Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part V

[Andy_Ross]

As you are well aware, Capt. Andresson's employment contract would not be in the public domain. However, please see here:

EFD


And in fact, an examination of Estonia arrival times at Stockholm uphold that it was always on time.

So no evidence for any clause in his contract that would force the captain to disregard his primary duty for the safety of the ship?
If there was such a clause I think the company would be in serious trouble.

Also if the captain had such a clause and stuck to it he was not fit to be a captain.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Erm, as the cause of the accident. It is OK to mention water ingress as long as 'water on the car deck' is ingress number one.


The fact Sillaste was up to his knees in water on Deck 0 in the ECR should have been a red flag at least.

JAIC had to admit that water on the car deck would not have been enough to capsize the ship.

By the time he was up to his knees in water in the machinery spaces the ship was well on the way to sinking. It was too late for red flags, the bridge crew would be well aware of the situation.

Why do you think the water would have remained on the car deck and not entered the ship through the multiple openings we know exist on all ships above the waterline. Engineering spaces are open from above, they require huge amounts of air for the engines, air conditioning plant, cooling systems and ventilation etc. They also have openings for crew escape that are always open when the engineering spaces are crewed. Ships are not watertight from above.

I notice you avoid the point of the post that the engineering crew were in communication with the bridge.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If a seaman had been in the grip of a sea serpent during the course of the accident, or witnessed same biting off the bow visor, should this not at least be mentioned by any investigation report? 'The seaman had a psychotic episode'.

maybe the same episode that resulted in them opening the bow visor in a storm?

 

[Lennart Hyland]

I'm sorry if this is a re-post but I want to share with you the winner of Swedish association "Vetenskap & Folkbildning" (Science and 'popular adult education') prize for 2021 edition of the deceiver of the year, given to the journalist Henrik Evertsson and his documentary about Estonia.

I've google translated their reason for giving the prize to Mr Evertsson:
Evertsson's speculative documentary, with conspiracy-theoretical arguments and tricks when it comes to questioning the official explanation for one of our country's greatest tragedies. The viewer is not given a fair picture of the authorities' work or an account of the weaknesses in alternative explanations for the accident. A good journalist had strived to give the public relevant facts instead of squaring a spectacular spy fantasy around the course of events. The impact of the documentary makes its confusing aspects even more serious. In the long run, Evertsson's deeds have also led to large costs for Sweden as well as other countries.

A second winner was also presented. Namely the jury of The Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism whom 2020 gave the prize Scoop of the year to Mr Evertsson.

 

[theprestige]

I'm both surprised and pleased to see I'm not the only person who thinks "conspiracy-theoretical" is a perfectly cromulent adjective.

 

[Axxman300]

But isn't that circular reasoning? The ship was involved in a sudden mysterious sinking, with strange communications blackouts for the duration, therefore, it must be the fault of the captain? The crew are entirely faultless on the other hand, even though Sillaste and Treu don't seem to have informed the bridge they were 'up to their knees in water' in the ECR.

This is circular logic. If the crew didn't report the water then the crew are at fault.

Yes, the buck stops with the Captain but the JAIC don't blame the Captain.

The obvious reason is that there was no single factor which led to the sinking. Estonia sank due to a long list of factors which, in hindsight, made the sinking inevitable.

They do not make any effort to tell us, the people, what happened to the Captain.

Most "people" don't need to have the obvious explained to them. The Captain is still on the ship. Get yourself a wetsuit and go say hello.

If it was sabotage, then whilst it should have been Andresson's duty to guard against such a thing, he may not have had an awful lot of control over the situation

And what was the security threat environment in the Baltic in 1994? How many ships and ferries were being sabotaged?

And what, exactly, is the captain of a Ro-Ro ferry expected to know as far as security goes. Who reported to him. How often was he briefed? Or was it based by incident?

Your unrealistic expectations as to what the captain should have done and known is not consistent with what he actually did. He might not have been on top of security, but he was driving the boat too fast for the weather, isn seas it was never designed to sail, and failed to properly respond to the first report of water coming in at the bow.

It is that simple.

 

[JesseCuster]

As you are well aware, Capt. Andresson's employment contract would not be in the public domain.

You've been quite insistent about what is in his contract.

Yet you say his contract is not in the public domain.

And you've no source as to how you know what's in his contract.

So just how is it that you're so sure what's in his contract if it isn't in the public domain for you or anyone else to be so sure as to what it says?

You're just making this up.

 

[theprestige]

But isn't that circular reasoning? The ship was involved in a sudden mysterious sinking, with strange communications blackouts for the duration

Dishonest. The sinking was never mysterious, and the communications blackouts were never strange (nor particularly significant).

 

[LondonJohn]

This made me think of the Monty Python “Archaeology Today” sketch.

