The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VII

Jack by the hedge said:
Do you have that citation for someone claiming trucks were pushed out of the stern doors?
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Harry Ruotsalainen. You might scoff but he was part of the recent Estonian government working party.

He claims to have seen the diagnostic sonar tapes as an intern working on the accident. He claims it is classified information and no longer available.

Ruotsalainen doesn't think the key to the mystery lies in the wreck of the Estonia, which most researchers and divers go to photograph. First of all, the location, perhaps 500 meters away, needs to be explored.

According to theory, the secret cargo that had been seen in the sounding data was buried in it, and it was absolutely not allowed to end up in the hands of the authorities waiting at the ship's final port in Stockholm.

– I won't speculate on what the cargo was, but they certainly had everything from nuclear weapons to space technology. The West must have wanted to get it for itself.

Once the cargo had been dumped into the sea, the Estonia began to sink and, in distress, made a final lap, which according to Ruotsalainen was drawn as surprisingly long on some maps. Water filled the floor below the ship's car deck, and very quickly all hope was gone.

At the end of the trip, the unlucky ship was ordered to sail back to the point it had passed a short time earlier. That is what Ruotsalainen's theory is based on. The wreck lies a short distance north of it, as Ruotsalainen's suspected final goal – sinking the ship to cover up the secret cargo – did not quite succeed.
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To sum up:

Theses

Ruotsalainen's theory

This is how Harri Ruotsalainen drew his own conclusions about the sinking of the Estonia.

According to him, the diagonal echo sounder tape shown in Tallinn had two neat rows of square echoes. What else could they be but cargo that had come out?

Ruotsalainen concluded that the cargo must have been dumped into the sea from the stern of the ship. The containers from the bow port would have ended up under the ship and tipped over.

He asks , among other things: what happened to the ship's captain and who was in command of the ship at the crucial moments? Why did the ship move further north in the deep water than normal when it got into distress? Why is it stated that the sinking occurred in such a way that the ship drove far ahead and turned left in a loop, returning to the same point it had passed moments earlier, and finally a little over?

Ruotsalainen believes that it is at the intersection of the routes , about 500 meters from the wreck of the Estonia, that research teams should look for any cargo that may be missing from the ship.

He suspects that the person in command of the Estonia was ordered to sink the ship on top of the cargo that had been dumped into the sea. The intention would have been to cover up a secret cargo, which was possibly Soviet military goods on their way to Sweden and beyond.

What other cargo did the Estonia have besides trucks, cars, vans and two buses? Is all the cargo mentioned in the bill of lading on board? If so, the theory can be forgotten. TURUN SANOMAT 16.10.2021 6.30
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junkshop said:
His book is the sole source for the claim of Voronin being 245lbs. The claim is unverifiable, and therefore unreliable.

The whole reason for this diversion (for me, at least) into the minutiae of a trivial detail is to demonstrate the poor quality of many of the sources that you choose to rely on.
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What do you mean 'unverifiable'? Nelson is recounting what Voronin's son told him. He certainly cannot have plucked it out of thin air!
 
catsmate said:
To be fair to @Vixen there are a vast number of things she doesn't understand but pontificates about:
  • Car park design
  • The testing and properties of reinforced concrete
  • Battery chemistry
  • The flammability of diesel
  • The spread characteristics of diesel
  • Actuarial tables
  • Ship design
  • Maritime safety protocols
  • Radio protocols
  • International relations
  • Journalism
  • Aerospace technology
  • ...........and many, many, more.
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Messrs Dunning and Kruger published some thoughts on this very issue.
 
Vixen said:
I am right:

From JAIC Report Section 21: Conclusions, Actions by the crew subsection:

  • The visor could not be seen from the conning position, which the Commission considers a significant contributing factor to the capsize. In all incidents known to the Commission where the visor has opened at sea due to locking device failure, the opening was observed visually from the bridge and the officers of the watch were able quickly to take appropriate action.
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Is this the bit you thought says the visor should be closer to the bridge?

Vixen said:
You are simply providing your own 'alternative view'. Andy Meister was head of the JAIC and it was the JAIC's remit to investigate the disaster. That is what they were appointed to do! Settling for a 'strong wave' unproven hypothesis was abnegating their duty. They weren't supposed to guess. "Oh well, we can't agree, and the police and the naval divers won't tell us anything, so we'll just do a descriptive narrative for a peaceful life".

BTW the bow visor was not visible from the bridge, hence the JAIC recommendation it is constructed nearer, in future.
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Vixen said:
Dunning and Kruger's theory applies to people they considered stupid.
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Nope. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Therein lies your problem, you're so desperate to have been abused by us that you misinterpret statements about your lack of knowledge and ability in certain subjects as claims you're stupid. No one has ever said you are stupid Vixen. We have said that certain claims you have made are stupid. There's a big difference.
 
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Vixen said:
Nelson is not a key witness, he is simply a journalist who wrote a book telling the survivors' stories. It is not reasonable to claim he made stuff up. As a former Professor of journalism, he will know the importance of verifying information and accuracy.
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You'd think so, wouldn't you? However:
I read this because the author was one of my college professors...There are tons of typos, spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors (sorry, Professor).
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...the book is in desperate need of a [better] copy editor. In a journalistic book like this, one or two typos is forgivable, but twenty or so major typos is unacceptable...
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...The ship mentioned toward the end of the book in Stockholm which has a museum built around it is the Vasa not Wasa. Oops, Jack Nelson didn't check his spelling on that one...
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Source
...Unfortunately, the book is riddled with typos, grammatical errors and incorrect spellings. Whilst these mistakes were not regular enough to make the book unreadable, they were certainly distracting, breaking the momentum of the narrative and lowering the credibility of the book as a whole. The book also contained some surprising factual errors in the technical information provided and at times directly contradicted itself. References to additional world events and related maritime accidents were often incorrect (`the Herald of Free Enterprise sank in a storm in the English Channel...') and exposed a lack of underlying knowledge of the subject matter...
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Source
 
Vixen said:
I am right:

From JAIC Report Section 21: Conclusions, Actions by the crew subsection:

  • The visor could not be seen from the conning position, which the Commission considers a significant contributing factor to the capsize. In all incidents known to the Commission where the visor has opened at sea due to locking device failure, the opening was observed visually from the bridge and the officers of the watch were able quickly to take appropriate action.
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I'm not seeing a recommendation that bow visors should be built closer to the bridge, which is what you were asked about.
 
Vixen said:
What do you mean 'unverifiable'? Nelson is recounting what Voronin's son told him. He certainly cannot have plucked it out of thin air!
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Is he, though? He doesn't credit the claim to Vasilli, it isn't a quotation. Do we have any evidence that he spoke to Vasilli? All we have is a bald statement in Nelson's prose.
 
Vixen said:
Why not? There was a lot of poliomyelitis around back in his youth.
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You appear to have misunderstood my post. I have no doubt that Nelson was a paraplegic, it is mentioned in most of his bios.

I find it hard to picture a paraplegic person 'prowling the bowels' of a ship at sea. Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part, maybe it's just hyperbole. As I said, not really relevant.
 
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