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

[Jack by the hedge]

Police divers? where were they?

That's a good question. Vixen, when did police divers go down to the wreck? Which police force did they belong to and whose jurisdiction is it in? Which police forces have divers equipped to operate at 80m depth anyway?

 

[Stamuel]

Stop denying what is documented.

Recovered objects: The divers have dismounted respectively burnt off the well known parts including the bolt of the Atlantic lock. When they were preparing the helicopter flight back some parts had to be left behind due to weight restrictions. As the bolt did not show any changes except for some notchings, it was left behind on the diving support vessel. He assumes that the bolt has been thrown overboard in the meantime (weight ca. 25 kg). The other parts will be shown to us tomorrow. We will receive name and contact of the owners of the diving support vessel and shall find out where the bolt actually is.

Why would Arikas or Kurm be hoping to find the missing bolt on the seabed if, as you erroneously claim (or rather, knowingly falsely claim) the JAIC had it all along?

All this time, Vixen has been telling us that they said the bolt was too heavy for the helicopter. We find instead that "some parts had to be left behind due to weight restrictions." There were weight restrictions on the helicopter, so they couldn't take everything. Some things, including the bolt, were left behind. Very clear what this means, and it is not at all what Vixen has been saying. Unless there is more reliable source that contradicts this one, no one ever said the bolt was too heavy.

The quote even explains why the bolt was left behind: "the bolt did not show any changes except for some notchings." This makes sense. If you are trying to understand the damage to the ship, a part that doesn't show signs of damage would be low priority. Better to use your limited capacity to carry things that might be more valuable to the investigation.

It is pretty clear that the bolt is one of those classic items from conspiracy theory thinking: something utterly unimportant that is treated as absolutely crucial simply because it is (allegedly) missing.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Stop denying what is documented.



Why would Arikas or Kurm be hoping to find the missing bolt on the seabed if, as you erroneously claim (or rather, knowingly falsely claim) the JAIC had it all along?

Where does Captain Swoop say the JAIC had it all along, and what is your basis for suggesting that he is lying?

 

[Reformed Offlian]

.

A long career with no drama or emergency doesn't prepare you for when the **** hits the fan.
Sailing a regular run on a ferry day after day, week after week and month after month doesn't require high levels of skill or decision making.
We don't know how we will react when it comes to the crunch.

"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful." -E.J. Smith, Captain, RMS Titanic

 

[Axxman300]

Andresson was not known to be reckless. He was trained at Leningrad Naval College. He was backed up by at least two similarly qualified officers on the bridge at all times, so he didn't have free scope to behave out of the ordinary.

You keep saying this as if he went to Hogwarts or Oxford or something.

Here's what your CT website says:

"Estonia" had the highest ice class and 24000 hp, whilst "Georg Otts" was so low powered that they always had to run the engines at full speed against heavy seas or ice in order to make some headway at all. To proceed with "Estonia" against heavy head seas, however, required a lot of experience as otherwise quite some damage could be done to the foreship with such powerful engines. This experience Arvo Andresson did not have. This became obvious rather quickly after the take-over at Turku, when "Estonia" departed and he misjudged the wind completely and used the propellers the wrong way so that the vessel almost hit the quay. Subsequently he admitted to Andersson that he had difficulties with manoeuvring the engines and also mixed up port and starboard.
Similar incidents happened frequently during the following months.
According to the Swedish captain the Estonians also never did learn how to properly load the "Estonia". It is important to load a Ro-Ro vessel correctly, both in order to obtain the correct trim in the ballast tanks considering the wind and in order to prevent the vessel from heeling.
The mates were sitting all afternoon with their cargo plan, only to discover that it did not function when the cars were rolling on board. There were always significant changes in the bookings at the last minute. Then emergency solutions had to be found in order to take all cars on board. Simultaneously, there was an aversion within ESCO against the Swedish interfering on board.
As master, Arvo Andresson was dominant and authoritarian. The mates never dared even to come close to the sticks (Note: pitch controls), not even the chief officer who normally has to be able to manoeuvre the vessel. Andresson was a product of the Soviet system. Once when he damaged the quay at Frihamn in Stockholm with the aft of the vessel, he did not accept to write a report to the ship owners. "I will be able to persuade my mates to testify that the damages to the quay were already existing when we arrived", he said.
The Swedish captain describes the difference between an Estonian and a Swedish or Finnish vessel as follows: "On a Swedish ferry the mate first reduces the speed and does thereafter inform the master about what he has done. As regards "Estonia", it was the other way round."
Generally, there was a poor ability to take initiatives within the crew, probably as a result of the old system. Nobody dared to take his own initiative

[source:https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/estonia final report/chapter7.htm]

The credentials of the matter have ZERO bearing on the events of the night of the sinking, only his actions, and lack thereof.

