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

[JesseCuster]

Yes, rigorously so. It can be in an appendix or exhibit, but engineering is very much a show-your-work profession, forensic engineering especially so because there may be novel techniques required to address some bit of evidence. The notion that you just plug numbers into a computer program and it spits out a fully reliable answer is about as far away from the truth as you can get.

What about analogies with rubber ducks in baths, plastic bottles full of water and bits of paper pinned to walls? I imagine that's the kind of rigorous analysis that engineering reports are full of.

 

[JayUtah]

What about analogies with rubber ducks in baths, plastic bottles full of water and bits of paper pinned to walls? I imagine that's the kind of rigorous analysis that engineering reports are full of.

 

[Axxman300]

Yes, rigorously so. It can be in an appendix or exhibit, but engineering is very much a show-your-work profession, forensic engineering especially so because there may be novel techniques required to address some bit of evidence. The notion that you just plug numbers into a computer program and it spits out a fully reliable answer is about as far away from the truth as you can get.

And you've worked on accident investigations. You know that in most cases there is a lot of pressure to get as much accurate information as possible before offering an official explanation of the event. Every large accident will have lawyers waiting to file lawsuits, lawyers waiting to defend against those lawsuits, and often there are multiple industries and manufacturers which may end up being forced to make permanent changes, and those changes are almost always expensive. Finally, the government might make changes to regulations.

So yeah, an investigative team is under pressure. Their names are on the report, and that report will be referenced for decades. You don't want to be the guy who blew it.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, and I've looked at the wealth of photos of the ships interior. It was a show place. But when you take those pictures and turn them on their side it becomes clear that evacuating the Estonia in those conditions was largely impossible past a certain point. And later imagine those places under water with furniture and fixtures and bodies floating.

This was a disaster, but grasping why certain things happened, and why certain things were not done post sinking is painfully obvious. Unless someone is a ghoul.

Read the witness statements, they describe vividly the problems people had exiting the ship after it listed..

 

[Axxman300]

Read the witness statements, they describe vividly the problems people had exiting the ship after it listed..

I have. It was awful. Unfortunately, I've read and watched way too much on this subject. No designer ever designs a ship to sink, but the Estonia's floor-plan was a maze, punctuated with many wide-open spaces which were impassable once the list was out of control. Those wide hallways and stairs make sense in a fire, and or if the crew is on its game and calls for evacuation to the boat deck earlier. But past a certain degree of list they were a death trap.

 

[Mojo]

Whereas, before that moment, its breaking loose and hanging from the top of the ramp while being repeatedly slammed by the waves is what began to bend and break the ramp and its locks.

Do you think that could have caused the repeated banging reported by witnesses, that Vixen claims was a series of explosions?

 

[Mojo]

Simultaneoulsy once the Atlantic lock supposedly broke off. The contraption had three locks, two actuator arms and the car ramp six to eight locks, hinges, bolts, bushings, etc: all of which either deformed or broke off 'all at once', according to the JAIC report.

Please can you quote, with an adequate reference, the report saying that?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Do you think that could have caused the repeated banging reported by witnesses, that Vixen claims was a series of explosions?

You mean the witnesses that describe:

"blows against the hull, as if someone were hitting it with a large stone"

"scraping, howling, creaking and screeching sound from overhead"

"a clear metallic blow or crash. After another one or two minutes he heard the same sound again."

"a dull sound, but powerful and as if something was sliding from one side to another, hitting hard against the ship's hull."

"a sound like metal against metal vibrating through the entire ship. It seemed to him that the blows were coming from the bow."

"two metallic, clanging sounds each coming a moment after a wave hit the bow. When the next wave struck he heard the same sound again three times"

"After a further, powerful, blow he heard two or three loud scraping sounds a few seconds apart"

"a metallic blow... after a further 40 - 50 seconds a very heavy metallic bang"

"a sound as of large sheets of metal beating together"

"a very heavy blow against the bow"

Most importantly off duty crew members gave this testimony

Three to five minutes prior to the heel, a motorman, off duty and in his cabin, heard sounds like someone banging the hull with a huge hammer. The sounds seemed to come from the car deck and his first thought was that the cars were loose.
The second engineer was awakened in his cabin and stated that he heard beating, which he at first thought was coming from the lifeboats on deck 7. He also thought that the bow visor had come loose. He calmed down when the beating ceased and did not phone the bridge to report it.

