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

[SteveAitch]

I haven't seen anything 'debunked'. Perhaps a citation?

Have we been reading the same thread?

I vaguely remember reading that frogs don't 'see' anything that isn't moving as food - if an insect stays still, the frog's vision system filters it out before it reaches the brain. Maybe some peoples brains do something similar in that they don't actually see anything that doesn't fit in with what they believe?

 

[GlennB]

I vaguely remember reading that frogs don't 'see' anything that isn't moving as food - if an insect stays still, the frog's vision system filters it out before it reaches the brain. Maybe some peoples brains do something similar in that they don't actually see anything that doesn't fit in with what they believe?

And, if someone linked to a very specific debunking, it would just be an invitation to the o/p to reset that element of the debate as if nothing had ever been said on the matter. And around we'd go again ...

 

[Vixen]

Hence the use of % instead of actual numbers. There was a large percentage of those with a lower level of education that agreed with the statement, and higher percentage of those with a higher level of education that disagreed with the statement. All the information is on the page I linked to, including the excel where this can be verified.

Exactly, it doesn't. So it would be really stupid to draw that conclusion. I didn't do that. Why do you bring it up?


27% is just over a fourth, not a third.

I couldn't find the Estonia survey. We can see the motivation behind these people as they call their surveys, "Conspiracy theories, superstition and pseudoscience in Sweden".

Of course no intelligent well-educated person is going to say, 'I believe in conspiracy theories, superstition and pseudoscience". Duh. You'd have to be pretty stupid to admit to being, er, stupid.

You need to prove that scepticism that the Estonia sunk because 'the bow visor fell off due to a design fault' as concluded on Day One by a politician and a lawyer, yet not by marine engineers or sea captains ' is due to an irrational tendency to believe in pseudoscience and anti-social nationalist ideology. A kind of 'defame and shame anyone who does not toe the line and believe what their government has told them to believe'.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I gave you a direct citation of Sweden's own safety board. It is called HAVKOM and its mission is: The Swedish Accident Investigation Board (SHK) is a state authority whose task is to investigate accidents and incidents in order to improve safety. SHK, on ​​the other hand, does not handle issues of guilt or liability, whether in civil law, criminal law or administrative law.


Standby protocol for MRCC/ARCC commands is to be ready to fly within fifteen minutes, and as we saw in the Finnbirch accident, the two helicopters took off within ten minutes.

From your own link, it underlines this protocol:

This was not the case in the 90s though. SAR was the responsibility of the military and the helicopters were on one hour standby.

In the 2000s the SAR service was run down by the military as the helicopter squadrons of the Navy and Air Force were amalgamated in to one organisation and dedicated to military duties.
Search and Rescue was taken on by the civilian Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA). through civil helicopter operator Norrlandsflyg on contract.
Norrlandsflyg was acquired by the SMA on 1 November 2011 and The helicopter division changed name to SMA Helicopter Rescue, it was formally incorporated in the Swedish Maritime Administration on 22 January 2014.
It currently operates Augusta Westland AW139s through a leasing company. These are much more capable than the helicopters in use at the time of the Estonia sinking.


from their own website

Objectives & Level of Ambition
Maritime Search and Rescue including medical evacuation from ships shall be performed on 24-hour basis, within areas specified in the Civil Protection Act.

The Search and Rescue service shall on Swedish territorial waters, within 60 minutes in 90 percent of all SAR operations, with airborne or surface search and rescue unit (SRU), after its crew has been alerted by the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC), and where the position is known, be able to rescue a person in distress. The equivalent value for a position on international waters of the Swedish Search and Rescue Region (SRR) is 90 minutes.

https://www.sjofartsverket.se/en/search-and-rescue/search-and-rescue/objectives--level-of-ambition/

No mention of 15 minutes.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Today it's a different situation,.

