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

[JesseCuster]

Whilst Russia is a strong candidate if it was sabotage, we do not actually know that.

What we do know for sure is that Sweden covered it up.

Why? To cover up the smuggling of Russian military electronics?

How does covering up such a minor offense become so important that they're willing to immediately launch a labyrinthian cover-up of the murder of over 800 of their own civilians?

 

[Andy_Ross]

A ship sinks tonight in an area sea nearby you. You are a Coast Guard official. Who do you most want to speak to as a matter of urgency once the survivors are brough ashore?

Enter your 'agent Y64' to find that person and bring him to you.

no, if a ship sinks off the coast tonight rescue services will try to rescue anyone in the water, There won't be a special helicopter just looking for the captain.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Whilst Russia is a strong candidate if it was sabotage, we do not actually know that.

What we do know for sure is that Sweden covered it up.

That is one certainty.

No we don't know that.

You haven't presented anything that shows that Sweden covered anything up.

Are you also now saying it wasn't the Russians that did it?

 

[Vixen]

But the radio signals weren't interfered with, they were picked up by nearby ships and shore stations. EPIRBs weren't disabled, they weren't activated by the crew.
EPIRBs wouldn't have helped anyway, at the time it took quite a while to triangulate the position of the buoys and the radio response was far quicker.

That is not the point. That is the same reasoning as the JAIC, 'It doesn't matter the communications were down or that the EPIRB's didn't activate. Nor does it matter if there was illicit cargo, or a fire or explosions or even that it wasn't well maintained or cared for: that doesn't change our verdict of poor design of the bow visor locks so we will just ignore all of that.'

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It was made clear to Bildt that there had been a dreadful blunder.



So obvious.

How exactly is this "obvious"?

Why was it not instantly clear the Russians had sunk the Herald of Free Enterprise?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I don't know if it was, 'an atrocity committed by Russia'. However, I do know Sweden immediately covered it up.

No. You don't.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Citation please of where it says it was a mistake.

Because there was never an official statement saying they were alive, all you have are vague newspaper reports from the time of the rescue when nothing was certain.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Let me see. So when two cars collide, normally the insurers of one of the cars has to pay out to the other, and this is the car that is deemed to be the one at fault.

So one day your car is smashed to smithereens by someone's careless driving but wait. You are told, 'No-one is to blame, it was just a design fault on one of the bolts' at the scene of the accident before your car has even been recovered, the CCTV looked at or an appeal of dashcam pictures put out by the police.

So according to you, you should just accept it, even if it doesn't follow the normal protocol of other car accidents.

You can't just go around accusing other drivers of careless driving and smashing into you!

Are you claiming that you know marine accident protocol? Because you don't.

Just like when you claimed you were a scientist and you aren't. Or like when you claimed to know about spycraft and intelligence studies, but you don't. Or when you claimed to know about metallurgy, but you don't.

Every single claim you've made in this thread has been gibberish. You've been caught lying repeatedly, claiming that a book says something that it doesn't and when called on it deflecting and bluffing. You were caught lying about articles in The Times and when called on it deflected and dissembled.

Your opinions are based on lunatics like Bjorkman, to the point where your statements about what sources say are lifted directly from him, complete with ellipses in the exact same places.

You have no credibility. No one believes a word you say.

 

[Vixen]

Did the Swedish inquiry into smuggling, (which so far as I can see concluded that electronic parts had twice been brought from Estonia to Sweden and waved through customs) have anything to say about whether the officers of the ship colluded in any way with the smuggling?

I can't see any reason to imagine they needed to know anything dodgy was going on. The fewer who knew the better, I would have thought.

That's odd, isn't it? When there's no reason to suppose the ship's officers knew they were transporting anything untoward, what could possibly have meant they had to be silenced by Mission Impossible?

So if a ship sinks tonight nearby you and you are the Coast Guard in charge, your attitude will be, 'I don't see any reason to assume anyone is responsible'. <shrug>

 

[JesseCuster]

Whilst Russia is a strong candidate if it was sabotage, we do not actually know that.

Earlier in this thread you said it was very obviously an act of sabotage that sank the Estonia.

Now you're not so sure? You're all over the place in this thread about what it is you think happened.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

It matters not a jot how they sink. Someone is responsible, is the view.

