The
M/S Estonia Accident investigation
The biggest Fraud in Maritime History
Faulty Findings 1994-2004
10 Years since the
'Estonia' Accident
Dedicated to GP with fondness
Beausoleil 10 July 2004
It is now almost 10 years since the 'Estonia' sank in the
Baltic on the 28 September 1994 and the cause of the
accident remains a mystery. Many people - or a gullible
majority - still believes that the accident was caused by
defective visor locks as officially concluded by the Joint
Accident Investigation Commission, JAIC, in its Final report
published in December 1997. All essential facts in the Final
report are false or manipulated. How the JAIC managed that
is explained in the book Disaster
Investigation.
Immediately after the accident there was total confusion
what could have caused the accident, but after a few days
the authorities and Swedish media only mentioned one
possible cause - the ship's bow visor had been forced
open by the waves and seawater had entered into the ship.
The result had been sudden capsize and sinking.
One week (4 October 1994) after the accident the
JAIC, not formally
constituted, confirmed this strange cause of accident in its
First Interim Report and added that the visor had been lost
underway some time before the capsize, and from then on,
no other causes of accident were ever investigated.
The public was told that underwater filming of the wreck had
confirmed that the visor was missing … and therefore
must have been lost before the capsize ... and caused the
accident.
There is no evidence that this allegation is true. And
the vessel never capsized - it sank - without
capsize!
Three weeks after the accident (18 October 1994) the
visor was officially found - a mile West of the wreck!
There is no evidence that this is true either! In
all probability the visor was at the wreck at this time! It
is very likely that the whole investigation was based on
these three initial lies, because the visor no doubt was
found attached to the wreck, when it was filmed 30
September. The visor story of the lost visor was cleverly
planted when millions of people were shocked of 852 drowned
victims and when critical voices about the cause was not yet
heard.
Then followed three years of secret 'investigations' of
events and causes. The public had no access to the JAIC
meetings and all essential evidence was kept secret. This
was totally illegal but nobody seemed to care! The JAIC met
more than 20 times to write an investigation report (and to
wine and dine) why the visor had caused the accident, which
was duly published in December 1997. At regular intervals
1994-1997 the JAIC re-confirmed the only official cause -
the visor had fallen off, later clarified due to
defective visor locks, enormous waves had struck off the
visor, seawater had entered the ship (or rather the
superstructure of the ship - a big difference) and caused
first capsize (that never happened) at 01.15 hrs, and later
sinking, at about 01.50 hrs. All relevant findings from
underwater filmings and a dive examination of the wreck 1994
were manipulated and/or censored to suit the inventions.
Public discussion of the cause of accident was 'meaningless'.
A self-appointed Group of
German Experts tried to do its own casualty
investigation 1995-1998. It failed completely. It never
understood that the vessel neither capsized nor lost its
visor as alleged by the JAIC. It never managed to conclude
that the alleged causes could not have contributed to the
alleged events. Later it published a strange report - a
mirror picture of the JAIC report - only pointing out errors
in the latter, but never suggesting that all essential
information was falsified! The Germans used the same
stability experts as JAIC and the ship owner to cover up the
Truth. The Germans ignored all information provided by Heiwa
Co at meetings both at Hamburg and Beausoleil. It seems that
the Germans were manipulated by the JAIC.
When the JAIC Final report was at last issued many
international professional bodies criticized its content
that it didn't make any sense. The JAIC obviously never
really responded to the criticism. Thus followed another
three years of one-sided debate. Valid criticism was raised
while the authorities or responsible parties refused to
reply, except stating that the JAIC Final report was 100%
correct or other nonsense. However, in October 2000 the
Swedish government requested a review of the criticism, e.g.
raised in the writer's book Katastrofutredning (Disaster
Investigation). A typical reply was, e.g. by Ms Ann
Louise Eksborg, Swedish JAIC chairperson and then director
of the Swedish Accident Investigation Board, SHK, who signed
the Final report 1997, in a letter to the government 16
October 2000, ref. SHK A62/00:
"In conclusion you can say that the main
traits in the sequence of events and in the connexion of
causes of the JAIC Final report are based on several
secured and proven relations and facts, where it is
practically impossible to see that a new independent
investigation shall be able to conclude an essentially
different result".