The Swedish Maritime Administration operates SAR helicopters, on a 15 minute standby. They have a total of 7 helicopters, 5 of them being operative from Umeå, Norrtälje, Kristianstad, Visby and Gothenburg. However during the last couple of years, they've staged one helicopter in Kiruna during the winter, specifically for exercises. If if remember correctly, this year it's the Visby base that was moved to Kiruna. All crew rotate up to Kiruna for the exercises.

The only other maritime SAR organisation with 15 minute standby is the volunteer crewed Swedish Sea Rescue Society. Others parts of the Swedish maritime SAR organisation (Coast Guard, Pilots boats, Police and so on) respond when they can, for example if they happen to be nearby.

Being ready for duty and take off is not the same as being in the air in 15 minutes.

None of this has any bearing on the readiness and take off times being operated at the time of the Estonia sinking.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I gave you a direct citation of Sweden's own safety board. It is called HAVKOM and its mission is: The Swedish Accident Investigation Board (SHK) is a state authority whose task is to investigate accidents and incidents in order to improve safety. SHK, on ​​the other hand, does not handle issues of guilt or liability, whether in civil law, criminal law or administrative law.


Standby protocol for MRCC/ARCC commands is to be ready to fly within fifteen minutes, and as we saw in the Finnbirch accident, the two helicopters took off within ten minutes.

From your own link, it underlines this protocol:

That is now, it was not then.

Being ready to fly in 15 minutes is not the same as being in the air in 15 minutes.

Even today the standard is "The Search and Rescue service shall on Swedish territorial waters, within 60 minutes in 90 percent of all SAR operations, with airborne or surface search and rescue unit (SRU), after its crew has been alerted by the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC), and where the position is known, be able to rescue a person in distress. The equivalent value for a position on international waters of the Swedish Search and Rescue Region (SRR) is 90 minutes."

What is in place now is not what was in place then but even then the first Swedish helicopter was in the air within an hour and over the rescue area in an hour.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Citation please of how you know, "He got the medal because he got stranded in the sea, was rescued and took over duties from another injured rescue man and worked until he himself was injured."

He got the Gold with Sword 'because he got stranded in the sea and had to be rescued'?

Really?

Why do you keep picking one small detail and asking if that is why he got a medal? yesterday it was because he lost a flipper.
You know it is dishonest to keep doing this.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The description given to the reporter matches what the papers say ten years later. Only the person who was there would know what happened as of the morning of 28.9.1994.

So your only evidence is your own subjective interpretation of a newspaper report.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

AKA how to lie with statistics. It is well-known that the far-right has infiltrated various anarchist-type subsections and anti-vaxxers, covid-is-a-hoax, they-are-taking-away-your-freedom malcontents. Smearing someone with a negative label doesn't really change anything.

I don't know what point you think you are making here unless you think extremist agitators managed to infiltrate the 2500 people surveyed. For my part I assume a proportion of people just absorb rumours and imagine they're true because they're not invested in discovering whether they're true or not, for example the roughly 25% of British people who think Apollo may have been a hoax. It's ridiculous but most of those people don't much care whether it's true or not.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is no good side-stepping the facts. It doesn't change the fact Svensson got the highest level of Swedish Defence Forces Medal of Merit the Gold with Sword for his activities regarding the Estonia. The JAIC states plainly his helicopter Y64 arrived at circa 0600 and rescued one.

None of that is in dispute.

The other fact is that MRCC in Sweden has a protocol that a couple of helicopters are always on standby and must leave 'within 15 minutes' when ordered, as they were.

Your citation is still needed for this claim. This point very much is in dispute.

Berga is a naval base so it shouldn't be a surprise their helicopters are assault or anti-submarine. They have to be prepared for any eventuality.

You appear to be handwaving away any distinction between designated search and rescue helicopters and, say, ASW ones. This convinces me you really don't know what you're talking about regarding standby times.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

(stuff not in dispute snipped for irrelevance)


How come none of the other Swedish guys got a Gold with Sword medal?



You just cannot answer that.

You need to take your metaphorical fingers out of your ears for a moment.

He rescued one person from his own helicopter but got left in the sea when its winch failed, then he got picked up by another helicopter and took over from their injured rescue man, saving a bunch more people before he himself became injured.

