Cont: The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VI

[Dabop]

10 ºC is the lower boundary of the cold-shock response. That's when you enter the water (unexpectedly) and involuntarily inhale sharply. This is often a cause of drowning, as the victim inhales water.

But those are MILD swimming conditions!!!
/S

 

[Vixen]

Yes you have, and you have been quoted as having done so. Did you or did you not claim that the letters from stalingrad column meant that there were reporters on the German front lines?

If you had followed the thread, you would be aware I and a co-author were researching the early years of WWII from a nordic perspective, that is 1941-1942 mainly, and those were where I took photocopies (which were quite expensive, especially for A3, as TIMES was a large broadsheet which didn't even fit A3). If you knew your history you would also know Stalingrad was towards WWII end and was - hello?!!! - Germany versus Russia, so would have zero to do with British troops. Mojo mischievously decided to conflate the Brits with Stalingrad because they were in the same sentence.

So I hope that is now clear.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen your contention that day 0 reporting by the press of the MS Estonia sinking is very valuable because of the great reporting done by Times reporters at the Battle of Stalingrad is faulty.

Its faulty on three levels:

First, reporting by the press during WW2 is riddled with errors.
Second, The Times did not have on the ground reporters at the Battle of Stalingrad. They relied on allied military press officers who relied on factual information from USSR liaisons.
Third, even IF I am wrong about the two points above, this in no way means that the press on the day of, and immediately after, the sinking of MS Estonia didn't make factual errors.

You keep trying to rely on these analogies that are, at best, a vast stretch as to their relevance to the MS Estonia sinking.

ETA: and yet again, I have made no claims whatsoever about the Downing Street bombings.

You have twisted my words.

 

[Vixen]

I can't keep track any more. The second investigation into the sinking is completed, the preliminary results support the original findings, just with more detail. And now we have a computer recreation of the ship impacting the sea floor, which is the only thing MS Estonia hit on that night.

No bombs, no submarine collision, no commandos.

And yet someone chooses to ignore the facts in order to spice up their lives if espionage and international intrigue.

It's not completed. It won't be completed until well into 2024.

Any classified information will remain classified. I am hoping the government will come clean.

 

[Vixen]

Firstly I eyeballed it on Google maps and saw that with Tallinn being further west than Helsinki, the equidistant point must be somewhat north of a line from Helsinki to Stockholm.

Next I used Google maps' measure distance function to measure from Uto to one of the cities. You can drag the end point to another city to measure that distance, and so on. It was closest to Tallinn by a few km so I dragged the start point a little north and measured again. Repeat until all were within 1km.

If you just want to note that the wreck is a roughly similar distance from all 3 cities then that's fine but I think it's unfair to call the wreck site equidistant if you wish to imply there is something symbolic, significant or noteworthy about it as it's about 60km away from the real equidistant point. If you don't want to do that then I have no problem with it. If you wish to put it on a list of sinister coincidences suggestive of foul play then I have a major problem with that.

I think it is more to do with the fact that had it been a preplanned operation then what is salient isn't the fact of equidistance but more that the accident took place as soon as it got to international waters, which would coincide with that point as it is politically determined, who owns what part of the waters.

 

[Here_to_learn]

Any classified information will remain classified. I am hoping the government will come clean.

Since you do not know today that something is classified, how would you be able to know if someone has "come clean"? What would have to happen for you to be satisfied?

 

[Andy_Ross]

If you had followed the thread, you would be aware I and a co-author were researching the early years of WWII from a nordic perspective, that is 1941-1942 mainly, and those were where I took photocopies (which were quite expensive, especially for A3, as TIMES was a large broadsheet which didn't even fit A3). If you knew your history you would also know Stalingrad was towards WWII end and was - hello?!!! - Germany versus Russia, so would have zero to do with British troops. Mojo mischievously decided to conflate the Brits with Stalingrad because they were in the same sentence.

So I hope that is now clear.

Stalingrad was towards WWII end?

Where are you getting that from?

What is considered as the battle lasted from 23 August 1942 through to 2 February 1943

 

[Andy_Ross]

Stalingrad was towards WWII end?

Where are you getting that from?

What is considered as the battle lasted from 23 August 1942 through to 2 February 1943

You claimed the Times had correspondents reporting to them from the German front lines.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's not completed. It won't be completed until well into 2024.

Any classified information will remain classified. I am hoping the government will come clean.

Poisoning the well

 

[Vixen]

For a start, you’ve lied about no flotsam being found and lied about the sinking occurring at the midpoint of the journey.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was quoting the captain of Silja Europa, Esa Mäkelä.

Life-saving equipment doesn't count as 'flotsam'.

- He didn't want to believe it at all. We thought there had to be some other explanation for the emergency call but that we had to go see it. Only then did I have to believe when Mariella (Viking Line’s car ferry) arrived and saw that the ship was lost and there was roaring, and life rafts and more in the ocean.

Silja Europa arrived at the scene of the accident fairly quickly, but Mäkelä slowed down the speed of her ship as she approached the scene of the accident, as she thought Estonia was hanging up on the surface.