Holy moly - I missed this zinger of "height-ism" from our favourite evidence-free poster! Truly unhinged viewpoint there......

 

[zooterkin]

As Vixen seemingly refuses to provide a citation, I have dug up what this was about:



(from November last year)

That is some impressive grudge-holding. I still don't see Zooterkin claiming to be woke, though.

Indeed. I was merely pointing out that Vixen had managed to mangle the phrase 'heap big', apparently common in the pidgin used by Native Americans and much used in Western movies, and now considered mildly racist. This was at least consistent with the accuracy with which she seems to relay facts in general, which was essentially my point. That if Vixen wants to make a case, she needs to produce evidence for what she's saying since we simply cannot rely on her unsupported assertions.

 

[LondonJohn]

Erm, as the cause of the accident. It is OK to mention water ingress as long as 'water on the car deck' is ingress number one.


The fact Sillaste was up to his knees in water on Deck 0 in the ECR should have been a red flag at least.

JAIC had to admit that water on the car deck would not have been enough to capsize the ship.

The JAIC had to "admit" nothing whatsoever, Vixen.

As ever, you have no idea what you're talking about.

If you knew anything of substance about the laws of physics which pertain to the sinking of this ship, you'd know that

1) the JAIC knew very well (via witness statements) about the flooding of the decks below the vehicle deck,

2) the JAIC knew exactly how water on the vehicle deck would have been able to find its way through internal openings down onto the lower decks (and the potential energy contained in, say, a cubic metre of water is far bigger than you can probably even imagine - any serious head of water on the vehicle deck would easily have worked its way powerfully and quickly down through the lower decks), and

3) the JAIC knew from their calculations that there would have had to be additional loss of buoyancy in the ship, over and above the water on the vehicle deck, to cause the ship to capsize onto its starboard beam.


Now, as I've said, the JAIC knew for sure there was a serious amount of water pooling in the lower decks. They also knew for sure (because they know what they're talking about (unlike you), and they had access to the ship's design/construction plans) that there were clearly routes for water on the vehicle deck to find its way to the lower decks. And they knew for sure that the proven detachment of the bow visor and the consequent dislodgement of the bow ramp had provided the perfect scenario for the ship to scoop up huge volumes/mass of water through that now-open bow every time it dug into an oncoming swell at high speed.

They then did considered calculations - calculations you couldn't possibly even dream of being able to perform - and concluded that the calculated likely ingress rate of water in through the bow onto the vehicle deck, coupled with the likely rate of passage of that water on the vehicle deck down to the lower decks.....

.... all added up to a good correlation on timing between a) the ship starting to take on water through the bow, and b) the ship listing so hard to starboard that it capsized.

They know what happened, Vixen. And they know why it happened. And they have the experience, knowledge, skill and evidence to back up their knowledge about what happened. You and your posts have precisely none of that. Because you have no idea how to work any of that out, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Again, I'm happy to take questions.

 

[Marras]

Lehtola certainly does say this on Day One, as reported in 30.9.1994 Helsingin Sanomat, the day after his first press release:

Estonia sunk and the commission was formed on 28 September. That is the Day One. Things that he said then were reported by newspapers on 29.9.1994. Things that he said on day two were reported on 30.9.1994. Note that you yourself admit there that it is not day one when you write "the day after his first press release". If something happens a day after the first day, it's no longer the first day.

But of course, when Lehtola says that eyewitnesses have reported that the water came in from bow, he shouldn't have said that. He should have said that what really happened was that Russian smugglers opened the bow visor to throw some trucks out while the KGB blew the visor off with explosives and a Russian submarine torpedoed it whilst and at the same time it hit a Swedish submarine. Because that makes so much more sense than a badly-maintained ship losing its visor in a storm.

By the way, you are aware that you are accusing Lehtola of committing a serious crime arent you? Helping to cover a crime is a crime under Rikoslaki (chapter 15.11, probably a few other places would also hit).

As for your other comments, not only are they desparate and utterly laughable (note: Estonian, Treu is at least 1.86m, so much for the hilarious claim it is racist to describe someone as 1.60m).

I don't say that you are racist because you say someone is small. I say that you think that a man being short is a flaw that makes him worth less. If you didn't think that, you wouldn't have written what you did. Sillaste's height has absolutely no relevance on his credibility, no matter how much you think short men are not real men.

I think that you are racist against Estonians based on the comments that you made on that another thread. I also think that you are far right politically because you keep quoting far right sources and on that other thread you expressed views that are very common among the far right in Finland (I pointed out specific examples on that thread, you ignored them, I'm not doing it again on this one).

If you don't want people to think that you are far right, don't quote far right sources. If you don't want people to think you are racist against some group, don't say that they are beasts in the fields. Quite simple.