Is there any part of that you cannot understand and need explained yet again?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is not silly for those thousand who lost their lives.

Not silly. Insulting. Turning their deaths into a spy adventure and insisting it's true because what actually sank the ship isn't believeable to you actually detracts from learning the lessons from their tragedy.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Perhaps open a thread on it because it is not as clear cut as you make out.

Not interested. You brought the Wilhelm Gustloff here, several times, and as it seems to fail to make any of the points you want it to make I'm happy to drop the case entirely.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The JAIC had to beef up Y64 antics to provide a cloak to explain how he got his Gold Medal with Sword.

Avoids the point as usual and still conflated Svensson with a helicopter. Do you concede that Aftonbladet does indeed report on events from the documented flight around 6am, or do you still insist that was too late to make that day's edition?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

JAIC 7.5.5 states:







The reporter was Sven-Anders Eriksson. I doubt he could have made the story up. The words obviously came from Svensson's own mouth.

Why Svensson specifically? Even if you assume the reporter spoke to the crew directly, he was only one of several crew and rather obviously he did not fly back on that helicopter.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... 'the bow visor fell off due to a design fault' as concluded on Day One by a politician and a lawyer...

Citation needed.

 

[whoanellie]

Of course no intelligent well-educated person is going to say, 'I believe in conspiracy theories, superstition and pseudoscience". Duh. You'd have to be pretty stupid to admit to being, er, stupid.

I do believe we are all in agreement on this.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

JAIC 7.5.5 states:

Since you are obviously familiar with JAIC 7.5.5., tell me how many people it describes "the Y 64 rescue man" as having rescued while he was on Y 74. I am asking you specifically about what it says in *that* specific section of the report.

The reporter was Sven-Anders Eriksson. I doubt he could have made the story up. The words obviously came from Svensson's own mouth.

That is not obvious at all, and is a completely unwarranted and self-serving assumption. As I already indicated, and you have yet to acknowledge, the article contains inaccurate details Svensson would never have provided, such as that there was a dead body in Y 64 when he cut loose from it, or that it went to Huddinge afterwards. It didn't have body on board, and it went to Uto, not Huddinge, at that point.

Another question for you: according to your reconstruction, Y 64 made two trips. Which one was the one that ended with Svensson being cut loose from the helicopter and retrieved by Y 74? In your reconstruction, does this happen during the earlier trip, or the later one?

 

[Here_to_learn]

Being ready for duty and take off is not the same as being in the air in 15 minutes.

None of this has any bearing on the readiness and take off times being operated at the time of the Estonia sinking.

Agreed, that's why I highlighter the "Today".

This is how they describe the 15 minutes:

I samband med ett normaluppdrag ska besättningen senast 15 minuter efter larm vara ombytt och klar för tjänstgöring och helikoptern ska vara utdragen ur hangaren och klar att lyfta. Tiden från att larmet kommer in till att helikoptern kan lyfta påverkas av vilket planeringsbehov som finns kopplat till insatsen.

Väder, avstånd och typ av räddningsinsats är exempel på faktorer som påverkar planeringen.

My translation:

In connection with a normal assignment, the crew must be changed and ready for duty no later than 15 minutes after the alarm and the helicopter must be pulled out of the hangar and ready to take off. The time from when the alarm comes in to the helicopter being able to take off is affected by the planning need that is linked to the operation.

Weather, distance and type of rescue operation are examples of factors that affect planning.

But as you say - this is today, not what was valid back when M/S Estonia sank.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Look at the list of helicopters I provided. The Finnish guys saved 35 in one night. There is no song and dance about losing a flipper in the sea.

The JAIC had to beef up Y64 antics to provide a cloak to explain how he got his Gold Medal with Sword. I dare say it is broadly true, except they omit the earlier rescue at circa 0300, as it is clearly classified and all mention of the previously listed survived Estonian crew removed from public view.

How did JAIC "beef up Y64 antics" when it, according to you, only ever credits Svensson with one rescue?