- By all accounts, that should have been the case. It should have remained floating upside down, which would have been dangerous for us. I had over 2,000 passengers on board myself.

https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli...aanotti-estonian-viimeisen-hatakutsun/4355350

Strange communities some posters live in if lying is the norm.

 

[Vixen]

Here's your gracious response to a request for sufficient information for the article to be identified:


And you have still not provided a shred of evidence that these embedded reporters existed, let alone posted stories from the German front lines. The column that you claimed supported this turned out, when tracked down, to be a round-up of the German media, not anything from the Times's own reporters.

"My area of research area of interest in WWII was the Continuation War, not Stalingrad or the reports from the German frontline re 'Tommy'. Those news items were a fascinating distraction, which I just happened to notice."

Did you not spot the word OR....?

Of course you did. But let's not let that get in the way of your idea of endless fun.

 

[Vixen]

As if it weren't obvious, none of Vixen's perennial pearl-clutching nor any of the theories she's borrowing from poses any meaningful criticism to the original report. Aside from the obvious lying and gaslighting, much of her conspiratorial apoplexy just misses the point of what a final report from a forensic engineering investigative body is supposed to contain. This is essentially true of the conspiracy cloud itself surrounding MS Estonia. It's armchair detectives at their worst.

Certainly Evertsson's film raised one new question, but since his agenda has been exposed it really doesn't amount to much. A new investigation hasn't breathed any more life into the various decades of conspiracy-mongering than was there in the beginning. There was never any question in the engineering world what sank the ship. That lay busybodies aren't happy with it shouldn't ordinarily mean anything.

If you read the JAIC Report, you'll discover it didn't actually investigate anything other that a minutiae breakdown of what the bow visor was composed of and how it worked.

 

[Vixen]

Keep in mind that the author of the OP is upset that this thread was moved to the Conspiracy Theory board, and does not believe the claims she's sold her soul to are fanciful in any way.

This entire CT is insulting to me. First, as a layman the cause of the sinking seems straight forward. The ship was sailing in an environment it was never designed to operate, under conditions which would be challenging for most oceangoing vessels of her size. Not one of the conspiratorial claims hold water (pun intended). There are dozens of hours of dive footage from the initial investigation that anyone bored enough(like me) can view, and the bow shows no evidence of explosives, the bow visor shows no evidence of explosives, but the hull forward of the bow's superstructure is rippled as a result of the banging it took from the visor before it detached.

As a reformed CTist myself, I find the claims advanced in this thread, for lack of a better word, asinine. So many real-world basic elements must be ignored just to entertain them. There is no thought put into any of the claims, the result is each one dissolves like wet toilet paper. A quality CT works within the facts to use them as a framework for whatever BS the proponent wants to advance. IMO, the only CT that might work for a while would be a desperate captain taking out a large life insurance policy to help his family overcome hardship, so he drives the ship hard knowing full well it will likely sink.This silly theory works within the facts of the case without submarines, Spetsnaz, or radioactive materials. But it falls apart with a simple record's check on the insurance policy.

I understand why some of the families need this to be a conspiracy. The idea of simple negligence killing over 800 people is hard to stomach. And ferry transit is a staple for European travel, so the idea that the ship you and your family just sailed on might have been a death-trap could be too much for some. Of course there are people who feed upon misery and disaster to spread misinformation to advance their world-view. In this thread we've all been subjected to extremely weak claims of black-ops, spies, and high-level cover-ups with no consistent line of thinking. Most of us know, and accept that multiple things can be true at the same time, yet have nothing to do with each other, or the central incident.

A cold-case detective spoke about why he loves to interview killers. He gets the full story about the off-the-wall pieces of evidence from the crime scenes. He learns why and how shoes ended up where they were found, why doors/windows were locked, or left open. Much of the time those answers had nothing to do with the crime; people leave doors and windows open at night, the victim wasn't wearing shoes at the time of the murder. This leaves the detective with nothing but off-the-wall features of the crime scene that had to be recorded, and investigated for a time. The result is more focused attention paid in the next investigation where the detective doesn't waste time on the periferal things.

The sinking of MS Estonia is just one of those things. An accident that could have been avoided had the shipping company had integrity.

I don't think it would be that easy for a captain to deliberately sink a ship. There have been reports from survivors of how they thought Captain Andresson seemed to be in a strange mood that night and of how he was seen being confronted with a group of men arguing. But the Estonian crew were modelled on Swedish crews, in which the Captain works as a team of three or four. IOW were he to have been suicidal (and taking 1,000 people with him...?) there are the other two/three mates, well-qualified in their navigation exams and experience, standing in his way. The JAIC Report does not deal with what happened to the captain, which I would have thought crucial. In the Herald of Free Enterprise accident, the Casa Concordia or the Bow Belle on the Thames, much attention was given to the role of the Captain and his crew - they were even arrested and charged - yet the crew here are treated as helpful eye witnesses, one of them whom the JAIC relies heavily on turns out to have been a drug smuggler. Nine years jail. In Finland that is a massive sentence. Most prisoners get a very light sentence even for murder.