Based upon nothing but your own fantasies and the opinions of people like Anders Bjorkman. You've made absolutely no effort in determining who is responsible beyond your continual assertion without evidence that the JAIC is wrong.

 

[LondonJohn]

I didn't say Bildt 'knew it was the Russians'. I don't know what he knew. However, he certainly knew the cause of the accident. That is why the JAIC was just a show.


The fact that Dr_Ing Hans-Werner Hoffmeister of Hamburg University showed that their calculations on the bow visor were incorrect and that he obtained different results, was just ignored, proves the JAIC report was just a glossy brochure for people to put on their coffee tables.

We've now been through this countless times with you.

Bildt was informed via a survivor with reliable testimony (either directly or indirectly) that the bow opening mechanism had failed: that the bow door had completely detached from the ship, and that the bow ramp was broken and letting in water at a rapid rate.

The JAIC then conducted a proper, objective, expert investigation. At the end of this investigation, they concluded that indeed this sinking was caused by the catastrophic failure of the bow visor and bow ramp.

Where you entirely lose whatever crumbs of credibility you might still cling onto.... is that you jump to the conclusion that the JAIC investigation & report was a sham, and that its aim all along was to "rubber stamp" Bildt's earlier comments re the bow visor etc*.

In reality, Vixen, the two are not connected in the way your CT mind presumes. Rather, they are connected because the testimony of the survivor was accurate and reliable: the bow visor did fail then break away from the ship, and the bow ramp was sufficiently damaged to have let in vast amounts of water. It's therefore no surprise at all (to people who actually know what they're talking about) that the JAIC ultimately reached the conclusion which married with Bildt's early statements.

And you obviously have no idea how to interpret Dr** Hoffmeister's report. Because a correct interpretation is about a million miles away from your ignorant take on it.


* The nonsense you're mis-inferring is similar in nature to this scenario: Mr A sees a woman being robbed of her purse; Mr A gets a good look at the robber, is able to describe him to police, and is subsequently able to pick him out in a line-up. Mr A tells a friend a day after the robbery that he knows who the robber is. Later there's a trial, and the robber is found guilty and imprisoned. If your stupid & ignorant "deduction" were to be applied here also, then you'd be claiming that the trial was a sham - that it was set up purely to confirm what Mr A had concluded soon after the crime took place. You don't know what you're talking about, Vixen.

** And it's "Dr Hoffmeister", not "Dr_Ing Hoffmeister". Unless you wish to start writing your posts in German, that is....

 

[Vixen]

They drowned.

Citation please. Helsingin Sanomat reported Avo Piht alive and Arvo Andresson drowned. Reuters reported Bengt Stenmark, transport and waterways minister as saying Piht had been interviewed.

Citation please of the correction and the new information.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

So if a ship sinks tonight nearby you and you are the Coast Guard in charge, your attitude will be, 'I don't see any reason to assume anyone is responsible'. <shrug>

No, but if a detailed investigation is carried out that shows that it was not sabotage, I would accept the report unless provided with credible reason not to.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It matters not a jot how they sink. Someone is responsible, is the view.

responsibility was assignred in the Estonia report.

It was not the job of JAIC to prosecute anyone.

Chapter 21 Conclusions

The ESTONIA's bow visor locking devices failed due to wave-induced impact loads creating opening moments about the deck hinges.
The ESTONIA had experienced sea conditions of equivalent severity to those on the night of the accident only once or twice before on a voyage from Tallinn to Stockholm. The probability of the vessel encountering heavy bow seas in her earlier service had been very small. Thus, the failure occurred in what were most likely the worst wave load conditions she ever encountered.
The visor attachments were not designed according to realistic design assumptions, including the design load level, load distribution to the attachments and the failure mode. The attachments were constructed with less strength than the simplistic calculations required. It is believed that this discrepancy was due to lack of sufficiently detailed manufacturing and installation instructions for certain parts of the devices.
The bow visor locking devices should have been several times stronger to have a reasonable level of safety for the regular traffic between Tallinn and Stockholm.
At the time of the ESTONIA's construction, despite scattered information, the industry's general experience of hydrodynamic loads on large ship structures was limited, and the design procedures for bow doors were not well-established.
The classification society design requirements for bow doors became more clearly defined and the design load levels were in general increased after the ESTONIA had been built but, according to established practice, the new rules did not apply to existing vessels.
Numerous bow visor incidents occurred prior to the accident on vessels built before and after the ESTONIA for the Finland-Sweden traffic. These included an incident on the DIANA II, a near-sister vessel to the ESTONIA, but the experience did not lead to systematic inspection and requirements for reinforcement of visor attachments on existing vessels.
Information on bow visor incidents was not systematically collected, analysed and spread within the shipping industry. Thus masters on board had, in general, very little knowledge of the potential danger of the bow visor closure concept.