The second engineer opened his cabin door and saw the 1st engineer outside. According to the second engineer and a mechanic, the first engineer said: ”Seems as if the bow visor has been thrown open; it would be a good thing if we got her beached”. (The first engineer could overlook the forecastle area from his cabin.) The second engineer returned to his cabin for his torch and a radio. He then had to leave the cabin through the window. Several other crew members in port cabins were also escaping through windows.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Yesterday in the storm my fence came loose & was flapping in the wind, it was obviously Russian sabotage as the fence was fine last time I checked it & there's no way that three six inch nails would all fail at once!


ETA: What signs should I look for to check if it's been rammed by a wheeled submarine from the future?

 

[Mojo]

Yesterday in the storm my fence came loose & was flapping in the wind, it was obviously Russian sabotage as the fence was fine last time I checked it & there's no way that three six inch nails would all fail at once!


ETA: What signs should I look for to check if it's been rammed by a wheeled submarine from the future?

You’ll need a Geiger counter to check whether the nails were dissolved by radioactive waste.

How have you ruled out obsolete Russian military equipment being smuggled in from next door’s garden?

 

[Here_to_learn]

ETA: What signs should I look for to check if it's been rammed by a wheeled submarine from the future?

If you check Carl Bildts twitter feed you can see that he within a day blames "kinetic activity":

The international observers report “a dramatic increase in kinetic activity along the contact line.” This unfortunately fits into the rapidly emerging picture.

I'm pretty sure that's all the proof you need to realise that it had to be a submarine.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

You’ll need a Geiger counter to check whether the nails were dissolved by radioactive waste.

How have you ruled out obsolete Russian military equipment being smuggled in from next door’s garden?

I'm sure Olav & Olga wouldn't do anything like that, they're lovely people. Anyway they were away visiting Salisbury Cathedral.

 

[Vixen]

Do you think he popped out of the top like a chimney sweep?

The 'funnel' on a ship like this is a casing that encloses trunking that contains a number of exhausts, air intakes, fans, radiators, heat exchangers and emergency engine room escape and access ladders. It is not a single pipe from the engine room to the sky. A funnel has a doorway giving access to the deck.
Can you think of a reason that the engine room and machinery spaces might have an emergency escape leading directly to the upper decks?

Did he not?

So, when Sillaste escaped via the funnel, he claims 0130, when the vessel was near 70°, he managed to climb up the deck floor, which was now a wall?

 

[Vixen]

Source? Citation? Proper reference? IMV?

From ERR newspaper:

Meanwhile, Jaan Metsaveer, a shipbuilding engineer and emeritus professor at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), who also sat on the JAIC, said that official calculations show that the MS Estonia had a reserve buoyancy (the volume of a ship above the waterline, which can be made watertight, thus increasing the vessel's buoyancy – ed.) of 4,500 tonnes.
This covers two meters above the waterline, which can carry an additional weight of 4,500 tonnes. Thus, 4,500 tonnes of water flowing under the car deck was enough to sink the whole ship in any location.

However, it is also possible for a part of the ship to lose reserve buoyancy, for example, the stern sections. The result is that the stern sinks significantly deeper and the bow rises higher, so that 4,500 tonnes is above the water-line.

Margus Kurm says he does not agree with this estimation. "Swedish marine scientists have concluded with their calculations, simulations and model tests (done by Swedish state agency Vinnova) that the ship would not have sunk until its entire superstructure, and 83 percent of the hull, is filled with water. This means that 11,000 tonnes of water had to flow under the car deck, not the 4,500 tonnes referenced. "

Vinnova conducted the tests in 2008, by which time software used in simulations was better than that available in 1995.
"Don't these kinds of disagreements between scientists prove the need to gather as much evidence as possible, including investigating the wreck on the seabed?" Kurm asks.