 

[Axxman300]

Surely the police made it their job to understand where Andresson was. If you were a police diver you would be very interested in establishing where each of the key parties were. The master, for one, and also to identify the persons on the bridge. It wasn't difficult, as the Rockwater divers went there to retrieve a logbook and navigational equipment.

Out in the real-world Police Dive Teams are made up of police officers who also scuba dive.

Rockwater salvage divers are only salvage divers. That's all they do.

And by the time the first divers reached the wreck everyone knew the bow visor had come off, so that area became the focus of the investigation. Identifying bodies on the bridge will only tell you who was there when the ship sank, not who left before, or when they left. Even had the divers found the captain deeper in the ship there would be no way to tell how he got there, how long he had been there, or if the place they found him was the place where he expired (all of the bodies in the Rockwater videos are still floating).

So maybe alter your theories to reflect the real world.

 

[Here_to_learn]

As the JAIC never investigated the possibility of sabotage, then it is a moot point.

Oh, by the way - how does this statement relate to section 8.12 in the JAIC report?

"Observations".

If they incompetently think that 14 ships hearing the Mayday meant there was no communications problem on the might (when all they had to do was take note of what the Captain of Mariella said, or Stockholm MRCC) and that 'the EPIRB sent no signals' was all right 'because it did not affect speed of rescue' is in anyway showing analytic skills then it is no wonder people don't trust their findings.

There is a total of 20 sentences in the section I linked to. (And it's "Other observations").

Out of those 20 sentences, 0 have anything to do with radio communications. 0 have anything to do with EPIRBs. 0 had anything to do with the speed of rescue.

But the last two sentences are these:

The Finnish police have taken several paint samples from inside the visor. TLC (thin layer chromatography), LC (liquid chromatography) and spot tests analysis of these revealed no vestiges of explosives.

What happened here? Did you not read all 20 sentences and instead started talking about other topics? Or did you actually read all 20 sentences, discovered that the JAIC report in fact contained information about "the possibility of sabotage", and then decided to ignore this and start talking about other topics?

 

[abaddon]

There are 10mm in one cm.

Sorry what? Five years of physics education and this is the best you can manage?

Might as well be psychics, then.

 

[abaddon]

Er, Lehtola sent out a memo next day saying he had misspoken, so clearly someone briefed him to do so.

One could be forgiven for thinking that a that a psychiatrist/engineer/scientist/forensic pathologist/physicist/journalist/accountant might be advised by anyone. That does not happen in the real world. Everyone knows that they are all lone wolves if they are any good.

 

[Mojo]

This ludicrous fantasy is more full of holes than the Estonia. Let's just assume the completely made up drugs and radioactive metal was real. Why on earth does Sweden having used the ship to transport ex-Soviet military equipment mean that it was open season for someone else to smuggle heroin? Or do you propose the Swedish government wanted a heap of heroin? And then you surmise the smugglers aboard might somehow, despite your radio blackout, have got a tipoff that the customs people were waiting for them. So the cargo is lost. What to do? Abandon the trucks and walk off the ship like foot passengers? Too simple. Why not try to force the bows open while the ship is ploughing headlong into pounding 6 metre waves? I mean, it's not as if that kind of weather had smashed the bow doors of a dozen similar ships in the previous couple of decades. Is it? Oh. Wait.

It's insane. It's simply not possible to take such a cartoonish plot seriously.

Remember also that according to another part of Vixen’s conspiracy theory the Swedish government was complicit in the smuggling, so we now have the conspirators disposing of the contraband in order to prevent the conspirators finding it.

 

[malbui]

Hang on hang on hang on.

If the drugs were really well packed and sealed, they might still be in good shape today. Maybe all this activity around the wreck site recently has actually been mafia crime gangs retrieving the heroin in plain sight under the cover of reopening the investigation into the accident.

Damn they’re smart.

 

[Mojo]

Why would you assume that criminals generally aren't "wired like a normal person"?

Vixen probably thinks it’s a “scientific fact”.