The initial action by the officers on the bridge indicates that they did not realise that the bow was fully open when the list started to develop.
The bridge officers did not reduce speed after receiving two reports of metallic sounds and ordering an investigation of the bow area. A rapid decrease in speed at this time would have significantly increased the chances of survival.
The visor could not be seen from the conning position, which the Commission considers a significant contributing factor to the capsize. In all incidents known to the Commission where the visor has opened at sea due to locking device failure, the opening was observed visually from the bridge and the officers of the watch were able quickly to take appropriate action.
There are indications that the crew did not use all means to seek or exchange information regarding the occurrence at a stage when it would still have been possible to influence the development of the accident. The bridge crew apparently did not look at the TV monitor which would have shown them that water was entering the car deck; nor did they ask those in the control room from where the ingress was observed, or get information from them.
The position sensors for signal lamps showing locked visor were connected to the side locking bolts in such a way that the lamp on the bridge showed locked visor even after the visor had tumbled into the sea. The indirect information on the status of the visor was thus misleading. The signal lamp for locked ramp was most likely not on because one of the locking bolts was not fully extended. There was thus no lamp warning when the visor had forced the ramp partly open and it was resting inside the visor.
It is most likely that the crew were unaware of visor incidents involving other vessels, in particular the DIANA II.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

A ship sinks tonight in an area sea nearby you. You are a Coast Guard official. Who do you most want to speak to as a matter of urgency once the survivors are brough ashore?



Enter your 'agent Y64' to find that person and bring him to you.

How? You want to question the officers on the ship, obviously. You want whoever finds them to alert you, obviously.

So you give one helicopter crew a secret mission to magically find them before anyone else, with no way to tell who they're going to find, and tell them to spirit these men away instead of just presenting them to the authorities in the obvious manner.

That's nuts.

 

[abaddon]

If the ship was rocked by explosions at Swedish midnight, half way through her journey and as the watch was changing, one gets the sense the baddies already knew the ship would then try to send a Mayday and dealt with this matter by disabling the EPIRB's in advance and arranging interference with the radio signals during the expected time of sinking.

What fresh fantasy is this?

So now the claim is that the secret ninjas boarded, disabled the EPIRBS, planted explosives, abandoned ship all without anybody noticing. Meanwhile, Estonia could send no mayday (even though we have recordings of said mayday) because they were somehow "blocked" even though we have recordings of those mayday calls and the responses to them.

WTAF? Do you expect anyone to take this crap seriously?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Whilst Russia is a strong candidate if it was sabotage, we do not actually know that.



What we do know for sure is that Sweden covered it up.



That is one certainty.

Your expression of certainty does not seem to convince anyone you have any good reason to believe it.

 

[LondonJohn]

A ship sinks tonight in an area sea nearby you. You are a Coast Guard official. Who do you most want to speak to as a matter of urgency once the survivors are brough ashore?

Enter your 'agent Y64' to find that person and bring him to you.

Holy crap. Y64 was not a person. Y64 was a helicopter.

I'm close to concluding that you must - by now - be doing this on purpose. Because even a child, once they'd read a few of the relevant posts in this thread, would easily have figured out that "Y64", "Y74", etc refer to helicopters and not to specific human beings (nor even specific groups of human beings).

 

[Vixen]

So he knew the ship had been blown up or torpedoed but didn't know who did it?



Hoffmeister didn't show the calculations were incorrect, this was gone through in great detail earlier in the thread.
He came to the same conclusion, the bow visor locking systems failed. He just differed in detail.

JAIC spokesman Kari Lehtola said on Day One that the bow visor had been 'lifed up' by a strong wave and this caused the other locks to weaken.

Hoffmeister showed that it would not have been the Atlantic Lock to fail first but the starboard side, with the Atlantic lock last, by FEM calculations which look at how much tension the locks can bear.

Thus, the bow visor could not 'have lifted up' if the Atlantic lock was last to fail.