The point being made was that a lowly third or fourth engineer was being presented as an expert as to the cause of a disaster in which one thousand died, when not only was he on Deck 0 the whole time, he only saw a vague monitor picture of water seeping in through the sides of a closed car ramp,

He wasn't presented as an expert on the cause of the disaster. He was presented as an eyewitness who said what he saw happening. Which was water seeping in from sides of the ramp. The same ramp that robotic camera later confirmed was partially open.

But of course, we know that Sillaste can't be a reliable eyewitness because he was short. No 160 cm tall man is trustworthy.

By the way, you said Harkatie did not exist. This is for you.

I didn't say that. I said that the name fell out of active use long before 1918 and that in written sources the name "Härkätie" is used only in contexts that speak about the nursery rhyme or describe events happening in the past while contemporary references use some variant of "Hämeentie" or "Turuntie" depending on whether they are written in Varsinais-Suomi or Häme. I also provided you a bunch of references from the 19th century showing that they did, indeed, use "Hämeentie" around Turku. One of the references even mentioned the Huilu kievari being next to Hämeentie.

I'm not going to watch a 14 minute video of two guys driving a car in 2014. Is there a specific point there where they demonstrate that the name "Härkätie" was in active use in 1918? Could you please give the timestamp for that so that I can check it.

[Edited to add: I actually managed to find a 1904 reference to "Hämeenlinnan Härkätie" that wasn't present among my earlier search results. It may be that they have uploaded corrections to OCR meanwhile (they do that all the time). The newspaper is Kansan Lehti 9.1.1904 (page 3, column 3). It is in a local interest story sent by a correspondent at Vesilahti that rails against alcohol sales. However, the road that the corresponds calls "Hämeenlinnan Härkätie" is the road leading from Hämeenlinna to Vesilahti church and not the Turku-Hämeenlinna road]

 

[Jack by the hedge]

[Sillaste] only saw a vague monitor picture of water seeping in through the sides of a closed car ramp

It's tiresome to have to take issue with this yet again, yet here we are.

The word "vague" insinuates its way in there this time, clearly implying there's doubt over whether Sillaste could have seen what he saw on the monitor. You have absolutely no justification whatsoever for doing that. Rejected.

Then there's the dishonest word "seeping". That word implies a leak which is, above all, slow. Nobody would expect droplets of liquid seeping from a leak to break surface tension and fly away under their own momentum. That's just not what seeping means. There are other, better words, like spraying, fountaining, gushing etc which might describe what Sillaste sketched: lines of water arcing away from both sides of the ramp, right from the top to the bottom.

Describing that as "seeping" is utterly misleading and this is hardly the first time that twisting of the facts has been pointed out.

 

[Vixen]

Dishonest. The sinking was never mysterious, and the communications blackouts were never strange (nor particularly significant).

Riiight. A regularly scheduled passenger car ferry sinks suddenly in the middle of the night with 989 (official figure) on board. Quite normal. Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

[Vixen]

Holy moly - I missed this zinger of "height-ism" from our favourite evidence-free poster! Truly unhinged viewpoint there......

'Height-ism'. Oh deary deary me.

 

[Vixen]

Indeed. I was merely pointing out that Vixen had managed to mangle the phrase 'heap big', apparently common in the pidgin used by Native Americans and much used in Western movies, and now considered mildly racist. This was at least consistent with the accuracy with which she seems to relay facts in general, which was essentially my point. That if Vixen wants to make a case, she needs to produce evidence for what she's saying since we simply cannot rely on her unsupported assertions.

Considered 'mildly racist' by whom? If you consider it 'mildly racist', why did you post a song by the New Christy Minstrals with a cover labelled 'Cowboys and Indians' with a silly song mocking being chased by 'Cherokees'.

In fact, Carl Barks, 'Old California', depicting Donald Duck, with his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Lewey, is still being reprinted for children's comics (I know because I am still subscribed) and which I note someone on a notice board -pseuds corner? writes:

most of the time it seems to me that Barks fell squarely within a sort of benevolent if vaguely patronizing attitude to Native Americans that is also in evidence in, among others, Disney's own Davy Crockett.

I'd define it as a view that is blithely uncritical of the European colonization, and has a very theme-parky idea of what Native American tribes are like, reconstructed from western yarns rather than lived experience, let alone up-to-date — but where the (silly and oversimplified) “Indian culture” is seen as something which might seem eccentric, but which the enlightened hero understands and respects.

feathery society

ISTM your claim to being woke was just a gratuitous excuse to rap one on the knuckles, when you yourself seemed unaware of the follies of citing 'Four Wheels on My Wagon'.

Your claim that you were only pointing out that it should be 'Heap Big', not 'Big Heap' [as an example of how one never gets things right and therefore cancels out any Estonia argument] is both laughable and disingenuous.

