The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VII

[Mojo]

If it was a military operation and you are determined:

• to stop the illicit cargo reaching enemy hands
• or you are in conflict with A.N. Ohter, as with serious organised crime

Then to be absolutely sure your operation succeeds you will:

• attack on two fronts to be sure
• you will make sure rescue is not possible
• you will ensure radio signals are interfere with
• you will disable any signal that gives out a distress call or mayday.

It is telling that the JAIC do not go anywhere near these issues, suggesting a definite label of 'classified'.

This wishful thinking doesn't address the question of someone locating the EPIRBs in the Baltic and ensuring that when recovered and turned on they would operate correctly.

 

[Vixen]

If that's your way of saying "yes", then can I point out that Google translate gives 'set' as a translation of 'säätää' ?

eta: one of the translations.

It would only be the correct word in the sense of 'setting something to the right frequency or radio station', for example. As in 'Have you set the radio for the weather forecast?' But most people would not use it in that sense.

 

[Vixen]

Bluster away.

As I said, I don't speak Finnish but I speak several other languages and have considerable experience translating both written documents and spoken language in both general and technically specific contexts.

At this point, based on you bluffery so far, I will assert that I am more skilled and knowledgeable than you are in the art of translation. You can't appear to rise above Google Translate, or cite any authority beyond it.



It's a good think that's not what I'm doing. I'm relying on noted authorities on Finnish-English translation who suggest several different words for the Finnish word in question. A skilled translator (which you evidently are not) knows which word to apply in the context.

Do you speak Finnish? Yes or no.

Of course,

 

[JayUtah]

It would only be the correct word in the sense...

Hm, it seems the translation of any given word differs depending on what sense it's being used.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

The correct verb is exactly the same as in English. One never says, 'Tune on the light' or 'Tune off the light'. The verb used by Lehtola is very specifically the one that means 'to tune', not to 'switch on' or 'switch off' or even 'turn on' or 'turn off'. There is no way the two different verbs or actions can be confused in translation.

Turn on, tune in, drop out.​

 

[Jack by the hedge]

If it was a military operation and you are determined:

• to stop the illicit cargo reaching enemy hands
• or you are in conflict with A.N. Ohter, as with serious organised crime

Then to be absolutely sure your operation succeeds you will:

• attack on two fronts to be sure
• you will make sure rescue is not possible
• you will ensure radio signals are interfere with
• you will disable any signal that gives out a distress call or mayday.

It is telling that the JAIC do not go anywhere near these issues, suggesting a definite label of 'classified'.

If it was a military operation you would intercept the trucks before they got near the ferry, kill the smugglers and drive the trucks away.

Imagine you went to your superior officer and told him you planned instead to let the trucks get onto the ferry, have your own team of saboteurs aboard, have them smash up the radio room, melt the ramp hinges with radioactive something or other, pry open the rear ramp and then get torpedoed by the submarine you were sending as an attack on a second front to make sure the ship definitely sank. But you were having trouble recruiting volunteers to get torpedoed.

He'd just have you shot as a dangerous lunatic. Then arrange to ambush the trucks like a sane person might.

 

[Mojo]

Of course,

Any chance of completing that sentence?

 

[JayUtah]

Of course,

Great, I've contacted a professor of Finnish at a nearby college. I'm going to arrange for a test that can't be fudged by using machine translation. That way you can settle once and for all whether you can be considered an authority on the language or whether you're just bluffing your way along using machine translation.

Sound like fun for you?

 

[Vixen]

You didn't answer the question. You're claiming the EPIRBs were sabotaged in some way so that they didn't work on the night of the sinking. But you can't explain how they worked perfectly when discovered and tested by ordinary people. Waving your hands vaguely to "military operation" doesn't answer the question.

I obviously do not know but I suspect so, given all the circumstances surrounding the whole thing.

