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

[Axxman300]

Nope. As those Estonians have seemingly 'disappeared' - including the Chief engineer, Chief navigator, Chief Medical doctor and fourth Officer - how do you prove a negative? Let's face it, these guys were in the same luxury cabins - and better still as officers - as the Voronin family and the old sea captain and his wife. The latter escaped, nul problemo, being on the upper decks and nearby all the rescue equipment. It seems obvious that being in a life boat (as opposed to a life raft) they had an excellent chance of survival. It seems very likely they were picked up by Helicopter Y64 and transferred to Huddinge, with Piht being transferred to Turku for questioning, as advised in an early Finnish quality newspaper, and was interviewed, as per a statement by Bengt Stenmark, some kind of transport and shipping minister. From there, he may have been transferred to Uppsala or Helsinki, with the Swedish intelligence services advising Bildt to cover the whole thing up and have the crew dealt with by a CIA court c/o Clinton.

Of course, the JAIC nor the press can report these guys as dead or explain how they were listed as survivors - with an Interpol Arrest Warrant put out for Piht - and seen or heard by witnesses but are now presumed 'drowned'. This is because when the whole thing is declassified after 70 years, it will become apparent that they were survivors and it won't do for the JAIC and the government to be seen to have been lying. (Although, of course, lying by omission is still lying.) So, come 2064 maybe all will be revealed.


For example, how Helicopter Y64, Kenneth Svensson, hero, did indeed rescue all of the people the early newspapers said he rescued, after leaving Berga shortly after 02:00, and not nearer 05:00, as claimed by the JAIC report (which was probably a second trip).

HS 29.9.1994

Nothing you wrote here is true.

 

[Andy_Ross]

From HS 5 Oct 1994

HS

Skytte at this stage being a shipbuilder, must surely know more about this topic than Carl Bildt and Kari Lehtola on Day One.


The JAIC had to invent a whole scenario of the bow visor pulling off the car ramp, yet no-one saw the car ramp open, to come up with the vessel downed like The Herald of Free Enterprise.

Sillaste never saw it open. The two Estonian athletes did not, either.

We can see from the plans of the ship and the actual parts that the ramp is connected to the visor as the latter fits down over the top section of the ramp.

Your expert first quoted is wrong.

 

[Andy_Ross]

There's this interview in an Estonian newspaper:





Moik was sacked from Estline for giving this interview.

Swedish investigative journalist Sven Anér found 15 different lists of survivors, now eliminated.



Note: Vahtras was found washed up on a shore and his body returned to his family, who claim his corpse shows signs of violence/having been beaten up.
There is a death certificate for him. Linde claims he was a survivor, sharing a hospital room with him, when he vanished. (Not sure if he is a reliable witness, though.)

So you only have newspaper report then, no actual evidence?

Can you think of any reason that a body lost in a storm and washed up on shore might show signs of damage?

 

[Axxman300]

The car deck was 2m above the waterline plus 76mm margin and 5m high (15ft).

Sillaste and Treu told early news reporters they were 'up to their knees in water' in the engine room so the ingression was via Deck 0. And not how these guys within the bowels of the ship managed to escape - survival suits, passports, sorted - yet we are expected to believe the top brass on the luxury decks all popped their clogs. All of them.

So the star witness is an ordinary seaman (seen by a witness sitting in the Admiral Bar at circa 12:45) and the third and fourth engineers plus a newbie, who were in a life raft even whilst Tammes was sending his Mayday, within two shakes of a cat's tail.

The seas that night had waves 5m high, and in that pitch those 2m the bow was plunging under water gulping the sea inside. The surviving crew knew that once the water was knee-deep it was enough to capsize the ship, and sink it.

You are really awful at this.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Not at all. It is the same knee jerk reaction as the one in which the EPIRB's were claimed to be 'manually operated only' despite confirmation from news reports and the expert hired by the JAIC that they automatically activated and HRU-triggered EPIRB's. Just someone's auto-contrary opinion, not fact. An assumption, in other words.

They were manual buoys. They were found floating in the sea. When they were tested they were found to be in working order but turned off.
When turned on they worked exactly as they should havre.
If they were automatic buoys and in working order they would have transmitted and their batteries on discovery would have been exhausted.
I posted a complete list of the buoys made by the manufacturer with their model designations. The one you told us was the Estonia buoy was a manual model.

