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

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MarkCorrigan said:
Are you serious? You spent much of yesterday desperately trying to avoid answering it.

Ok though, I'll ask it again. If Ian Wright on MOTD started talking about how football is a 13-a-side game where the keeper could run with the ball in his hands like rugby would he still be an acceptable expert on football?
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Yes, because that is Ian Wright for you. Like Harry Kane and David Beckham, he might not be the sharpest card in the pack but it does not mean he is not an expert in his field.
 
SpitfireIX said:
Just to add to what others have written, every profession has its share of quacks, charlatans, and crackpots, despite the best efforts of professional schools, professional licensing organizations, and professional societies to weed them out.
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I would add to this that not all of these organizations apply their best efforts in a straightforward manner. To be disbarred from the law, for example, requires a great deal of effort on the part of other attorneys. As such, it's not a typical remedy for legal quackery, and therefore a number of quack lawyers remain at the bar. I know of a quack lawyer in my community who recently fled the public-interest firm he founded to become an assistant prosecutor in Alaska -- as far from the Utah bar's tainted opinion of him as possible. Yes, he could have been disbarred, but that simply didn't happen.

Similarly I belong to several professional associations, all of which have codified standards of behavior. I've never heard of anyone being formally censured or removed from membership, although I don't doubt that it may occur. But it's not the way quackery is dealt with. More often, the errant practitioner's reputation becomes known in a way that precedes him as he seeks employment. There are four or five practitioners in my community who will never work in the industry again, not because they have been formally censured, but because what they've done to discredit themselves is publicly known. All the people, including me, would might want to hire them are well aware of the reasons why not to.

Björkman is ostracized from the industry not because he was formally charged and disciplined by some governing body, but because his reputation as a quack simply made him unhirable. This is the more common way such quacks are dealt with in professional circles. The step of stripping someone of their credentials and membership is an extraordinary measure, reserved for only the most egregious offenders.

The common thread running through all of these is a mind-boggling misunderstanding of physics (including nuclear physics). Do you believe that a person can perform competently as a marine engineer without understanding physics?
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I would accept also the possibility of a mind-boggling misrepresentation of physics. When he describes physical principles, he's simply wrong. That can be attributed to ignorance of the subject, but also to a willingness to misrepresent the subject in order to promote his pet beliefs.
 
Vixen said:
Yes, because that is Ian Wright for you. Like Harry Kane and David Beckham, he might not be the sharpest card in the pack but it does not mean he is not an expert in his field.
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"Sharpest card in the deck?" Do favor us with an explanation of how that turn of phrase is meant to work. "Sharpest knife in the drawer," maybe. "Not playing with a full pack/deck," maybe.

Expertise in the field is defined as keen knowledge of the relevant facts. Redefining expertise doesn't save your failed hypothetical.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
So you are suggesting the divers wore two helmets.

Look, this is ridiculous, You have been shown that the system used is mono and feeds the same signal to both ears. You have a favourite CT site which claims there was a secret voice we do not hear, but the means they suggest for achieving this is very clearly not supported by documented fact. You could imagine some hypothetical setup which allows this to be done but it is clearly not the equipment actually used by real divers.
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Oh please. We were talking about earpieces, not headphones. The earpiece fits into the helmet. So of course you can have two different sources. Suppose someone of a higher rank than your supervisor also wants to instruct you but it is confidential for some reason on a 'need to know basis' So, whilst the elite Rockwater divers were down there outsourced by the Swedish Government, they do appear to have carried out work for the police and military the same time, why not, t make sense to make full use of the time down there. If you happened to be on the bridge, you can look for the navigation system and logbook on the one hand - or in the one ear - and a little bit of recce on the other. The Rockwater diver was seen in the clip released to the public to enter the bridge. The clip in which the diver goes into Voronin/Piht's cabin and a series of them, is on Deck 5 and 6, with 7 being staff quarters and 8/9 the bridge. So, going done to the fifth deck must have been exceedingly hazardous to begin with and the doors seemed to be locked, so he had to patiently break in, with various jemmies and crowbars. None of this is mentioned in the JAIC Report. The Rockwater survey for the commission only mentions the specific area in the scope (e.g., the bridge).

