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

[Andy_Ross]

Helsingin Sanomat 1.10.1994.

Of course, the Brits assumed the vessel was as ramshackle as its own Townsend Thoresen/P&O Ferries abominations and even put out a Panorama programme claiming the Finnish/Swedish ferries were 'floating coffins'. Well, it was wrong. The Scandinavians and Germans are light years ahead in marine engineering.

HS

Herald of Free Enterprise was designed and built by Schichau-Unterweser AG in Bremerhaven, Germany. Whhat was that you were saying abou tthem being 'ramshackle'?

Swedish and Finnish ferries were known not to be compliant with SOLAS requirements as the governments of both countries had put in place domestic laws that exempted them from SOLAS requirements and certification.
They did that because the SOLAS requirements for collision bulkheads and flood control were not met by the designs and they would have been restricted to coastal work.
At the time Estonia was built there were no standards for the design and construction of lifting bow visors. Those on the Estonia had never been inspected by any certifying authority as Swedish and Finnish law exempted them.

Also there were

 

[Andy_Ross]

Where there is a 22m by 4m hole in the starboard side, caused either by a submarine crash or explosives or other, before it sank.

(Yes, we know the Baltic Sea has a rocky seabed in places, thanks to the Last Glacial Maximum.)

Show me this 22 meter hole?

Did you just make that number up?

the hole in question is above the waterline and opens on to the car deck.

 

[Andy_Ross]

So the Swedish Aftonbladet were knowingly lying and Svensson was a false hero, when Moberg deserved more accolades than him?

Aftonbladet is mistaken, that happens when early reports are made by the newspapers on partial information.

Why is Svensson a 'false hero'? he did what is detailed in the report.

 

[Andy_Ross]

...unless somebody had removed them because they were after all found 200km away in northwest Estonia.


Koivisto who had an exact replica of the thing said the ship's electricians had failed to install them.

Are you now claiming that as the ship was sinking someone removed the buoys and carried them 200kilometers and put them in the water?

If they were removed and put in the water elsewhere they would have activated if they were automatic buoys and their signal would have been picked up.

Installation means putting them in their containers on the bridge wings. There is nothing else to do with them.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, they were in working order and had just recently been tested as part of its maintenance routine.


from Helsingin Sanomat 29.9.1994:



Why would the ship owners say that if it was 'manual operation only'? He would be saying, 'Our guys forgot to turn it on'.

To test them they are turned on and when the activation LED is observed they are turned off again. there is a delay in the distress transmission after activation to allow this procedure without broadcasting a false alarm.

Why would the ships owners not want to admit their crew were incompetent and didn't activate the buoys? I can think of a reason.
They never went to the bottom with the ship as we know the containers were found to be empty.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That's not what he said. You're trying to introduce a fantasy where the buoys were removed before the disaster and then "planted" hundreds of km away and everyone knew if they had been in the sea they would have activated but finds this so unremarkable they don't even mention the inconsistency.

Its beyond stupid.

Plus, if they were automatic buoys when they were 'planted' they would have activated.

 

[Andy_Ross]

From Svenska YLE:



You and your questions.

Where does he say they are automatic? It says 'free-float' that is, they are separate to the ship and float off.
There are also automatic distress systems that are fixed to the ship and do not float off, they are also used by aircraft, they are called Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT). They are activated by a button on a control panel on the bridge of the ship.
Compact, self contained buoys were at the time a new development.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If these senior crew members were in a life boat (as opposed to the common or garden inflatable raft) they would have been easily spotted by any early helicopter.

Look at Oceanos: the captain and his officers could not leave the ship fast enough and they p!ssed off in the nearest lifeboat.

How would they have been in a lifeboat?
How would it have easily been spotted by a helicopter in the dark?
How would this secret helicopter have known who, if anyone was aboard the boat?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is no coincidence that the crew were safely on life rafts whilst the passengers were still asleep in their cabins.

What is your evidence for this?
How do you know that when they abandoned the ship the passengers were still asleep in their cabins?
By the time the power failed the ship had a considerable list and it is doubtful that anyone was still asleep.
Why is it the responsibility of the engineer to alert the passengers?
That is the job of the command crew and the crew members tasked with that particular job.

Should they have stood bravely saluting on the boat deck as the ship sank under them?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The report says helicopter Y64 did not arrive until almost 06:00 am.

JAIC 7.5.5

Note how it cleverly omits to mention whether this is its first or second flight.

Aftonbladet confirms two days running (28 and 29 Sept 1994) he left Berga at 0200 arriving by about 0300 and rescued eight or nine off his own bat.


You attempt at casting aspersions is noted as 'truly pathetic'/


Please kindly do do better, if you wouldn't mind awfully, please, thank you so much for your cooperation and have a nice day!

it made one flight, it does not 'omit' anything.

Y 64 was not a dedicated SAR helicopter. It was an anti submarine helicopter belonging to the Swedish Navy. It was not on readiness or standby.

It was alerted to go on standby at 02:30 by the squadron commander.
It was assigned a crew and then had to be fuelled and made ready.
It arrived at the search area after picking up medical staff at 04:45

Y 74 was a helicopter of the same squadron. It was alerted an hour later.
It too was made ready and arrived in the search area at 05:46

Y 65 was the first navy helicopter to be alerted at around 02:00. It was made ready and arrived at 03:20

The navy helicopters unlike the SAR helicopters are not kept ready to fly and don't have crews on duty.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Wait! You were the one who claimed it was a lie that Svensson set off at 0200 and saved a whole boat/raft load of people. How do you know Aftonbladet were lying when it repeated the claim the very next day?