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 be 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 for 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.

As the distress message was picked up from the Estonia by other ships around it before it sank the buoys made no contribution to the event. Even if they had activated it would have been after the radio distress massage was responded to.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The fact Carl Bildt and his military chief, Emil Svensson declared within hours of the accident that it was the result of the bow visor falling off due to a design fault.

What is your evidence for this claim?

 

[Andy_Ross]

By that, I mean its hull side was not touching the surface of the water.


In the JAIC scenario, it was, because it needed an explanation of how water got into the superstructure so it dreamt up an idea that it floated on it side literally whilst the windows smashed, and at last the ingress of water sufficient to sink it, failing to understand that its point of negative stability was way past.

Of course it was touching the surface, do you think it was floating in the air above it?

We know windows smashed as the divers report seeing them smashed even on the port side that was not subjected to pounding by the waves.

Engine and air conditioning ventilators and intakes are by far the larges openings in a ship. A ship's hull is not watertight from above.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Oceanos gradually filled with water over 18 hours which caused it to finally capsize and sink.

The JAIC are claiming that Estonia similarly filled with water but far faster hence the more rapid sinking.

Faster even than the Wilhelm Gustloff - far bigger and with about 5,000 passengers on board - which was tripled torpedoed smashing its hull in three places.

Or the Titanic, which took almost three hours to sink, despite its hull being indented by the iceberg and its bulkheads filling with water, as being too low.

Estonia was a lot smaller and in a storm It's bow was missing and it was heading at maximum speed in to the waves.

Don't you see a difference?

 

[Axxman300]

From HS 5 Oct 1994

HS

Skytte at this stage being a shipbuilder, must surely know more about this topic than Carl Bildt and Kari Lehtola on Day One.


The JAIC had to invent a whole scenario of the bow visor pulling off the car ramp, yet no-one saw the car ramp open, to come up with the vessel downed like The Herald of Free Enterprise.

Sillaste never saw it open. The two Estonian athletes did not, either.

What does he say now? What did he say once the bow visor was recovered and the ship surveyed? Just because some guy didn't think something was possible before he had all the facts doesn't make it an absolute.

Pro-Tip: After major accidents, "experts" who allow themselves to be quoted in the media without having all the facts in front of them, usually suffer professionally as their misstatements hang around their necks for years. In 2021, there are fewer experts who are willing to run their mouths before an investigation has begun for this exact reason.

That guy was wrong. He made a premature assessment based on zero input.

 

[Steve]

Nothing you wrote here is true.

IMO this applies to anything of alleged substance Vixen has written in this entire thread, and also to parts l, ll, and lll.

 

[Axxman300]

Oceanos gradually filled with water over 18 hours which caused it to finally capsize and sink.

The JAIC are claiming that Estonia similarly filled with water but far faster hence the more rapid sinking.

Faster even than the Wilhelm Gustloff - far bigger and with about 5,000 passengers on board - which was tripled torpedoed smashing its hull in three places.

Or the Titanic, which took almost three hours to sink, despite its hull being indented by the iceberg and its bulkheads filling with water, as being too low.

See what I mean about being really bad at comparisons?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The seas that night had waves 5m high, and in that pitch those 2m the bow was plunging under water gulping the sea inside. The surviving crew knew that once the water was knee-deep it was enough to capsize the ship, and sink it.

You are really awful at this.

The engineers would have abandoned the engine room as soon as power went. Engines will only run until the ship lists past a point that trips their low oil warning and they shut down.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Merchant ships are difficult to keep afloat when they are flooding.
Their construction is not particularly watertight, they don't have the pumps or equipment to stem flooding and their crews are not large enough or trained enough to be effective.

Here is the report in to the grounding of HMS Nottingham on Wolf Rock.

Annex C from page 22 of the PDF details the actions taken to stop th flooding and save the ship.
This was on a warship designed to resist damage and flooding, with no openings between compartments below the waterline and the ship above divided by watertight doors and hatches.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/cy/r...ch/3/BOI Grounding of HMS NOTTINGHAM 2002.pdf

Also not elsewhere in the report that the captain was on the bridge within a minute of the grounding at 22:02 and the Chief Engineer had an initial situation report by 22:09 and a full report by 22:20

Section 2 starting on Page 8 of the PDF details the timeline and actions taken by the command team.