 

[Vixen]

Not quite.
It was designed to operate in those conditions, but, at the time it was designed there were no standards or real data on the design of roll on roll off ferries with lifting bow visors.

It was recognised that Estonia had problems after earlier incidents with both her and other ships.
Also her overall condition wasn't good with problematic repairs and operation.
Another factor at the time Estonia was constructed was Sweden allowed quite lax domestic certification for ferry construction.

Because of this Estonia was later limited to coastal operations.

MV Estonia was constructed in 1986 and started life as Viking Sally, on which I have travelled to Stockholm. It later became Wasa King and travelled between Vaasa, further north and Umeå in Sweden. It was then sold to Nordstrom, and the Swedish and Estonian governments were joint owners. It was refurbished and renamed MV Estonia.

The thing is, it had barely left Estonia coastline before it sank. JAIC doesn't go into any of this. Ruotsalainen says he saw the Coastguard records which showed that whilst MV Estonia started off at 19kn as per usual it slowed to about 5 or 6 kn at Dagö Bank. He also saw sonar images of black squares on the sea bed, which is why he has a theory that this is where the crew or some kind of criminals opened the stern ramp and dumped the trucks. As you know, MV Estonia sank shortly after.

So the issue of her sailing in 'open seas' is a red herring as it never really got far into its WNW route to Söderam.

JAIC doesn't tell you any of this.

 

[Vixen]

So when your original number is so far off, you decide to make new calculations? Does not bode well for your 'military precision'. By the way, it would still be accuracy and not precision.



Or as I showed in a different translator, they were unarmed. This makes perfect sense if you actually understood how they worked.

What are you talking about? The original numbers were to do with midpoints of the journey. The equidistance one was to do with the wreck being equidistant from the three capital cities of the countries concerned.

No, the Finnish word for unarmed is nothing at all to do with 'untuned' (which I explained derives from the word for 'current' and f'low' and is associated with radio waves and electricity [and even the current and flow of water] the word 'unarmed' as in weapons is completely different.

 

[Vixen]

That still makes no sense, they are always 'armed' and ready to go at the flick of a switch. Or, in the case of immersion models as soon as the sensor is wet.

As I pointed out, the Finnish words for 'switched on' is completely different from the word 'tuned', as in English. Anyone would know that 'tuning' a radio, for example, is quite different from 'switching it on'.


The Finnish authorities said the buoys were found untuned and switched off.

 

[Vixen]

That still makes no sense, they are always 'armed' and ready to go at the flick of a switch. Or, in the case of immersion models as soon as the sensor is wet.

Didn't need a switch. They were free floating automatic buoys activated when immersed in water, wherein they are released by the HRU and the aim is for them to reach the surface and automatically start transmitting their location to the COSPAS-SARTS satellite system. Proof is, the authorities requested to see the Norwegian logs of all satellite messages during that time frame.

 

[Vixen]

I think the translation is saying unarmed as not turned on. The manual switch is in the off position, so it was not transmitting or not armed. Makes much more sense than untuned.

No. Two different words completely.

 

[zooterkin]

Life-saving equipment doesn't count as 'flotsam'.

Are you quite sure about that?

 

[Vixen]

Indeed, neither "armed" nor "tuned" is strictly accurate.

"Tuned" is right out if it means adjusting the frequency. EPIRBs must transmit on either 406.025 MHz or 406.028 MHz with a variance not more than 2 ppm for several hours in order to be certified for sale. That narrow tolerance is so that we can Doppler-locate a signal that doesn't have GPS or whose GPS data is unusable. You can only get that tolerance in the factory. There is absolutely no field adjustment for frequency.

"Armed" is still inaccurate because it implies it can be disarmed. There is no user control that will make an immersion-activated model not activate when the sensor gets wet. That would effectively defeat the purpose of immersion activation. There is the immersion switch and there is the manual-on switch. It's always armed in the classical sense of arming.

From Helsingin Sanomat quoting JAIC Chairman Kari Lehtola:

28.1.1995 2:00

Autolautta Estonian kaksi hätäpoijua eivät lähettäneet signaalia pelastajille, koska niitä ei ollut viritetty laivalla. Hätäpoijut pulpahtivat pinnalle asianmukaisesti laivan upotessa.
Turman kansainvälinen tutkimuskomissio on selvittänyt Viron rannikolle ajautuneiden hätäpoijujen toimintaa. Poijujen akut olivat täydessä varauksessa, mutta ne eivät voineet lähettää mitään virittämättöminä, kertoo komission jäsen Kari Lehtola .

Google translate:

"Autoferry Estonia's two emergency buoys did not send a signal to rescuers because they were not tuned on the boat. Emergency buoys pop to the surface properly when the ship sinks. The International Accident Commission of Inquiry has investigated the operation of the emergency buoys that washed ashore on the Estonian coast. The buoys' batteries were fully charged, but they couldn't transmit anything untuned."