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The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VII

Vixen said:
As you can see in the above post, even the captains of Silja Europa and Viking Mariela had to use hand phones to communicate with the coastguard on their landline.
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What is your source that they were using "hand phones"?

They used NMT phones - probably on the 450Mhz net, since that had the longest range. The fixed NMT phones were more powerful, so it's most probable that they used a fixed phone with a big external antenna. That would easily give you the range.

And of course, we know that the "net" was not down, since we can actually listen to the radio traffic - it's readily available.

The reason that Helsinki radio did not respond initially is explained the report, there was only one person working and it impossible for one person to monitor all frequencies without interruption.
 
Axxman300 said:
Really? Post the specific international maritime laws that state this, and the Estonian law as well.

See, if the ship is in trouble the responsibility falls upon whoever is on the bridge. No one waits for the captain because not everyone is a dumbass.
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The captain or officer in command would be the one to decide if a mayday should be sent. Officer in charge or captain may be the one to do it but there's no regulation to say it has to be for obvious reasons.
 
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W.D.Clinger said:
It is easy to understand why a triple niner would purposefully use the pronoun "it" in contexts that mention both the bow visor and failure of the "bottom lock", especially when that context is discussing the triple niner's allegation that the bow visor fell off because someone took a photograph of a vaguely rectangular something or other that clearly had not exploded.

Just as it is easy to understand why that triple niner would posit a Simonton gap to explain why her use of the pronoun "it" was not universally understood as referring to the 15kg part that she believes to weigh 55 tonnes "with the casing", and why that triple niner continues to be confused when others assume she was trying to refer to the bow visor when she spoke of that part weighing 55 tonnes.
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Vixen said:
'It' would normally refer to the last noun in a sentence. For example, 'I walked down the road looking for house no.14. It was the last one before the corner'.
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99.9% of the world's English-speaking population is aware that pronouns can be ambiguous. @Vixen, however, is not part of that 99.9%.

Here she is inventing a rule that says ambiguous pronouns "would normally refer to the last noun in a sentence." As in this example, from Reed College:

In 1911, Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in just thirty-five days before Robert F. Scott arrived. He had told people that he was going to sail for the Antarctic.​

As corrected:

In 1911, Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in just thirty-five days before Robert F. Scott arrived. Amundsen had told people that he was going to sail for the Antarctic.​

As any fule can see, the first sentence's ambiguous pronoun "he" refers to the last noun in the sentence.

Oh wait. As originally written, it was meant to refer to the first noun in the sentence, not to the last noun.

When I wrote "any fule", what I must have meant was "any triple niner".

But now I'm confused. I belong to the 99.9% who understand the ambiguity of pronouns. Doesn't that make me a triple niner?

Inquiring minds want to know.

ETA:
Vixen said:
In any case, common sense should tell you some engineering guy wouldn't have the physique to even pick up a bow visor.
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In defense of engineering guys, I doubt whether their specialized knowledge has much to do with whether they can pick up a 55-tonne object.

ETA2: To be fair to @Vixen: She probably still thinks the bow visor weighs 15kg.
 
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Mojo said:
Nope, I am linking to something that proves you made up a 54,985kg "casing" for the 15kg visor in order to avoid admitting that you had made a mistake.

Who are people gonna believe, you or their own eyes?
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Sorry, still not seeing it. I find it weird that some people actually seem to come from a culture where 'avoiding admitting mistakes' is even a thing. AFAIAC (a) everybody makes mistakes (b) it is your right to make a mistake and (c) if you make a mistake you own up and (d) do it straightaway. This is normal culture for me. If the teacher said, 'Who flicked that rubber?' or 'Who made that rude noise?', the culprit would immediately step forward or put their hand up, even if it meant a trip to the headmaster's office for a caning (if you were a boy). There were no 'class detentions' because people were primed to be honest. But you do you and pretend I am a wrongdoer of some sort.
 
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Here_to_learn said:
What is your source that they were using "hand phones"?

They used NMT phones - probably on the 450Mhz net, since that had the longest range. The fixed NMT phones were more powerful, so it's most probable that they used a fixed phone with a big external antenna. That would easily give you the range.

And of course, we know that the "net" was not down, since we can actually listen to the radio traffic - it's readily available.

The reason that Helsinki radio did not respond initially is explained the report, there was only one person working and it impossible for one person to monitor all frequencies without interruption.
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To recap from my notes:

The sequence of events is this. Where there is a Mayday message, it is the nearest land Coastguard MRCC who assumes responsibility for the rescue. Accordingly, Tammes' final Mayday message* ended 01:31.