The tape was handed over to the Swedish government and Rockwater had to sign an affidavat that they had destroyed any copies, after a set number of days in case of an accident claim by a diver. Ostensibly it was to 'protect the deceased' but it could equally have been classified official secrets stuff.
 
Vixen said:
Yes, because that is Ian Wright for you. Like Harry Kane and David Beckham, he might not be the sharpest card in the pack but it does not mean he is not an expert in his field.
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I wasn't asking about Ian Wright's brainpower as you well know. Stop deflecting. Answer the questions and stop being a coward.

So are you saying that if Ian Wright made fundamental errors regarding understanding of the game of football you would still consider him an expert?

What if we divorce this from a real person. Let's say that the BBC hire a new pundit, John Smith. John goes on MOTD and confidently discusses the play of the 12th and 13th players (not meaning subs) and talks about how he was confused that the goalkeeper, after making a simple catch, did not run with the ball to the opposition goal with the ball in his hands.

Would you consider him to be a reliable expert on football? What if he was an ex England international with 75 caps and a dozen goals?

You do understand the question I'm asking here right? You're not stupid so you must understand what my point is. I'm asking you if an expert who makes pronouncements that absolutely fly in the face of the supposed expertise they have can still be considered a reliable expert.

ETA: Let's make it really really simple. Say that there was a man called John Smith who got a medical licence 20 years ago. Proper medical licence , able to call himself Dr John Smith MD and everything. Then let's say John comes here and starts talking about how germs aren't real, that disease is caused by an imbalance of the humours and demonic possession, and that everything can be cured by holding your breath and kissing a piece of coal.

Is John Smith still a credible expert on medicine?
 
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Vixen said:
If that was the case with Estonia, the JAIC never said there was poor care and maintenance. It took the view it was seaworthy. Full stop. As for SOLAS checks, whilst there might be faults on a SOLAS inspection list, these are rarely deemed 'do not sail'. Like an oil change warning light on your car, it is advisory and should be seen to at your earliest convenience. Defects on the SOLAS list are largely left to the discretion of the managers to fix ASAP as and when.
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Not being in compliance with SOLAS certification means the ship should not have been in commercial service.
It didn't even have the exemption certificate available to it.

What is your evidence for the lack of certification being the same as the oil light on a car?
 
SpitfireIX said:
Just to add to what others have written, every profession has its share of quacks, charlatans, and crackpots, despite the best efforts of professional schools, professional licensing organizations, and professional societies to weed them out. Therefore, the fact that Björkman (note the correct spelling) may have been a qualified marine engineer at some point does not automatically give his pronouncements about the Estonia disaster credibility.

As for the hilited, Björkman actively promotes four main conspiracy theories: nuclear weapons are fake, human space flight is fake, the generally accepted explanation for the sinking of the Estonia is fake, and the generally accepted explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is fake. The common thread running through all of these is a mind-boggling misunderstanding of physics (including nuclear physics). Do you believe that a person can perform competently as a marine engineer without understanding physics?

Finally, because I know how much you love being pedantic, Pearl Harbor is a proper noun, so you should use the American spelling.
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Björkman could well be a conspiracy theorist by trade but IMV it's more likely he just has an insatiable curiosity about the world he lives in. Such people can seem strange, with their collections of dinosaur fossils and gazing at the stars and what have you. Just because YOU cannot understand why someone would be interested in establishing whether the above events happened and how, it doesn't necessarily mean they do not understand science or engineering or that their calculations are wrong.
 
