The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VII

"I was talking to a German doctor, and he said, sir, you have the finest postgrad GmbH I have ever seen."
 
JayUtah said:
Well that's a good question, isn't it? You're not even remotely qualified to understand metallurgy reports. And the last time we had this discussion, you admitted as much.

But you claim to have the lab reports in a secondary source. Since you're so fond of uploading photos to your Flickr account, I expect to see photos of the reports you say you have. Let me know when the scan/photos are ready.

To that point, why do you think the PDF you wanted us to comment on cuts off the primary sources? Why must we be satisfied with Braidwood's summary?
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Almost 200 pages. No way, José.
 
JayUtah said:
I assume by "a paperback book" she means Drew Wilson's The Hole. That means I have go up into the attic to dredge up my copy again. I don't recall Braidwood's full report with all the lab report appendices being printed there. But I haven't looked at that book for two years, so my recollection might be foggy.
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You can find the three full reports in a paperback book by Sven Anér https://www.adlibris.com/fi/kirja/e...ompletta-dokumenten-pa-engelska-9789197144032 "Estonia sprängdes! : utförligt referat och kommentarer på svenska till de kompletta dokumenten på engelska - "

Don't be put off by the Swedish, which makes up about 80 pages of the introduction and afterword. The remainder of the 252 pages is all in English, including the German lab reports, together with b+w photos, graphs and tables.
 
Axxman300 said:
Again, the problem with this current line of failed argument is we now have raised both the bow visor and the bow ramp, and neither shows signs of shape-charges being used. Also, no signs of eel damage.


The larger issue is the stupidity of the claim of explosives being used to sink Estonia. Why sink the ship at all? If the goal was to stop Soviet-era technology stowed on the ship, why not intercept it before it reached the port? No Spetsnaz team is just walking around with shape charges in their pockets, which means they would have to requisition said charges - in advance - and then get onboard the ship before it sailed, but not seize the truck as it entered the port, and arrested, or shot, or threw the driver out of a nearby high-rise building. Believe it or not, people being pulled from their vehicles, and beaten senseless by authorities was a common sight in the former eastern block countries in the 1990s.

And then we're forced to lower our IQs to believe that a good demo guy wouldn't simply place explosive charges in the mystery truck, and then blow it up once it reached port. Or even better, follow the truck to its destination, and detonate the charges there.

My problem with the explosives nonsense is its incompetence on every functional level.
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Whoa! We don't know why evidence of explosives is there, only the objective signifiers, and it is not just Braidwood & Fellows together with the reports of Institute for Materials Testing and Materials Technology Dr. Dölling + Dr. Neubert GmbH, The Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU), with the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) labs equivocal. But also a more recent expert metallurgist in Dr Ida Westermann who conducted her own analysis on a different specimen of the bow visor at a different time.

It is always possible that the presence of explosive materials points to the prior presence of the military. Swedish naval divers were pottering around there after the sinking and their reports have remained classified and not shared with the JAIC, and to the annoyance of Estonian advocates.

The image seen by Braidwood for example in one of their released official videos was later mysteriously edited out once Braidwood had pointed the image out as looking like an explosives device.
 
JayUtah said:
Indeed. While Braidwood et al. are straining at gnats, the camel they swallow is the fact that there are much more effective ways of using hand-placed explosives to sink a ship, and to do so in a way that would be almost impossible for an investigative board later to detect. Shaped charges on any of the sea chest fittings in the engineering spaces would be devastating to the ship. The flooding would be near impossible to contain or pump away. The damage would be localized to the engine spaces of the wreck, which are notoriously difficult to dive on in most wrecks, and even if the damage could be reached by inspection, it would look not dissimilar from an accidental fitting failure.

It's silly to suppose that someone who wanted to sink a ship, and could do so only by explosives, and had access to the ship to place explosive charges would use large-scale charges (i.e., so as to produce the high strain rates imagined by Braidwood) and place them above the waterline on a piece of the ship easily inspected in undersea wreckage. World's stupidest saboteurs.