Professor Mihkel Kõrgesaar agrees that the calculations made in 2008 are more likely to be accurate. At the same time, he said that in the same way, later calculations say that the ship ought to have stayed afloat, but as it didn't no one really knows how it actually came to sink.

 

[Vixen]

I note the significant absence of the word "fire" from your response. There was no fire alarm. There was no reason to activate a fire suppressing sprinkler system. The water Sillaste saw pouring in on both sides of the ramp to its full height was indeed water coming from the other side of the ramp and not from a sprinkler system inside the car deck. It also helpfully indicates both the high water level on the outside of the ramp at the time he saw it and that there was not a good seal around the ramp.

Perhaps someone can tell me: Was the ramp designed to be watertight when closed? Clearly the bow visor was intended to be sealed but was the ramp a secondary seal or not?

It had rubber seals which AIUI were worn out.

In addition, the inner car deck, whereby access was via doors at the centre of the ship, leading to a centre hallway and stairway, had gaskets of 20cm high (circa 9"), thus the water would need to rise above this level to even begin to seep below, bearing in mind, whilst at a list, the incoming water would accumulate to the side it is listing to (in this case, starboard), thus, away from the centre. Likewise it weighted aftwards, meaning that the bow would need to pitch ever more lower, forwards, for the same levels of water to penetrate the top of the presumed ajar car ramp.

 

[Vixen]

Once again you appear to be confusing an eyewitness with an expert witness. The recollections of an eyewitness are not claims to have expert insight into the cause of the disaster. This is a simple concept.

It's ironic how you have turned, in this interminable thread, from initially scolding others for disrespecting the reported claims of survivors to casting doubt on them yourself.

But Sillaste and Treu are presented as the main witnesses by the JAIC. In addition, a passenger survivor has less motive than a member of the crew to cover anything up or try to paint themself in a good light, as a random passenger survivor has no fear of losing his or her job with the shipping line. In Estonia, unemployment was very high.

In addition, the shipping line, Estline, together with the commercial shipping interests of the Estonian members of the JAIC (a conflict of interest surely)_were loathe to criticise any staff and were highly sensitive as to their image, given their wonder ship was called Estonia and businesses know that 'reputation risk' is one of the key destroyers of an enterprise, hence, most such companies quickly assembling 'crisis management' boards to appease public unease (for example, as with a product recall).

The JAIC appointed psychologist, Bengt Shager resigned in frustration for what he perceived was a cover up of how shockingly bad the crew were. He was restrained from criticising them so he threw in the towel.

 

[Vixen]

...

https://www.thamesclippers.com/whats-on-board/fleet

 

[Vixen]

That depends on how you define a "mass ingress". Why do you assume the visor had to detach entirely before a dangerous amount of water could come in around the ramp?

Because:

• a. the car deck is two metres above water level
• b. the car deck is five mtres high, or fifteen feet.
• c. Only waves of >17feet realistically would ingress.
• d. the list to the back and the side means the bow was higher in the air.

 

[Vixen]

Right, thanks. So the ramp, if undamaged, should have been watertight. In other words even if there was water on the outside of it, there might at worst have been water seeping (sic) through the seal rather than fountaining out from both sides as Sillaste described.

AIUI the side locks of the bow visor renders it watertight when the pins are locked in place.


But of course, the bow visor on the Estonia had been malaligned for a long time, with the mating lugs not square, plus there had been a gap on the starboard side of the car ramp.

 

[Vixen]

How about you give a citation that JAIC had an access to Piht's testimony?

Piht was on ship. Piht is not in the official survivor list. He didn't survive.

The reports of being seeing him on the news are explained by the clip that I dug out from youtube that completely matches with what Piht's wife told Moik told her: people walking from abulance to hospital while wearing grey blankets on their shoulders.

The first person in the clip looks vaguely like Piht: similar body shape and similar hair color. The people who thought they saw Piht saw that guy and mistook him for the captain.

Piht was confirmed a survivor by Waterways Administration Head and spokesperson Stenmark and as reported by Reuters.

What happened to Piht, Marras?