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

[junkshop]

Asked and answered.

What is it you did not like about the answer?

It failed to address any of the questions you claim it answered.

In fairness, my last question was a bit facetious, so I am happy to let that one go. That leaves us with two questions;

You keep returning to issues, claims and accusations that have already been thoroughly debunked, disproven and (where appropriate) ridiculed. Why?

and

What do you hope to gain by this?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The Aftobladet refers to Svensson by name. It doesn't reference his helicopter.


Do you think it is plausible that

(a) having been commanded by Swedish MRCC at logged time 0200 (their time 0100) to commence helicopter rescue (of over 500 Swedish nationals in a part-Swedish owned vessel) the first Swedish helicopter to arrive was at 0350?

First Swedish helicopter was The Swedish stand-by helicopter Q 97, it was alerted at 02:07 and took off from Visby at 02:50 hrs, arriving at the scene of the accident at 03:50 hrs. It was on one hour standby

(b) that Y64, Svensson's helicopter arriving at 0552 and Y74 at 0642 some four/five hours after Estonia disappeared off the radar, and rescuing seven between them, as per the JAIC Report

Y64 and Y74 were not standby helicopters. They were not SAR helicopters at all. They were Anti Submarine helicopters. They were alerted at 02:30 and 03:30 respectively. They had to assemble a rescue crew as they did not usually fly with a rescue man as they were Anti Submarine Helicopters.
Y 64 took off from Berga at 04:45 hrs, picked up a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 05:52
Y 74 took off from Berga at 05:46 hrs. Carrying a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 06:42 hrs.

(c) that Aftonbladet's 28.9.1994 papers had a headline feting Svensson as a 'hero' who saved nine

(d) a second article next day 29.9.1994 saying he 'set off just after 0200'

The newspaper reported it wrong.

(e) Turku MRCC advising Silja Europa that 'the first Swedish helicopter will be here in ten minutes' at time 0227

First Swedish helicopter was The Swedish stand-by helicopter Q 97, it was on one hour standby, it was alerted at 02:07 and took off from Visby at 02:50 hrs, arriving at the scene of the accident at 03:50 hrs.

First to respond and arrive was the Finnish OH-HVG, it was on one hour standby, it was alerted at 01:35, taking off at 02:30 hrs from Turku and arriving at the scene of the accident at 03:05 hrs

and (f) Svensson receiving the highest Swedish Defence Forces Medal of Merit, Gold with Sword,

means the JAIC report must be the correct version, when it states he arrived at about six in the morning and saved just one?

He arrived at 05:52, he saved one survivor aboard Y 64. He was left stranded in the water after the winch failed and was rescued by Y 74 where he took over winch duties from their injured rescue man.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is all pedantry, isn't it, as the Wilhelm Gustloff was built as a cruise passenger ship for German workers to relax on. It was never a war ship or a military ship. It had just one escort on its way out to its destination.

Why is it pedantry?

Why do you keep claiming it was a hospital ship when it wasn't?

It was being used to transport military personnel, it was being used as a military ship.

 

[JesseCuster]

Seriously???? Seriously???????

We all agree that Y64 rescued only one survivor.

Svensson was the rescue man on Y64 when it rescued that survivor.

Svensson then transferred to Y74, where - as the rescue man on Y74 now - he rescued another 7 survivors.


I - like most others here - am frankly astonished that you remain unable to understand all of this.

I'm not astonished. Vixen showed an almost bizarre inability or unwillingness to understand the simple explanations given about how EPIRBs worked and continued to insist on not knowing the difference between automatically released and automatically activated EPIRBs and what the models of EPIRB meant.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I'm not astonished. Vixen showed an almost bizarre inability or unwillingness to understand the simple explanations given about how EPIRBs worked and continued to insist on not knowing the difference between automatically released and automatically activated EPIRBs and what the models of EPIRB meant.

Or that they don't have some separate deactivation switch for when they are in storage

 

[Reformed Offlian]

The Aftobladet refers to Svensson by name. It doesn't reference his helicopter.


Do you think it is plausible that

(a) having been commanded by Swedish MRCC at logged time 0200 (their time 0100) to commence helicopter rescue (of over 500 Swedish nationals in a part-Swedish owned vessel) the first Swedish helicopter to arrive was at 0350?

(b) that Y64, Svensson's helicopter arriving at 0552 and Y74 at 0642 some four/five hours after Estonia disappeared off the radar, and rescuing seven between them, as per the JAIC Report

(c) that Aftonbladet's 28.9.1994 papers had a headline feting Svensson as a 'hero' who saved nine

(d) a second article next day 29.9.1994 saying he 'set off just after 0200'

(e) Turku MRCC advising Silja Europa that 'the first Swedish helicopter will be here in ten minutes' at time 0227

and (f) Svensson receiving the highest Swedish Defence Forces Medal of Merit, Gold with Sword,

means the JAIC report must be the correct version, when it states he arrived at about six in the morning and saved just one?

