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

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Jack by the hedge said:
Permit me to remind you:

You claimed the Soviets breached the convention of not attacking hospital ships.

When challenged that the Wilhelm Gustloff was not a hospital ship you doubled down by claiming your reference was a textbook and superior to the unreliable Wikipedia. And that it told you the ship had been painted the traditional grey of a hospital ship.
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This grey?
 
Vixen said:
... In addition, the early 0202 logged helicopter flight is mysteriously unrecorded.
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"Logged"? That's a bit of an overclaim, isn't it? Would you care to show us who "logged" it and why we should think they had access to reliable information to "log"?
 
whoanellie said:
Svensson delivered the senior officers where? Are these the senior officers who officially died but you theorize are living to this day in hiding somewhere? Wouldn't such an operation (the secret rescue and the hiding of the officers) require a vast conspiracy?
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The Mariella docked into Stockholm, whereupon it was boarded in Swedish waters by police who flew in by helicopter.


"... The police ordered all 25 (sic) survivors to be locked up in a separate area of the ship. They were forbidden to communicate with other passengers, even if many survivors wanted to have contact with them. The police and guards from the ship maintained strict control of the rooms with the survivors. If they wanted to go to the toilet ... they were escorted by the guards.
The survivors were partly questioned by the police already aboard the 'Mariella'. Some were not permitted to telephone their relatives, when they so wished, they had to ask permission. Some were only granted one telephone call. Before the called they were forced to reveal the name and civic ID number of the person they wanted to call. ...
When later the survivors arrived at the port of Värtan ... they had to wait until the 'Mariella' was emptied of normal travellers. The police wanted to prevent mutual contact using all means. ... Thure Palmgren ... was not permitted to leave the group. Swedish police forced him violently into the bus against his will. He (Palmgren) said to me that he had never been so angry and upset. Some of the survivors considered that the police committed a crime, i.e. illegal arrest.
When all survivors had been transported to the Söder hospital they were all locked up in wards. Police guarded the doors. When one of the survivors wanted to leave the ward, he was forced back in a very unfriendly manner ..."
-
Jörle-Hellberg

Why would it require a 'vast conspiracy'? Fact is, these people were listed as survivors and no explanation has ever been given for their removal from the lists. Given this was put in the public domain, there should be some kind of retraction or correction.

They were brought in by Y64 and Mariella.

Why would Mariella go to Sweden when the rescue was under Finnish jursidiction? Well we know Piht seems to have ended up in Turku and then Helsinki.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Isn't it convenient that any evidence that supports the claim has all disappeared.
What evidence do you have for the the news footage from a German TV company being 'seized by the security services'?

Are you claiming the German government is in on the conspiracy as well now?
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AIUI this was Der Speigel ; Jutta Rabe a journalist investigating the story says that is what she was told when she tried to acquire the news reel.

Germany did not sign the Estonia Gravesite Treaty, despite being a major Baltic state.
 
Hey Vixen, do you have that page number, or the date or headline of the Times report you cited?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
You are claiming there was a conspiracy to sink the ship, kidnap the officers, hide a rescue mission, bribe the aircrew, seize news footage from a German TV company and goodness knows what else. You can't present any evidence for any of it.

Seems like a conspiracy theory to me.
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It is a matter of fact the Estonia sank suddenly within 35 minutes in the middle of her journey in international waters, with a series of bangs heard or felt at Swedish midnight, also half way, timewise. This might be entirely coincidental were it not for the fact there was an immediate attempt to cover it up with the claim on day one it was a bow visor fault. None of the marine engineers or sea captains believed this. How can they know this before the ship was even located.
 
Vixen said:
You claimed that I claimed Svensson went on a special mission to capture the Estonia ship's officials.
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Because you did.
Vixen said:
It is unlikely it was like that at all. It was probably entirely by the by.
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Great. Tell us all what it was like.