The last radio contact with Estonia took place on September 28, 1994 at 1.31 am and ended with the words: "How far are you? Really bad, really bad now looks like yes here. "
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JAIC Report


MARIELLA's second mate Ingmar Hans-Göran Eklund testified:


After we had heard the 'Mayday' call we saw the lights of ESTONIA. While I was taking care of the navigation, the master was trying to get in contact with Helsinki Radio, first over VHF and then on MF 2182 kHz, both of which failed. He finally managed to get in contact with the shore by mobile phone.«
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Echoing what Capt. Jan Tore Thoresson said in his police statement.

Mikko Montonen the Capt.Lt of Turku MCC picked up the Mayday call - all of which are recorded - at 01:36. His first duty was to mobilise rescue operations locally and a Puma helicopter set off from Turku accordingly.


Montonen, who was the back officer, arrived at the Turku Rescue Center at 1.36. "The emergency message talked about tilting and black outs, but Estonia was still visible on the radar and we were working on that." 1.45 p.m. Estonia disappeared from the radar of the Maritime Rescue Center. "At the time, it was clear that the ship had sunk and we launched a rescue operation for the catastrophe. That included the Mariehamn Maritime Rescue Center liaising with Stockholm," Montonen says.
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The problem here was getting Estonia's coordinates as Tammes had cited - or appeared to cite - coordinates that were eight minutes (five km) out.

Nobody knows why Ainsalu and subsequently also Tammes did not use the bridge installed VHF or even the MF installation, being much stronger, which would have connected them with the outside world immediately.

The fact of not having coordinates - thanks to the EPIRB's being switched off and the Estonia's rapid sinking - caused a delay in Helsinki Radio being able to provide precise location. At last at circa 01:52 communication was made with nearby Stockholm via Mariehammn in the Ålands, who conveyed the request for additional help.

Source: Mainly Helsingin Sanomat and JAIC Report.


The Stockholm Maritime Rescue Center received information about the sinking via Mariehamn at 1.55. When Turku was contacted from Stockholm at 1.57, Turku also asked for helicopters from Sweden, as Mariella, who was the first to arrive in the sinking area, announced that the ships would not be able to rescue those at sea due to the sea.

The captain of the Stockholm Maritime Rescue Center, Sea Captain Lennart Johansson, confirms that the information about the sinking of Estonia came via Mariehamn at 1.55. The distress message broadcast on Estonian VHF radio was not part of Stockholm's coastal radio.

"We called Helsinki first and then Turku. We agreed with the Turku Rescue Center to send helicopters and alerted the Arlanda Air Rescue Center," says Johansson. The Swedes alerted their first helicopters at 1.58, and the first took off from Visby at 2.35.

Commander of the Archipelago Sea Coast Guard, Commodore Raimo Tiilikainen, who led the rescue operations in Turku, takes full responsibility for what happened and confirms that it took 30 minutes before the Estonia message went to Sweden.
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*via a handheld 'walkie-talkie' device, rather than the much stronger VHF or even MF installation on the bridge - having taken over from Ainsalu who told Silja Europa that he couldn't give the position because of 'blackout' (of the electrical system, which should have kicked in the emergency generator plus there should have been a battery to maintain power in the bridge whilst out)
 
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Vixen said:
See my post here: #720


MRCC Turku in the police witness statements says they could not capture Estonia's image n the sonar except very vaguely once in a left hand corner (which could have been anything).

Mariella and Europa both said they could not see Estonia on their radar or had trouble doing so.

There is a transcript and that transcript tells a sorry story of desperate communication problems with the young officers papping their pants and begging to know whether help was coming.

Both Mariella and Europa had to use their own NMT handheld mobile phones to ring up MRCC Turku on its land line.

You know better of course.
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Your own unsourced post is not a cite.
can you quote Turku coastguard sonar equipment used and the signal seen?

Oh, and disappearing from radar? Not unusual from a vessel in big swell, especially in stormy conditions, there will be a lot of “surface clutter” that makes identification and tracking difficult.
 
Vixen said:
Then why did JAIC have to hypothesize an additional 4,000 tonnes of water coming in through 'smashed windows' on passenger decks 4 and 5, which, as you can see below, if the car deck is deck 2, then those will be the decks on the blue stripes. What do you notice about the cabin windows..? Yes, they are super tough reinforced glass porthole windows designed to withstand gale force winds.