Consider this: the EPIRB's were found dumped together with a whole load of other life-saving equipment (OK, so one was caught up in a fisherman's net) all at a tiny fishing village in Estonia called Dirhami. No bodies, just a pile of life rafts, life vests, life buoys (some still with 'Viking Sally' emblazoned thereon) and other equipment. Enough to fill a warehouse, which is where they were placed.

Even if you have automatic EPIRB's common sense tells you they can be switched off. For example, all automatic free-float buoys can be used manually and this would include not allowing the signal to emit until you are ready for it to.

 

[JayUtah]

I obviously do not know but I suspect so...

Or rather you need this improbable event to have taken place in order for your conspiracy theory to hold. But you have no evidence that it was done, and can't figure out how it could have been done. So all you can do is speculate vaguely and inexpertly about it being a military operation so "somehow" it must have been done regardless.

Armchair detectives are worse than useless.

Consider this: the EPIRB's were found dumped together with a whole load of other life-saving equipment (OK, so one was caught up in a fisherman's net) all at a time fishing village in Estonia called Dirhami. No bodies, just a pile of life rafts, life vests, life buoys (some still with 'Viking Sally' emblazoned thereon) and other equipment. Enough to fill a warehouse, which is where they were place.

What's your point? (And one EPIRB was found at sea, as you've been repeatedly told.)

Even if you have automatic EPIRB's common sense tells you they can be switched off.

Irrelevant. They were manual-only EPIRBs. They are switched off until they are switched on. Common sense is irrelevant: in this context it means just uninformed wishiness. What matters instead is what you can prove with evidence.

 

[GlennB]

It would only be the correct word in the sense of 'setting something to the right frequency or radio station', for example. As in 'Have you set the radio for the weather forecast?' But most people would not use it in that sense.

Translation: "It only means what I choose to claim it means".

How about you give a straight answer?

 

[Here_to_learn]

No, the JAIC hasn't explained it at all.

Let’s go back to your post that I responded to:

[…]
So between 01:02 - when the bow visor fell off - to 02:02 when MRCC Stockholm finally effected rescue, there was a communications blackout. […]
If there was 'no communications blackout' explain in which way?

As we can all see, you looked at the timespan until MRCC Stockholm sent out the notification to Swedish rescue services. Now, the responsibility to coordinate all rescue operations falls with Finland, since it’s within their SAR area, so rescue operations started earlier. At 01:26 (ship) and 01:36 (helicopter).

But your end time above is important for a later point.
As for the starting time in your timespan above, JAIC reports that the Bow Visor fell off at about 01:15.

Adopting a scolding tone doesn't hide the fact it evaded:

[*]dealing with why the mayday didn't come from the bridge

What is your source that the mayday didn’t come from the bridge?

[*]why the mayday via a walkie talkie was only received at 01:21 some twenty minutes after the 40° list.

The list started at around 01:15, so not 20 minutes after the list.
Chapter 7.3 lists all the stations that received the first and the second mayday call, and the times the logged for it.

[*]why Ainsalu and Tammes heroically sacificed their lives by hanging off the bridge to get the SOS through.

What is your source for this? We know that they didn’t survive but what is your source where they were at the time?

[*]Why Capn Thoresson could not get through to MRCC Turku.

Mariella was trying to reach Helsinki Radio at 01:27. MRCC Turku was already in the loop by this time. Chapter 7.3.3.

The fact of the staff levels is irrelevant.

You may wish that it was so, but in fact the number of staff available limits how much can happen at any given time.

The Commission finds no other explanation of the fact that Helsinki Radio did not hear the distress traffic than that the distress frequencies were not kept watch continually. With only one officer on duty for many hours there must be, for natural reasons, periods when the watchkeeping will be interrupted. This was also noted and accepted in the agreement between the National Maritime Administration and Telecom Finland regarding the conduct of distress radio traffic.

Lt Capn Mikko Mononen who was on duty that night said that although he didn't get the message until 01:36 all of the 'maydays' had been automatically recorded by their systems. He couldn't get through to Helsinki Radio or Mariehamn until circa 01:44.