Vixen said:
Because the survivor count had to be reduced by twelve (remember, the original survivors lists showed 149 names, including the senior ship's officers).
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Super. Early reports are inaccurate. When has that never been true?

Vixen said:
In addition, the early 0202 logged helicopter flight is mysteriously unrecorded.
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We have been over this so many times that even an amoeba could work it out.

Vixen said:
The Rockwater divers said the bodies were in good condition, as it is near zero degrees and low salinity. In fact divers went down within days of the ship being located.
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And?

Vixen said:
Of course they would want to locate the captain for a start.
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Really? Why would that be?

Vixen said:
Why no public announcement as to what happened to the captain and his officers?
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They drowned. It's so obvious it requires no public announcement.

Vixen said:
Well, Helsingin Sanomat reported that Avo Piht was alive and that Arvo Andresson, first captain, had 'drowned with his ship'.
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Why should anyone care what a gutter tabloid claims?

Vixen said:
Explain that. Somebody obviously did do some identifying.
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I have no idea how to describe that within the confines of the MA.
 
Vixen said:
It is a matter of fact the Estonia sank suddenly within 35 minutes in the middle of her journey in international waters...
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Yes, those are facts. What aren't facts are the notions that: the ship was sunk on purpose, that the officers were kidnapped, that secret rescue missions were conducted, that the aircrews were bribed, that footage was seized, and so forth. Those are conspiracy theories. You seem unable to separate a fact from a conspiracy theory.
 
I got back to the response times for the helicopters.

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/ES002173_00001#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2020,-33,6570,3508
This document is the report from the Airforce and Marine aviation on their part of the rescue. In there the on-call times are mentioned, as has been share several times in this thread. (1-2 hours, with some not being on call at all).

The interesting part is on the bottom on the 8th page, continuing on the 9th.

2.3 Erfarenheter

Beredskapen under icke tjänstetid bör anpassas så att insatser mot nödställd(a) kan ske så snabbt som möjligt. Då det gäller insatser under den tid på året då de yttre förhållandena är som ogynnsammast för nödställda till havs (höst, vinter och vår) och tiden för överlevnad är kort bör beredskapen vara högre.

2.4 Förslag

Beredskapen under icke tjänstetid vara organiserad så att beredskapsbesättning förläggs vid förbandet. Detta skulle kunna innebära att hkp kan vara i luften inom 15-45 minuter efter larm.
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My translation:

2.3 Experiences

Response times during non-service hours should be adjusted so that rescue missions can take place as quickly as possible. When it comes to rescue missions during the time of year when the external conditions are most unfavorable for those in need at sea (autumn, winter and spring) and the time for survival is short, preparedness should be higher.

2.4 Suggestion

Preparedness during non-service hours must be organized so that emergency crews are stationed at the unit. This could mean that the helicopter can be in the air within 15-45 minutes after an alarm.

Yet another case were we can see that lessons learned from M/S Estonia have contributed to the improved rescue capabilities that we see today.

That document confirms that during 1994, helicopters were on a 1-2 hour standby, and contradicts Vixens claim of 15 minutes.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Where do Sweden's 'actions and choices' seem shady?
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The idea of sealing the wreck in concrete, not considering recovering any of the bodies, handing the survey dive off to a subsidiary of Haliburton instead of a domestic salvage company.

I understand that this was a huge tragedy, and Sweden (and Finland) has never been wired for death on this kind of scale, and clearly were overwhelmed. I think they were doing what they thought was best, By encasing the wreck in concrete the ship became tomb that couldn't be picked over by illegal salvage, and they changed their mind anyway. Recovering only a few of the bodies would lead to resentment by the families whose family members remained in the wreck. And by handing the salvage dive operation to a third party technically gave the investigation an unbiased team on the wreck, instead of Swedish and Finish Navy dive teams.

From the outside it looked "shady".
 
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Reformed Offlian said:
Presumably, it was for something that only Svensson himself did.

Or, running with your premise for argument's sake, something only Svensson himself needed to be compensated for, or that only Svensson himself needed to be bribed for.