 

[Vixen]

The JAIC had to "admit" nothing whatsoever, Vixen.

As ever, you have no idea what you're talking about.

If you knew anything of substance about the laws of physics which pertain to the sinking of this ship, you'd know that

1) the JAIC knew very well (via witness statements) about the flooding of the decks below the vehicle deck,

2) the JAIC knew exactly how water on the vehicle deck would have been able to find its way through internal openings down onto the lower decks (and the potential energy contained in, say, a cubic metre of water is far bigger than you can probably even imagine - any serious head of water on the vehicle deck would easily have worked its way powerfully and quickly down through the lower decks), and

3) the JAIC knew from their calculations that there would have had to be additional loss of buoyancy in the ship, over and above the water on the vehicle deck, to cause the ship to capsize onto its starboard beam.


Now, as I've said, the JAIC knew for sure there was a serious amount of water pooling in the lower decks. They also knew for sure (because they know what they're talking about (unlike you), and they had access to the ship's design/construction plans) that there were clearly routes for water on the vehicle deck to find its way to the lower decks. And they knew for sure that the proven detachment of the bow visor and the consequent dislodgement of the bow ramp had provided the perfect scenario for the ship to scoop up huge volumes/mass of water through that now-open bow every time it dug into an oncoming swell at high speed.

They then did considered calculations - calculations you couldn't possibly even dream of being able to perform - and concluded that the calculated likely ingress rate of water in through the bow onto the vehicle deck, coupled with the likely rate of passage of that water on the vehicle deck down to the lower decks.....

.... all added up to a good correlation on timing between a) the ship starting to take on water through the bow, and b) the ship listing so hard to starboard that it capsized.

They know what happened, Vixen. And they know why it happened. And they have the experience, knowledge, skill and evidence to back up their knowledge about what happened. You and your posts have precisely none of that. Because you have no idea how to work any of that out, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Again, I'm happy to take questions.

No, there is nothing complex about it. There are set formulae. Just feed them into a computer modelling program. You yourself point out that the JAIC simply had to work out how much water was needed to sink the ship. Having got the figure, it then had to work out how the heck did 8,000 toees of water get in, given the car deck could only hold a maximum of 2,000 tonnes. So it had to invent a wholly unbelievable scenario of the vessel floating exactly on its 90° beams - with the brim of the starboard hull at an upright vertical angle below the water - for a whole twenty minutes before suddenly sinking.


Pull the other one.

The fictitious scenario was that it had to float in this manner whilst the waves rose up to smash each window and inner divider in turn in order for water to ingress to the correct amount to sink it.

And people suck this up.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Riiight. A regularly scheduled passenger car ferry sinks suddenly in the middle of the night with 989 (official figure) on board. Quite normal. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Pathetic. There's a difference between an event being tragic and being inexplicable. Stop accusing people of callous disregard for simply pointing out we know how the disaster happened.

 

[zooterkin]

Considered 'mildly racist' by whom? If you consider it 'mildly racist', why did you post a song by the New Christy Minstrals with a cover labelled 'Cowboys and Indians' with a silly song mocking being chased by 'Cherokees'.

Yes, sorry, I didn't check the full title on the album; 'Indians' is also frowned upon these days too. I'm not aware that 'Cherokees' is deprecated. The correct spelling is Minstrels, btw.

ISTM your claim to being woke was just a gratuitous excuse to rap one on the knuckles, when you yourself seemed unaware of the follies of citing 'Four Wheels on My Wagon'.

It was, once again, a comment on how reliable your unsourced statements are. We have yet another example, the song is "Three Wheels on my Wagon".

Your claim that you were only pointing out that it should be 'Heap Big', not 'Big Heap' [as an example of how one never gets things right and therefore cancels out any Estonia argument] is both laughable and disingenuous.

That was not my claim, as you would find if you read what I posted. Memory is fallible, so merely asserting something is not going to convince people here. If you make a claim, particularly about something which goes against the established facts, you need provide a source which can be checked.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, there is nothing complex about it. There are set formulae. Just feed them into a computer modelling program. You yourself point out that the JAIC simply had to work out how much water was needed to sink the ship. Having got the figure, it then had to work out how the heck did 8,000 toees of water get in, given the car deck could only hold a maximum of 2,000 tonnes. So it had to invent a wholly unbelievable scenario of the vessel floating exactly on its 90° beams - with the brim of the starboard hull at an upright vertical angle below the water - for a whole twenty minutes before suddenly sinking.


Pull the other one.

The fictitious scenario was that it had to float in this manner whilst the waves rose up to smash each window and inner divider in turn in order for water to ingress to the correct amount to sink it.

And people suck this up.

That blathering nonsense is, as usual, not what the report says. I do wish you'd just read the damned thing.