The JAIC report doesn't say he saved just one; it says that he saved seven and retrieved one body. You are setting up a strawman.

I don't see what the lettered items have to do with the question of which report is accurate. As I pointed out, we know the Aftonblad article contains mistakes; it even contains details that contradict your "two trips" scenario (e.g., eight rescuees and one dead body were in Y 64 when it left Svensson in the water; the helicopter went to Huddinge after it left him)

 

[MarkCorrigan]

The ship was a bloody floating barracks for soldiers. Of course it had rudimentary hospital facilities, that doesn't make it a hospital ship any more than it having relaxation facilities for the soldiers makes it a pleasure cruiser.

So your source is Sea of Death: The Baltic is it? Interesting. Which page, please, says that the ship was a hospital ship, or alternatively that the ship was "painted grey in the classic colour of a hospital ship"?

You see I own this book, I'd like to look it up myself.

Well Vixen? Come on, you've actually provided a claimed reference for your abject wrongness and it's in a book that I own, so what page please?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

From wiki:



"Originally constructed as a cruise ship for the Nazi Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) organization in 1937, Wilhelm Gustloff had been requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in 1939. She served as a hospital ship in 1939 and 1940. She was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel in Gotenhafen before being armed and put into service to transport evacuees in 1945. "



Other sources confirm this.



Yet again vixen is shown to have been talking utter bollocks.

Yet again in this very thread. We've done the bit about Wilhelm Gustloff not being a hospital ship before.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Standard protocol is Sweden, even in 1994.



For example, the Finnbirch disaster, 1 Nov 2006. Here's the MRCC/ARCC helicopter rescue timeline:



Turvallistutkimust Page 63 pdf



Note these helicopters from Ronneby and Visby set off within ten minutes of being commanded to. This is because protocol states, 'within fifteen minutes'.



So we can be sure that in the Estonia case it certainly did not take until 0350 before the first Swedish helicopter arrived but makes perfect sense that Y64 and Y74 having received a command from MRCC Stockholm at 0202 were on their way by 0215 and when MRCC Turku notified Silja Europa the Swedes helicopters will be there 'in ten minutes' at 0227, it was being factually precise, if slightly optimistic, based ont he fact it was confirmed they were on their way.



This is when Ensign Svensson saved the eight who later went missing and were written out of the JAIC report and the Swedish Government Official Estonia Archives. Classified no doubt, as is the reason for their disappearance. So Ensign gets a Gold Medal with Sword, the highest Swedish Defense Forces Medal of Merit instead, to keep him sweet.



Do you really think Sweden's MRCC is going to take two hours to rescue its own citizens in distress?





ibid

Somehow in all that you missed answering the question of why you believe the protocol was 15 minutes standby.

What is your source?

 

[SpitfireIX]

It is all pedantry, isn't it, as the Wilhelm Gustloff was built as a cruise passenger ship for German workers to relax on. It was never a war ship or a military ship.

No. She was converted to a military transport, and armed with antiaircraft guns.

During the war my grandfather went to England with his unit, a combat engineer regiment, on the Queen Mary. By your logic, if the Germans had managed to sink her, it would have been a war crime, because she was built as an ocean liner.

It had just one escort on its way out to its destination.

Irrelevant.

 

[JesseCuster]

Do you think it is plausible that
<snip>

It's far more plausible that Aftonbladet made a mistake in their reporting of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, than the fantastical scenario you want to portray with secret helicopter flights, crew members being disappeared, rescue workers being given medals to keep them quiet, etc., all of which you simply invented for the purpose of bolstering up your rather silly conspiracy theory

And yes, saying that helicopters were sent out to pick up certain crew members, those flights were kept off the records, the crew members rescued were disappeared and taken to CIA black sites on flights scheduled as cargo flights, put on trial in secret, and that one of the search and rescue men who rescued them was given a medal to keep him secret, is very obviously a conspiracy theory. The only argument you've got against it not being a conspiracy theory is that you originally posted it in the current affairs section of the forum (as if that's a qualification!) and that the current investigation is currently happening and is therefore current affairs and therefore all the guff about Spetsnaz, the CIA, KGB, MI6, Israeli arms dealing, Bill Clinton, radioactive material, wheeled submarines, minisubs, blank torpedos, WW2 mines, detonation charges, disappeared crew members, etc. somehow doesn't qualify as being conspiracy theory.