This is why the secret helicopter trip suggestion isn't convincing. If such was what the medal was for, the other crew members should have gotten one, too. Why, then, did only Svensson get one?
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He must have done something special, no? Apart from sharing another helicopter's rescues.

The descriptive narrative in the JAIC (section 7) of the rescur was written up by Rear Admiral Heimo Iivonen and ISTM the reason his version seems strikingly similar to the Aftonbladet versions is because he copied the details of Svensson's rescues from there to include under the six o'clock in the morning antics.

I have had a look at this an come up with this by superimposing the accounts on each other.

Kenneth Svensson could hardly fit the rescue harness around them. ... Eight humans Kenneth Svensson managed to pick up from the sea.
Then he almost drowned himself.


Y b4 (Boeing Kawasaki)
Y 64 took off from Berga at 0445 hrs, picked up a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 0552 hrs

... Kenneth Svensson assisted as rescue man in one of the first three Vertol-helicopters that left from Berga naval base outside Stockholm. The time was then just after two o'clock in the night. After an hour they arrived.

Stefan Olsson with Y74 was first to leave Berga arriving at 0300 EET.

06.42 (over three hours to get there) The Swedish Navy's helicopter Y 74 arrives at the disaster area. The crew rescued 6 survivors and two lifeguards who were in the water after winch crashes on other helicopters.

Svensson arrived with Y64 to find one raft with three men. ... After about twenty minutes hard work he had managed to lift all three to the helicopter. ... (29.9.1994)=3 ‘three apathetic men frozen on a raft'. (28.9.1994). He tried to winch up the earlier ones but only one was winched up alive.=1

Whilst Kenneth Svensson was on his way up with the fourth person, the rescue line got stuck in the undercarriage of the helicopter. The crew managed to get onboard the injured person, but Kenneth Svensson remained hanging below the helicopter. To prevent him from being smashed against the aircraft the line was cut and he fell back into the ... sea. The helicopter was forced to leave Kenneth Svensson alone in the water in order to fly to Huddinge hospital with the injured. =4 saved so far.

Y74 had come along, at 0642. Y 74 went to assist Y 64.lowered a winch A hook and harness were dropped to the rescue man, Y64, and he was able to use them to get up to the helicopter.

Three survivors were hanging on to the keel of an upside-down lifeboat. Y 64's rescue man was lowered, and all three survivors were winched up. + 3 =7

In connection with the rescue of the last of the three, a strong wave threw the rescue man against the lifeboat, injuring him. Since Y 74 now had three injured rescue men, (Including Y69 whom Y74 also rescued) it had to interrupt its rescue operations. In addition, fuel was running low.

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. The six survivors, the injured rescue men and the body were taken to Huddinge Hospital, where the helicopter arrived at 0930 hrs.

Six were Y74 and One was Y64.

Y 64 got permission from the OSC to return to Berga to repair the broken winch, and landed there at 1530 hrs. In the helicopter were nine persons, one of whom was dead.[- 29.9.1994) = 8

In which helicopter? Y64 or Y74?

In the Aftonbladet 29.9.1994 report Svensson is quoted as, “After only just half a minute I made a new attempt and it went better.”

Note the first person tense – he was speaking directly to Eriksson.

So you can see how the JAIC has clearly tried to interweave the eight Svensson rescued earlier with the rescue attempts of Y74 in a legerdemain attempt to lead the reader to believe this is what the Atonbladet article was referring to.

ISTM if Y74 Olsson/Moberg saved not only Y64 but also Y69 and got injured themself in so doing, then give that bloody man a medal, too!
 
Vixen said:
That might seem reasonable enough, except there is no way Bildt and his JAIC spokesperson could conclude on day one that the bow visor had a design fault. Sometimes a cover up is obvious. No-one knew why until ten years later when the Customs whistleblower came forward.
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We've covered your Bildt allegation, it is not true.

The "Customs Whistle Blower" was not on the ship when it sank.
 
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