Keep in mind Braidwood worked alongside the "German group of experts" whose job it was to speculate about alternative causes for the sinking. Fatigued and overloaded structure couldn't be the cause, they ascertain. So they scurry about doing all this lab work allegedly pointing to explosive charges. But at least in one case all they were able to come up with is metallurgical evidence of fatigue, which they then spun vigorously to conclude was still explosives.
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We cannot second guess what the evidence of explosives signifies other than draw inferences from their relative positions, which coincidently are near the bow visor locks. We could speculate reasonably that the bow visor being locked gave cause to an unknown third party (crew? smuggler? saboteur? spy? naval diver? workman?) to unlock the bow visor by force.

The intention may not necessarily have been to sink the ship. Harri Ruotsalainen who was a naval intern who saw the sonar printouts at the time, is convinced someone (crew? smugglers? mafia types? saboteurs?) opened the back car ramp and got rid of two to four trucks (square-shaped sonar images on the printout) as records also show the vessel reduced speed to about 5kn from its 19kn when setting out, just before it turned a few degrees to head WNW towards Söderam.

The presence of explosive might be historical and have nothing to do with 28 Sept 1994. All we know for sure is that reputable metallurgy laboratories in Germany, USA and Norway confirm results compatible with a localised high velocity explosive with one laboratory not able to confirm it one way or another.
 
Andy_Ross said:
I posted the same just yesterday and several times in previous chapters

I would choose the engine and generator through hull pipes. When they are blown machinery is actively pumping thousands of litres a minute in to the ship.
I would add in the outflow from the pumps to that so any attempt to pump woul add to the problem.

Far less explosive needed than trying to blow bows off or try to blow holes in the hull plating.
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It would depend on your intention, ability, access to explosives and desired outcome.

If a military operative you would possibly place explosive devices in several different areas, as they do not always go off as planned.

If you are a robber you might place a few explosives around a safe with the sole intention of grabbing whatever you think the contents were.

Were you a hostile military operative working in a team and your aim was to destroy the vessel you would almost certainly attack on more than one front to be certain the job is done.
 
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Vixen said:
It is always possible that the presence of explosive materials points to the prior presence of the military.
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You haven't established the presence of explosive material. Only the existence of an unidentified object an explosives expert said you could fit a bomb into.
The image seen by Braidwood for example in one of their released official videos was later mysteriously edited out once Braidwood had pointed the image out as looking like an explosives device.
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You're embellishing again.

You claimed Braidwood said he watched a video and spotted the square object you showed us in a still frame (which I reckon is a solid steel locating lug) saying it was a suitable size to be some kind of a bomb. Then you told us he said he later watched the video again and did not spot it that time.

From this you are spinning a tale of video surrupticiously edited, when it's much more likely he just overlooked it or watched a different compilation of video the second time.

This is like when someone spotted a man they thought was Piht on German TV news and an X-files tale got spun where the German police visited the TV station, inviting us to imagine that instead of their seeking a copy of what was broadcast, they took away the only copy and the video was suppressed for sinister reasons, when in fact the video is still freely available on YouTube.
 
ferd burfle said:
<Respectfful snips for brevity>

I think the request to the labs for analysis, as described in the introduction to Braidwood's report, is telling.




Assuming this is an accurate description of the requests for analysis, IMO this reads as a biased request. It’s not “please examine these samples for chemical contamination and mechanical damage and report likely causes of your findings”. The request(s) as described seems to point to a desired conclusion, IMO, realizing some general background on the samples needs to be given.

I have personal experience running a small in-house laboratory with samples submitted by persons requesting their desired findings.
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In the Introduction by Braidwood 1999 he wries

"As requested by the German Group of Experts, the aim of the report has been to investigate whether explosive devices were present on board the Estonia and caused damage when they exploded shortly before the sinking of the ship."

He may have repeated this in various other words in different parts of the report but completely transparent as to his motives I would have thought.


I doubt a scientist could bend the results. For example, it is often claimed that DNA forensic results are bent but people do not realise that short of outright trickery it is impossible to get your computer to churn out faked results to the order of several hundreds of thousands to one against. Normally there will be a set statistical significance level so any result is expressed in statistical terms such as 'compatible with' rather than 'absolutely is' because there will always be that curve ball chance that you have landed the one in three billion to one against sample that really was from a random population.
 
