in communications?

Well, there was a cargo ship in the region on its way, so that's all right then, I suppose?
 
Vixen said:
You are approaching the issue from the wrong way. If you are appointed as in investigator, you invariably have to start from scratch, as of the point of the accident. It is all very well saying, 'Oh the airbags would not have saved lives anyway', if they are discovered to have been disabled, or mysteriously not working as they should have done.



At that point you do not know if it is sabotage or not.





The JAIC's attitude, 'we do not want to blame anybody' is truly pathetic. It was their task to pinpoint blame.
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And how many forensic engineering investigations have you participated in again?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
How about you take no action until it's too late because you are panicking And incompetent and you have lost power?
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If it was the one captain, perhaps, but when there were two, together with four senior officers, all with very similar qualifications and training, how likely does that sound to you? If ordinary passengers were racing up to the upper decks in the short ten minute interval the ship regained its balance from the initial violent lurch 40° towards starboard, wouldn't the ship's own personnel be a hundred times more aware there was something wrong?

IMV whilst the crew could have done better, if there was an act of sabotage, then there is likely very little anyone could do about it no matter how calm and collected.
 
Vixen said:
Er, 'semi-informed supposition' as in Carl Bildt telling a press conference it was the fault of the bow visor and car ramp within 16 hours of the catastrophe.
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I see, early reports are fine if you think they fit your your CT Gish gallop non-narrative. The ones that don't, not so much.:rolleyes:
 
Vixen said:
Stop dissembling; the JAIC nowhere says anything of the kind.
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"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 he 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 Ior 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.

...

17.2 The distress traffic

As noted in 8.11 the ESTONIA s emergency beacons (EPIRBs) were not switched on when put in their housings. The only reason that they were found switched off is that they were not properly activated. "

Who's dissembling?
 
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