Mariehamn heard the 2nd mayday call, and was involved since 01:27 according to their log.

Helsinki Radio could do nothing until it had the location.

Yes they could. They could have sent out a Mayday Relay directly. You do not need an exact position to do that. The exact position can follow in a later transmission.

No explanation of why VHF Channel 16 and 2182hz were down across the region.

It wasn’t down. We knew that since the VHF channel 16 traffic is recorded, and we can listen to it.

And MF 2182 was not down – the reason nobody answered was covered above.

Ships in the area got the Mayday via Silja Europa but there is little a high-sided ship some kilometres away can realistically do.

Exactly why any delay was fatal. Had the Finnish radio stations/Rescue stations had more staff available, we might have seen helicopters being launched earlier, and possibly they might have been able to save some more lives.

There you have it, information about what JAIC explained, with links to each chapter.

 

[Here_to_learn]

As advised, the JAIC do not deal with this in their report and the documents and EPIRB's remain missing, according to YLE reporters who tried to requisition them.

Yes they do, in several places including chapter 17.2.
[quote="JAIC ch 17.2]As noted in 8.11 the ESTONIA's emergency beacons (EPIRBs) were not switched on when put in their housings. The only reason that they were found switched off is that they were not properly activated.[/quote]

 

[Vixen]

If it was a military operation you would intercept the trucks before they got near the ferry, kill the smugglers and drive the trucks away.

Imagine you went to your superior officer and told him you planned instead to let the trucks get onto the ferry, have your own team of saboteurs aboard, have them smash up the radio room, melt the ramp hinges with radioactive something or other, pry open the rear ramp and then get torpedoed by the submarine you were sending as an attack on a second front to make sure the ship definitely sank. But you were having trouble recruiting volunteers to get torpedoed.

He'd just have you shot as a dangerous lunatic. Then arrange to ambush the trucks like a sane person might.

From what I can gather it was some kind of a conflict situation. When the military tucks arrived at Tallinn port there was some argument amongst officials. A group of men were seen confronting Captain Andresson.

The JAIC tells us nothing at all about what happened to the Captain or what might have been going on in the bridge. When there is a power outage, an emergency generator comes on, which of course has a limited life but the naval equipment and the GDMSS radio installations should still carry on working. The location coordinates screen should have automatically had the backup battery power kick in. How is it possible that a trained second third or fourth mate doesn't know that the protocol for calling Mayday involves automatically giving your coordinates, except, poor Ainsalu was unable to and Tammes could only shout 'blackout', with an incomplete one that was 8km out.

The man-overboard boat got away all right (and is on display outside the Turku maritime museum) so whether it was a conflict between big-money mafia gangs or states (most likely as everything seems hushed up, as with the eight Swedish airmen from the Cold War) then a conflict situation explains the sheer determination on one side that the ship's cargo was going to Stockholm and the determination on the other that (b) over their dead body, they would sink the ship rather than allow that.

With the man overboard boat successfully launched, when other lifeboats could not be, as it was too late once the list was that violent, it is possible that insiders effected the attack from within and got away as planned in advance.

 

[Vixen]

Great, I've contacted a professor of Finnish at a nearby college. I'm going to arrange for a test that can't be fudged by using machine translation. That way you can settle once and for all whether you can be considered an authority on the language or whether you're just bluffing your way along using machine translation.

Sound like fun for you?

Tervetuloa.

 

[JayUtah]

From what I can gather...

And where exactly are you gathering this from?

 

[GlennB]

And where exactly are you gathering this from?

Her Khyber, I reckon

 

[JayUtah]

When there is a power outage, an emergency generator comes on...

And where are such generators typically located? What powers them? What conditions involving a ship foundering might cause such generators not to function?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

dumped

Begging the question.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

common sense tells you they can be switched off

What does the user manual tell you?