Vixen said:
Harri Ruotsalainen who was a naval intern who saw the sonar printouts at the time, is convinced someone (crew? smugglers? mafia types? saboteurs?) opened the back car ramp and got rid of two to four trucks
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That conviction is incompatible with their being military trucks loaded at the last moment onto the Estonia. At Tallin, the Estonia loaded at the bow, so these mythical trucks would have been at the wrong end of the ship.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Do it at night when there's just a minimal watch on duty. The usual routine is to have a walk round every 20 to 30 minutes to visually check everything's running ok. Otherwise the couple of bods on will be drinking tea and monitoring remote instruments from the control room.

As for the first thing the M is for Motor vessel, the S is for steam. I have come across a few common variations. MV for Motor Vessel, MS for Motor Ship, SS for Steam Ship, ST for Steam Turbine and TT for Twin Turbine.
There aren't any steam ships left in regular service They died out in the late 70s when big diesels started giving comparable power and fuel costs went up. Steam lasted in warships a bit longer where economics weren't as important as total power available for a given installation size.
There used to be RMS named ships, it stood for Royal Mail Ship and denoted they held a contract to carry fast international mail. They were usually big, fast liners. They disappeared when long distance air services got more able to carry larger cargo loads.
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The Estonia accident happened just as the captain's team was changing watch and passengers were setting their clocks back to Swedish midnight. Just as the ship had entered international waters and VHF communications were ultra tricky and the buoys switched off.
 
JayUtah said:
Better to wear coveralls from one of the equipment subcontractors. The crew and line people will know each other. Someone appearing to be from, say, Siemens will have both a plausible reason to be in the ship's equipment spaces and be unfamiliar to the regulars—but not necessarily out of place.

The conspiracy theory in question presupposes access to parts of the ship. Just getting on the ship is hard enough. Once you're on the ship, people just assume you know what you're doing. The conspiracy theory also presupposes a high level of proficiency, nay, even "military precision." You're not wrong to raise the issue of infiltration. But we're just following the presuppositions we've already been given.
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Your friend, Anders Bjorkmann always thought the blame lies with the Estonians but I never agreed with this. However, given how the Estonian crew were 'disappeared' one can't help but suspect that they were deemed culpable by the military spooks who ordered the illicit Russian military cargo. Silver Linde himself claims he was 'framed' for drug smuggling and imprisoned for nine years in Finland although I suspect he was guilty as charged in that case. But it shows if someone in into big time drug dealing worth nine years' jail time, maybe their character was always such that was prone to being deflected towards making big money fast for little effort, no matter the cost to the victims of the crime.
 
Another coincidence to add to that list is that it happened shortly after plunging headlong into the waves finally broke the mountings of the bow visor. What are the chances?
 
Vixen said:
However, given how the Estonian crew were 'disappeared' one can't help but suspect ...
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They weren't.

Found by magic and snatched from the sea, at night, in a storm, without any other rescuers even noticing the mystery helicopter, in a secret mission put together in minutes flat?

It's a loony tunes idea. Completely potty.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
You haven't established the presence of explosive material. Only the existence of an unidentified object an explosives expert said you could fit a bomb into.


You're embellishing again.

You claimed Braidwood said he watched a video and spotted the square object you showed us in a still frame (which I reckon is a solid steel locating lug) saying it was a suitable size to be some kind of a bomb. Then you told us he said he later watched the video again and did not spot it that time.

From this you are spinning a tale of video surrupticiously edited, when it's much more likely he just overlooked it or watched a different compilation of video the second time.

This is like when someone spotted a man they thought was Piht on German TV news and an X-files tale got spun where the German police visited the TV station, inviting us to imagine that instead of their seeking a copy of what was broadcast, they took away the only copy and the video was suppressed for sinister reasons, when in fact the video is still freely available on YouTube.
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Piht was definitely reported as being alive and well by several reputable sources, including the Swedish boss of marine affairs (sacked shortly after) and as reported by HS, London Evening Standard and Danish newspapers. Interpol put out a warrant for him dated 11 October 1994. Definitely was something going on there.

Mysteriously, police are not looking for anybody else.

Case closed.
 
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