 

[JesseCuster]

It is important to remember that to be listed as a survivor you had to prove your identity.

You said that, in order to be declared dead there had to be dental records or DNA to confirm death.

That means that, according to you, hundreds of people who perished on the Estonia were never actually declared dead.

I call BS on that. I'd like to see evidence that only people whose remains were able to give DNA evidence or dental evidence were declared dead. I think you made that up.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

For example, how Helicopter Y64, Kenneth Svensson, hero, did indeed rescue all of the people the early newspapers said he rescued, after leaving Berga shortly after 02:00, and not nearer 05:00, as claimed by the JAIC report (which was probably a second trip).

HS 29.9.1994

The JAIC report explains *exactly* how Svensson rescued seven people and tried unsuccessfully to rescue an eighth. This has been pointed out and explained to you before. Reminder: He worked from two different helicopters.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The JAIC report explains *exactly* how Svensson rescued seven people and tried unsuccessfully to rescue an eighth. This has been pointed out and explained to you before. Reminder: He worked from two different helicopters.

As detailed in the report

Finally a spare harness was lowered to the Y 64's rescue man and used to winch him up to the helicopter. The injury to the Y 74 rescue man proved so serious that he was unable to do more. The work was continued by Y 64's rescue man

 

[Vixen]

The JAIC report explains *exactly* how Svensson rescued seven people and tried unsuccessfully to rescue an eighth. This has been pointed out and explained to you before. Reminder: He worked from two different helicopters.

No. The official figure Helicopter Y64 saved is precisely: 1.

Swedish Navy helicopter Y 64 1

Check for yourself on the official Swedish government webpage:

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/estonia?infosida=helikopterinsatser

 

[Vixen]

They were manual buoys. They were found floating in the sea. When they were tested they were found to be in working order but turned off.
When turned on they worked exactly as they should havre.
If they were automatic buoys and in working order they would have transmitted and their batteries on discovery would have been exhausted.
I posted a complete list of the buoys made by the manufacturer with their model designations. The one you told us was the Estonia buoy was a manual model.



As the distress message was picked up from the Estonia by other ships around it before it sank the buoys made no contribution to the event. Even if they had activated it would have been after the radio distress massage was responded to.

Rockwater Diving Report confirms the EPIRB's were hydrostatically-released ones, which means it is only when water is between three feet to twelve-feet do they get automaticcally relased from their casing to float up and automatically signal.

Rockwater Survey Report

Also under the direction of the authorities, divers accessed the Bridge of the vessel and retrieved a number of navigational aids, a man-overboard beacon and the hydrostatic release mechanism for one of the vessel’s EPIRB beacons. The bodies of 3 of the victims of the disaster were found on the Bridge.

JAIC is silent as to the reason why. All we get is a descriptive narrative of how it was tested. Nowhere does it say they were manually operated only.

You can see the instruments Rockwater divers retrieved at circa 1:32:00 onwards. The diver places what looks like the hydrostatic release mechanism into the netting to bring up. The black and white bits are the diver's glove.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

No. The official figure Helicopter Y64 saved is precisely: 1.

Swedish Navy helicopter Y 64 1

Check for yourself on the official Swedish government webpage:

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/estonia?infosida=helikopterinsatser

How long are you going to keep playing dumb?

The number of rescuees on Y 64 is not the same thing as the total number of people Svensson rescued. As I said: he worked from two different helicopters.

Six of the people he rescued were aboard Y 74, not Y 64.

 

[Vixen]

How many of those 852 have not been declared dead because there was no dental records or DNA?

If their next of kin can prove they were on the vessel then they can be presumed dead. I think after seven years 'missing' (?) that becomes automatic on declaration.

Truth is, the number still on the vessel is an estimate (630), with others having drowned elsewhere nearby, or their bodies recovered.

How difficult was it for the divers to attempt ID of those on the bridge or those on Deck 5/6 luxury cabins, where they broke in?