Because we have the timings for all the helicopter flights. We know when they were alerted and where they came from. We know how long they were in the air.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Marine telecommunications expert, Asser Koivisto - appointed by JAIC to investigate the EPIRB's - saw them and actually handled them. Or is he, too, part of your 'conspiracy theory to do the JAIC report down'?

Svenska YLE ibid

Your own quote says the buoys were turned off.

Why would you quote something that contradicts the point you are trying to make with the quote?

 

[Andy_Ross]

They were all billeted together as senior crew members.

Captain Jan-Tore Thörnroos says very clearly in his video interview that his ship rescued 'about 40' people whilst the JAIC puts it at 15 and together with the Super Puma (which landed on deck) took 25 all together to Uto.

JAIC 7.5.3

Note how the JAIC doesn't provide any identifying features of who exactly was rescued. I believe their confusing account is deliberately intended.

It's not the job of the report to list all those that were rescued.
Why would you think it was?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Note how everybody is to blame except Sweden: Finland for the mayday/telecommunications cock-ups, the shipbuilders for the ship design, the Finns for inventing the bow visor.

Nice one.

Finland did not invent the bow visor. They did pass the ship as fit for sale and gave it a classification.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why should it have capsized ‘right over’?
How far over is ‘right over’?

Isn't it one of the CT whackjobs who's implanted the bogus pseudoscientific belief into Vixen's head that once a ship reaches a certain degree of capsize (something around 90 degrees), it necessarily will roll all the way to an upside-down orientation?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Isn't it one of the CT whackjobs who's implanted the bogus pseudoscientific belief into Vixen's head that once a ship reaches a certain degree of capsize (something around 90 degrees), it necessarily will roll all the way to an upside-down orientation?

It would seem so.

 

[Vixen]

How about you answer the question?

How were the authorities able to immediately know that there was sabotage, know who of the crew was responsible, and be able to whisk them away secretly during the rescue operation when people were being picked out of the water or from lifeboats?

It is not difficult. As Sweden on behalf of the CIA was actively smuggling out Former Soviet Union state secrets - and we know how jealously the Russians guarded them! [Preferring to blow up an entire grounded-on-Swedish-rocks whiskey class submarine than have the Swedish navy search it and delay rescue of the Kursk whilst they retrieved their secret effects] - during September 1994 and notwithstanding the new EU edict tightening the transportation of dangerous goods and chemicals on the waterways, one can correctly perceive and urgent meeting of its defence forces - headed by Emil Svensson in a hastily convened COBRA-style meeting, coming to a decision to cover the whole thing up and agreeing an outrageous The Herald of Free Entetprise cock-and-bull story to feed to the media, then we can see the wheels rolling into effect.

So, the senior crew members having by happenstance to have been rescued early by Y64 and Y74 and brought to Huddinge, they no doubt were interviewed by SäPo and Sweden not being averse to disappearing people at the request of the CIA acquiesced and decided to 'extradite' them.

This is backed up by the Estonian Embassy in Stockholm being refused access to their citizens. Survivors report being marched onto buses on arrival at the mainland whether they liked it or not, kept separated from other passengers on the cruise ferries after rescue, isolated in hospital wards, not allowed to ring home without revealing to the SäPo the ID verification of whom they were ringing. Many of the non-Estonian survivors in Finland were simply allowed to go home without any interview at all by anyone.

These will all have been decisions made as a result of urgent talks and panic about their esponiage activities being revealed to the world and POTUS Bill Clinton's 'Peacemaker in the Middle East' soiled.

Avo Piht was transferred to Turku and then onto Helsinki for the flight back to Sweden with the Swedish government bods and SäPo. He was never seen or heard again since.

Military Chief Svensson recommended on Day Two that the bodies should not be recovered. A concrete cover was concocted via Riksdag to cover the whole thing up.

A Treaty was drawn up signed by the UK - MI6 was helping CIA and KSI in Estonia - preventing anyone looking into the wreckage too closely.

 

[Vixen]

He saved 1 on Y 64 and 6 on Y 74, while doing this he was injured.

The Y 74 rescue man was injured rescuing the Y 64 rescue man.

They both got medals for their actions.

JAIC did not award the medals, they had nothing to do with it.

Yes, that occurred during the 06:00 rescue.

 

[Vixen]

Because he didn't pick anyone up at 03:00.
They picked up the medical staff on the way to the search area.

He was singled out because he worked on two separate helicopters and like the rescue man of Y 74 who also got an award he was injured while performing his duties.

You need to ask the organisation that awarded the medals. I am sure there is a citation somewhere.
It was nothing to do with the JAIC. They didn't award any medals.

These were drowning people who needed urgent saving. Why would any rescue helicopter divert to somewhere else first when there is already a top-world-class medical team at the scene? Huddinge is only a general hospital.

The medical executive team at MRCC Turku immediately started to raise medical readiness and decided at 0245 hrs to send a team headed by a physician to the coastal island fortress of Utö, the closest island to the scene of the accident. However, no helicopters were available for transport, so a team headed by a physician was sent from Mariehamn to Utö at 0620 hrs.

JAIC 7.5.4

 

[Vixen]

What do you think the 'Rockwater guys' retrieved? Here's a clue. it wasn't a buoy.

It was the hydrostatic release unit. This is triggered when water [=hydro] of about one to four metres envelopes the casing. It releases an automatically activated buoy up to the surface whereupon it commences to emit a signal to copsas-sasart.