 

[Here_to_learn]

Hang on hang on hang on.

If the drugs were really well packed and sealed, they might still be in good shape today. Maybe all this activity around the wreck site recently has actually been mafia crime gangs retrieving the heroin in plain sight under the cover of reopening the investigation into the accident.

Damn they’re smart.

And somewhere along the way, someone really misunderstood the "there enough onboard to really be able to blow it"?

 

[Mojo]

Hang on hang on hang on.

If the drugs were really well packed and sealed, they might still be in good shape today. Maybe all this activity around the wreck site recently has actually been mafia crime gangs retrieving the heroin in plain sight under the cover of reopening the investigation into the accident.

Damn they’re smart.

Given that Vixen has them throwing the stuff overboard to avoid losing it to the customs, it makes sense that they would have some means of retrieving it.

Or to put it another way, unless they had some means of retrieving it from the bottom of the sea, throwing it overboard to avoid having it seized by the customs makes no sense.

 

[Mojo]

You don't seriously believe a lawyer knows how to read a sonar imaging printout?

I expect lawyers know as much about it as accountants do.

 

[abaddon]

40K kg heroin street price weighted average in 1994 was $118 per gram or €99 equivalent. That would be worth US$4,720k on the street or €3,960k.

As for osmium, it is currently $400 per oz., cobalt $36/lb.

Where there is brass there is muck and there is little doubt smuggling took place.

Given Sweden admitted it participated in smuggling Soviet military and space secrets circa Septemebr 1994, there was likely some very serious organised crime around these ferries.

So, if there was some kind of tip-off the goods would be intercepted at Stockholm, then you can see that a ruthless criminal isn't going to have much compunction trying to get rid of it to prevent customs getting it. I have no idea if this is what happened but it is not beyond the realms of possibility.

But you claimed that nuclear waste dissolved the hinges. Osmium is not nuclear waste. It is a rare earth element. I guess I can add chemist to my list of doctorates not held.

Besides, Osmium is not going to dissolve any hinges. You are simply chucking it in in the hopes nobody heard of it before. A forlorn hope. Even if we had not, a quick google reveals the abject ignorance.

In any event, Osmium is the last metal in the Lathanide series. It is a rare earth element. It has no known reactive properties.. Not least melting a ship via bow doors.

I have no idea why you chucked that in. Go ahead, tell us all how Osmium melted the bow doors via fusion reaction or whatever the next mad claim is. Because we know that is not possible.

 

[abaddon]

I expect lawyers know as much about it as accountants do.

Another one for the list. I had forgotten

 

[abaddon]

If they can find an attaché case in a front cabin with the name Voronin on it - having to literally smash the door down, no mean feat, you'd think it easy enough to ID the bodies on the bridge, captive incumbents after all.

Yep. Russian spies are required to put their real name on their luggage.

Or normal people put their real name on their luggage for ease of retrieval.

Which one of those scenario's is more plausible, do you think?

 

[Andy_Ross]

But you claimed that nuclear waste dissolved the hinges. Osmium is not nuclear waste. It is a rare earth element. I guess I can add chemist to my list of doctorates not held.

Besides, Osmium is not going to dissolve any hinges. You are simply chucking it in in the hopes nobody heard of it before. A forlorn hope. Even if we had not, a quick google reveals the abject ignorance.

In any event, Osmium is the last metal in the Lathanide series. It is a rare earth element. It has no known reactive properties.. Not least melting a ship via bow doors.

I have no idea why you chucked that in. Go ahead, tell us all how Osmium melted the bow doors via fusion reaction or whatever the next mad claim is. Because we know that is not possible.

It comes from Russia so it had to be what was being smuggled

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I had a look back for previous times Vixen has told us the Atlantic lock was thrown back into the sea, since it was of course she who introduced the idea to the thread.

I found her quoting and highlighting "the Kurm report 2006" as saying;

"Regrettably Börje Stenström, the only member of the Joint Commission who
participated in the diving operation, decided to throw the bolt back to the sea and thus
destroy the evidence of such importance."

Also quoted but not highlighted was the previous sentence;

The locking bolt was unwelded and brought up during the diving operation for close investigation."

I hope this encourages Vixen to appreciate that the scenario she's been trying to convince us about, where the lock bolt was briefly looked at on the sea bed then discarded, is just a product of her own imagination.

I presume the report she quotes is this enclosed document on the EFD site.: https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/pdf/Enclosure33.PDF