Vixen said:
Oh please. We were talking about earpieces, not headphones. The earpiece fits into the helmet. So of course you can have two different sources. Suppose someone of a higher rank than your supervisor also wants to instruct you but it is confidential for some reason on a 'need to know basis' So, whilst the elite Rockwater divers were down there outsourced by the Swedish Government, they do appear to have carried out work for the police and military the same time, why not, t make sense to make full use of the time down there. If you happened to be on the bridge, you can look for the navigation system and logbook on the one hand - or in the one ear - and a little bit of recce on the other. The Rockwater diver was seen in the clip released to the public to enter the bridge. The clip in which the diver goes into Voronin/Piht's cabin and a series of them, is on Deck 5 and 6, with 7 being staff quarters and 8/9 the bridge. So, going done to the fifth deck must have been exceedingly hazardous to begin with and the doors seemed to be locked, so he had to patiently break in, with various jemmies and crowbars. None of this is mentioned in the JAIC Report. The Rockwater survey for the commission only mentions the specific area in the scope (e.g., the bridge).

The tape was handed over to the Swedish government and Rockwater had to sign an affidavat that they had destroyed any copies, after a set number of days in case of an accident claim by a diver. Ostensibly it was to 'protect the deceased' but it could equally have been classified official secrets stuff.
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There is only one input on the helmet, it can take 4 wires. Two for the speaker connection and two for the microphone connection.
On the surface the comms panel can have one microphone connection to the diver and one speaker connection from the diver.

Where and how does the extra connection work?

If someone wants to talk to the diver it goes through the guy operating his panel, the 'Tender' as he is known. He has complete control of the air panel and the comms panel. No one else touches it. This is basic safety protocol for a surface supplied dive.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Not being in compliance with SOLAS certification means the ship should not have been in commercial service.
It didn't even have the exemption certificate available to it.

What is your evidence for the lack of certification being the same as the oil light on a car?
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There was a training session on this very topic at the Estonia and they found all those faults but they did not have the authority to stop it from sailing. Likewise, the seventy policemen on board had been to a conference which included the simulation of...a bomb on board a passenger ferry...as a workshop.

There was a report that the captain was specifically told by an inspector the ship was not authorised to leave port but the captain insisted. In one of Linde's interrogations by police, he is asked a couple of times whether he witnessed 'a committee of men' confronting the captain or an argument with same. It isn't elaborated on so who knows what that was about.

JAIC state the vessel was seaworthy. It doesn't investigate care and maintenance. There is just a narrative description of its inspections.

There is a lot that is defective with the Report but you seem happy with it.

You cannot cherry pick. You cannot say the ship was in an unfit state and yet claim the JAIC is right, because it never says the ship was unfit.
 
Vixen said:
Björkman could well be a conspiracy theorist by trade but IMV it's more likely he just has an insatiable curiosity about the world he lives in. Such people can seem strange, with their collections of dinosaur fossils and gazing at the stars and what have you. Just because YOU cannot understand why someone would be interested in establishing whether the above events happened and how, it doesn't necessarily mean they do not understand science or engineering or that their calculations are wrong.
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No, he's a loon who doesn't understand basic physics. He thinks that a building collapse can be accurately modelled with pizza boxes or dropping things onto bathroom scales. He's delusional.
 
Vixen said:
There was a training session on this very topic at the Estonia and they found all those faults but they did not have the authority to stop it from sailing. Likewise, the seventy policemen on board had been to a conference which included the simulation of...a bomb on board a passenger ferry...as a workshop.

There was a report that the captain was specifically told by an inspector the ship was not authorised to leave port but the captain insisted. In one of Linde's interrogations by police, he is asked a couple of times whether he witnessed 'a committee of men' confronting the captain or an argument with same. It isn't elaborated on so who knows what that was about.

JAIC state the vessel was seaworthy. It doesn't investigate care and maintenance. There is just a narrative description of its inspections.

There is a lot that is defective with the Report but you seem happy with it.

You cannot cherry pick. You cannot say the ship was in an unfit state and yet claim the JAIC is right, because it never says the ship was unfit.
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The JAIC doesn't say that the Estonia couldn't fly either.
 
Vixen said:
There is a lot that is defective with the Report...
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According to whom?