It's all very silly.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I must have missed your list, if you could cite it again, please.



My source is not wikipedia or google but a book by Claes-Goran Wetterholm, Sea of Death the Baltic 1945, 2021, The History Press.



The ship was a passenger ship with hospital facilities. How you want to pigeonhole it is up to you.

It had been a hospital ship for a time several years before. It wasn't any more. When it was sunk it was transporting a mix of military and civilians. Mostly civilians, but sadly that does not prevent it's being a legitimate military target for the Russians. It was a terrible disaster but it was not a war crime.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It's worth noting that one of Vixen's arguments for a secret early flight (which none of the ships at the scene seems to have noticed) is that the documented flight would have been too late to make that day's edition of Aftonbladet.

But the Aftonbladet article she quotes presents a slightly mangled but easily identifiable version of the events of the documented flight from around 6am.

That puts a spread of torpedoes into that claim.

 

[JesseCuster]

It's worth noting that one of Vixen's arguments for a secret early flight (which none of the ships at the scene seems to have noticed) is that the documented flight would have been too late to make that day's edition of Aftonbladet.

But the Aftonbladet article she quotes presents a slightly mangled but easily identifiable version of the events of the documented flight from around 6am.

That puts a spread of torpedoes into that claim.

Armed torpedos or blank torpedos?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Armed torpedos or blank torpedos?

Manually activated torpedoes; the type where you have to frantically swim after them to switch the detonators on.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

It's worth noting that one of Vixen's arguments for a secret early flight (which none of the ships at the scene seems to have noticed) is that the documented flight would have been too late to make that day's edition of Aftonbladet.

But the Aftonbladet article she quotes presents a slightly mangled but easily identifiable version of the events of the documented flight from around 6am.

That puts a spread of torpedoes into that claim.

She has also claimed that the reporter must have gotten the 0200 claim from Svensson himself. That could only have happened after he was finished with *all* his rescue work, unless she thinks the rescue men would take a break to give interviews while there was still rescue work to be done.

 

[JesseCuster]

She has also claimed that the reporter must have gotten the 0200 claim from Svensson himself. That could only have happened after he was finished with *all* his rescue work, unless she thinks the rescue men would take a break to give interviews while there was still rescue work to be done.

She also says that she doesn't believe in speculation about what happened, that she's only interested in recorded factual information and that her posts are cited, sourced and properly referenced.

So this extra secret flight that wasn't entered into the log books must have a factual source that Vixen has properly cited and sourced and she isn't merely fancifully extrapolating from sources that don't say what she wants them to say.

Interesting how she switches from "but the JAIC says....." and when it's pointed out that the JAIC says no such thing and actually actively disagrees with what she claims it says, then it's obvious to her that the JAIC is obfuscating about what really happened.

Curious how everyone else can read the JAIC bit about what happened with choppers Y74 and Y64 and see what's written there in plain language, but to Vixen it's unclear and obfuscation.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... Olli Moberg confirmed to Jack A Nelson in Flashes in the Night that he arrived at the scene at 0300.

This information comes frrom the mouths of Svensson and Moberg.

Svensson received the highest medal despite only saving one according to the JAIC and messing about in the water with his flippers getting ripped.

Here's the thing; we already know that's not what the JAIC says, so I'm very much disinclined to believe your version of what <whoever your source is> said Nelson said Moberg said unless I can see the original quote.

You are, as has been mentioned several times before, truly terrible at the task of accurately reporting facts.

 

[Mojo]

Well Vixen? Come on, you've actually provided a claimed reference for your abject wrongness and it's in a book that I own, so what page please?

I predict a response (if any) rather like this one.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's far more plausible that Aftonbladet made a mistake in their reporting of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, than the fantastical scenario you want to portray with secret helicopter flights, crew members being disappeared, rescue workers being given medals to keep them quiet, etc., all of which you simply invented for the purpose of bolstering up your rather silly conspiracy theory

And yes, saying that helicopters were sent out to pick up certain crew members, those flights were kept off the records, the crew members rescued were disappeared and taken to CIA black sites on flights scheduled as cargo flights, put on trial in secret, and that one of the search and rescue men who rescued them was given a medal to keep him secret, is very obviously a conspiracy theory. The only argument you've got against it not being a conspiracy theory is that you originally posted it in the current affairs section of the forum (as if that's a qualification!) and that the current investigation is currently happening and is therefore current affairs and therefore all the guff about Spetsnaz, the CIA, KGB, MI6, Israeli arms dealing, Bill Clinton, radioactive material, wheeled submarines, minisubs, blank torpedos, WW2 mines, detonation charges, disappeared crew members, etc. somehow doesn't qualify as being conspiracy theory.

It's all very silly.