Jukkelus, thanks for your contribution and welcome.
Actually there were an enormous number of problems in communication on the night of the disaster. Channel 16 wasn't working and it was only by sheer fluke that the weak message from Tammes came through at 01:21:55. From the transcript you can hear he didn't follow standard procedure (saying Mayday three times , giving name of ship and location) which indicates he had likely been trying to communicate for some time. When he was heard, by the Captain of
Viking Mariella, who responded, he did not hear the response as he again repeated. This time,
Silja Europa heard and Tammes also responded to
Silja Europa. Europa and Mariella both had to use 2152 as the international distress Channel 16 was not working or poor (Finnish Rear Admiral Heimo Iivonen told the JAIC that the Finnish coastguards had been experiencing what they assessed to be a blocking transmitter from a nearby Russian base on a former Finnish island). The Captain of
Mariella had to use his own NMT mobile to ring the MRCC Turku landline. The guys at Turku needed a location, which Tammes could not provide to
Mariella/Europa as he said they had 'blackout'. However, Ainsalu called back two minutes later, with the IVth Officer calling out the coordinates (which must have been showing on the navigational systems). MRCC Turku ordered Helsinki Radio to convey the Mayday to MRCC Stockholm, which it could not do until it received the location and had trouble getting through. It did nto get through until 01:48, which is when Estonia was gone completely. So, it is incorrect to say there were no communication problems.
The JAIC confirms the EPIRBs were:
JAIC REPORT
From their brochure, Kannad confirms the 'F' suffix denotes 'free-floating' and it is confirmed by Rockwater and JAIC appointed navigational communications system expert, Asser Koivisto, that it was installed in a case with a hyrdostatic release unit.
And this HRU was retrieved by the Rockwater divers when they went to the bridge and you can see them putting it in the net. The HRU is triggered when it is submerged in water between one to four metres deep.
MRCC Commander Montonen was so surprised there was no signal emitted he ordered the COSPAS-SARSAT base in Norway to search through their records for the missing signal.
So you see, it cannot have been a manually activated model or it would be obvious why it didn't emit (no-one activated it). If you have a citation showing otherwise, please present it.
As for the claim it was as a result of the Estonia accident that automatically activated EPIRBs became mandatory, that is incorrect as SOLAS had advised a mandatory use of them by 1 Aug 1993.
As for seismology, the coast guard may well have come to investigate your pyrotechnic display. However, it would not show on a seismograph, which is designed to detect tremors and movements in the earth. Kursk was picked up at many seismology centres throughout Europe - who immediately rushed to offer help - because the extremely powerful explosion, equivalent to 2- 3 tonnes of TNT. A seismograph is not designed to pick up explosions above the earth or sea level, otherwise it would be peaking wildly all day day long, with the noise of ship-building yards and unloading of cargo. In any case, the amount of explosives estimated to have been contained in the package noted by Royal Navy military explosives experts Braidwood and Fellow was only about 1kg of 'composite B', enough to dislodge a lock, rather than blow a ship out of the water.
Kursk disaster Wiki
As you would know, living in Helsinki, dynamite is a very common factor in building work and excavating wells, due to the ice-age-formed granite that is so characteristic of the Finnish landscape. When a neighbour built nearby our summer cottage, they had to come and ask permission and warn us that the builders would be applying dynamite (luckily it didn't dislodge anything of ours). You can even buy the stuff at hardware stores. So you see, it would not be practical for a seismograph to pick up minor explosions such as Vappu or New Years Day fireworks, but concentrate on the earth's surface.
Earthquake Authority com
Thus, it becomes readily apparent that semtex-style explosives applied to a car ramp or bow visor some 2 to 15 metres above sea level is unlikely to register on a seismograph as other than normal background noise.
The
Estonia survivors, certainly - including Sillaste, Treu and Linde - did report hearing a bang or a series of bangs before the violent list to starboard.