You cannot cherry pick. You cannot say the ship was in an unfit state and yet claim the JAIC is right, because it never says the ship was unfit.
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You seem to want seaworthiness to be an either-or concept. We discussed this at length many times. Why are we discussing it again?
 
Vixen said:
There was a training session on this very topic at the Estonia and they found all those faults but they did not have the authority to stop it from sailing. Likewise, the seventy policemen on board had been to a conference which included the simulation of...a bomb on board a passenger ferry...as a workshop.

There was a report that the captain was specifically told by an inspector the ship was not authorised to leave port but the captain insisted. In one of Linde's interrogations by police, he is asked a couple of times whether he witnessed 'a committee of men' confronting the captain or an argument with same. It isn't elaborated on so who knows what that was about.

JAIC state the vessel was seaworthy. It doesn't investigate care and maintenance. There is just a narrative description of its inspections.

There is a lot that is defective with the Report but you seem happy with it.

You cannot cherry pick. You cannot say the ship was in an unfit state and yet claim the JAIC is right, because it never says the ship was unfit.
Click to expand...

The JAIC could only go by the certification and reports they had.
They did not inspect the ship.
 
Vixen said:
Oh please. We were talking about earpieces, not headphones.
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And what do you imagine is the significance of that distinction? The diver gets two transducers - one per ear. The substance of your fantasy claim is that they got fed different audio in each ear but that is contradicted by the information Captain_Swoop posted and from which you yourself plucked a diagram and posted it here today.

The earpiece fits into the helmet. So of course you can have two different sources.
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Nonsequitur.

Suppose someone of a higher rank than your supervisor also wants to instruct you but it is confidential for some reason on a 'need to know basis' So, whilst the elite Rockwater divers were down there outsourced by the Swedish Government, they do appear to have carried out work for the police and military the same time, why not, t make sense to make full use of the time down there. If you happened to be on the bridge, you can look for the navigation system and logbook on the one hand - or in the one ear - and a little bit of recce on the other. The Rockwater diver was seen in the clip released to the public to enter the bridge. The clip in which the diver goes into Voronin/Piht's cabin and a series of them, is on Deck 5 and 6, with 7 being staff quarters and 8/9 the bridge. So, going done to the fifth deck must have been exceedingly hazardous to begin with and the doors seemed to be locked, so he had to patiently break in, with various jemmies and crowbars. None of this is mentioned in the JAIC Report. The Rockwater survey for the commission only mentions the specific area in the scope (e.g., the bridge).

The tape was handed over to the Swedish government and Rockwater had to sign an affidavat that they had destroyed any copies, after a set number of days in case of an accident claim by a diver. Ostensibly it was to 'protect the deceased' but it could equally have been classified official secrets stuff.
Click to expand...
Nice fantasy, but we have already established that the diver's equipment only supplies one audio feed to the diver. There isn't a crafty extra circuit available for the Swedish government to whisper in his other ear. Nor for the Swedish police to whisper in a third ear or the Swedish military to whisper in a fourth.

It's not clear what you think was especially hazardous about the divers going down to deck 5, considering that the wreck is lying on its side. I assume you just flung that in there to make it seem suspicious without thinking it through.

The divers, by the way, were commissioned to inspect the interior of the ship by the Swedish Maritime Administration. They were also commissioned by the JAIC to inspect the bridge and the bow area. It's all in the report.

8.4 Diving Investigation
https://onse.fi/estonia/chapt08_1.html#4
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Where do they blame one wave and not the lifetime fatigue of the whole assembly?
Yes we know that it was a single wave that finally broke the lugs but it wasn't in isolation.
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One wave, and it is all pure guess work.

Imagine you put a tape on your car boot to make it extra secure. A gust of wind comes along and blows the tape away. Question: does the entire boot then swing open at the same time as the tape flying off?

No, because it was only ever an accessory and the car boot needs more than the tape falling off for its hinges to swing open, and yet another gust of wind to blow the 'fatigued' lugs off. Would it take just one gust of wind? No, of course not!
 
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