View attachment 66446
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Maybe it might have something to do with water being over 800 times denser than air?
 
EHocking said:
True, true, I see vixen is also sneaking in the old “the Atlantic lock was an accessory added to make it look safer” that was also done to death years ago.
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Which is something she said she read somewhere and said she'd get back with the citation. Which she never did, after being asked multiple times.

She said it was something she read on some website and can't remember where she read it. Funny that someone who claims that everything she posts that doesn't have an "IMV" qualifier is properly sourced and cited facts, repeatedly and continually is unable to provide citations for so many of her claims.

I'm going to ask again, knowing that she will absolutely not be able to provide an actual valid citation for this claim.

Vixen, what is your evidence for the claim that the Atlantic lock was only added as an accessory to make people feel safer? An actual valid citation please.
 
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Vixen said:
That [drawing] was a separate issue Braidwood presented. He drew it as he saw it.
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Then he's not a reliable witness, is he?

It's not really a separate issue. Not only did Braidwood blatantly misrepresent the hole, he did so in a certain direction. He drew it to look like it had been made by an explosion. It's not just an error or bad artistry, it's bias. This then colors his attempt to interpret a bit of flotsam in the video. That too "must" be connected to some kind of explosives plot. Amazing how an explosives guy tends to see evidence of explosives everywhere, even if he has to make it all up. The claim that it was later "edited out"—instead of the more parsimonious explanation that it was just flotsam that later washed away in the current—is purely conspiratorial. It's a made-up narrative, not evidence.

Vixen said:
Obviously, it is only in his expert opinion.
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Indeed, which makes it nearly worthless because it's untethered to anything outside his claim.

When acting as an expert called to identify something, I know what it is because my expertise gives me a reasonably encyclopedic knowledge of what's actually out there. If someone says, "What's this?" I can say, "It's part of the composite wing structure of a Boeing 787," and I can show pictures of what that looks like so the reader knows I'm not just blowing smoke. Depending, I can even tell you where on the airplane it came from. I can identify the thrust bearing on a Liberty ship because those exist outside any opinion I might have. I can tell you whether a snippet of recovered data is from a Fairchild flight data recorder because I can show you what parts of that data stream correspond to what's documented elsewhere as an expectation.

An expert judgment is not just, "Because I say so." An expert applies his knowledge of the world to show the correlation. Braidwood provides no reference comparisons to known explosive devices or packaging techniques. See next section.

Vixen said:
Here's what Braidwood wrote in his report, Part 6. Note: the original text is a blurry photocopy so may have some strange spellings.
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That's 100% speculation. He gives no testable basis for identifying it as an explosive. All he can say is that he thinks the box might be big enough to hold a bomb. He gives no evidence that it is a bomb.

Vixen said:
As an explosives expert he was trained to recognise explosive devices.
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And the reason you can't see why he did no such thing in this case is why you don't get to be a real investigator.

Vixen said:
from ESTONIA, Sven Anér
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A book you have now copied from several times, despite telling me you wouldn't provide any photographic copies from it due to copyright concerns. You claim that book contains the full metallurgical reports, portions of which we've discussed here. But you won't prove it does.

Vixen said:
Given the visor falling off can only be due to the failure of the locks, then clearly, you would need more than one such device to loosen them. One failing to detonate may not have stopped the sheer weight of the visor being prised off anyway, thanks to the other well-placed devices.
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A satchel charge won't cut a ship-sized steel retaining bolt. You need a linear shaped charge, which looks absolutely nothing like what Braidwood saw in the video. And yes, I'm qualified to know that. Some of our designs have indeed used explosive devices to cut structure. You don't know what you're talking about.
 
The other problem with Braidwood is he assumed the divers didn't know what they were looking at, and no one watching on the monitors did either. Problem there is some of those divers have done underwater demo work, or are ex-military. The idea that they didn't recognize an explosive charge, nor bring to the surface is unrealistic. And in the years since his claim, no one else has stepped forward to back him up.
 
Vixen said:
Sorry, still not seeing it.
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In case you have somehow managed to put your own posts on ignore, here it is again:
Vixen said:
lobosrul5 said:
I wonder if she thought the bow visor is something else entirely. Like I have no frickin clue how anyone could think that massive chunk of steel only weighs* 15kg. And she brought its weight up deliberately. I do no think it was an oops I meant tons moment.

*yeah I know technically kg is not a UOM for weight
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With the casing it weighs 55 tonnes.
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