The Swedish government only listened to Ms
Eksborg, a woman with a look between an apostle and
a jail bird, and no further official investigations were
ordered in April 2001, except that the Swedish Board of
Psychological Defence, SPF, should assemble a 'Memory Bank'
of 'Estonia' accident information and make a study to
explain the sinking - or water filling of the 'Estonia',
which the JAIC hade never done during its three years of
'investigation'. Why water in the superstructure
would cause sinking of the hull was never explained ...
and is still, 10 years after the accident, not explained,
and there is no evidence that there was water on the
car deck causing the accident. The government also
decided to support safety at sea research! This is another
sad story - how SEK 25 millions were swindled away 2001-2002
and another SEK 20 millions 2003-2004 by the government
innovation agency Vinnova
(in Swedish only) - and only relevant to the 'Estonia'
story, as the money seems to be payments to qualified
Swedish people to shut up!
Then, 2001-2004, followed the last act of the present
drama which is still going on; numerous debates in the
Swedish Parliament and Constitutional Commission and the
SPF failure to assemble
the 'Memory Bank' and to explain the water filling of the
superstructure and the deckhouse and sinking of the
hull,even if falsified information and calculation methods
were again shamelessly used. On 28 September 2004 at 16.00
hrs the SPF arranges a meeting at Stockholm, Sweden, to
commemorate the event 10 years ago. The King and Queen of
Sweden, the prime minister and the Speaker of the Parliament
are asked to attend. No doubt the King's chief of staff,
admiral Frank Rosenius,
will assist in the background, smiling like a forger in an
anchor forge (or torpedo workshop), when the visor story is
reiterated.
Legal proceedings had of course started early to find the
real cause and the responsible party but during every phase
of the above developments any legal proceedings were delayed
or postponed for various reason.
And this is the situation today of the most shocking and
tragic marine accident in Europe after the Second World War
- no explanation what happened has been given except a false
Final report, 10 years of denials of any wrong doings by
several governments, authorities and legal courts and
continued cover-ups of any attempts to clarify matters, e.g.
the water filling study of admiral Rosenius. Safety at sea
is sadly a bad joke in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.
The only forum where the matter is still open is at the
legal Court of Paris, France. To assist the complaining
party at Paris to get a favourable verdict, below follows
some pertinent observations how to convince the Court that,
e.g. the present official and only investigation is faulty
and cannot be trusted and must be re-done. It is very easy.
The official Final report contains 61 (sixty-one) official
Findings on pages 223-224. All Conclusions
(pages 225-226) and Recommendations (pages
227-228) are based on these Findings. If/as any
Findings are found incorrect, the Conclusions
and Recommendations cannot be correct. So below
follows why all essential Findings are faulty
(falsified, untrue, based on manipulated information, pure
inventions, etc).
There are 61 relevant or irrelevant Findings (points) on
pages 223-224 in the Final report to prove that the visor
caused the accident. All of these relevant Findings
cannot be proven or are intentionally falsified as described
in the below table of some typical Findings (references are
made to other pages of this web site where the
falsifications are explained), thus you should conclude
the complete sequence of official events is an invention
- there is no evidence for any essential, relevant
Findings.
No.
Official Finding
Why the Finding is not
correct
Refe-
rences
5
Ship's condition
The vessel was seaworthy and
properly manned.
No valid certificates are provided in the Final
report to this effect and, e.g. the life
saving appliances, the evacuation plan and the
watertight subdivision (watertight doors) were
not as per regulations. The ship was not
seaworthy as per any international and national
laws. But the ship did not sink because it was
unseaworty or carried false certificates - the
ship sank because it was leaking in the hull
(not investigated by the JAIC).
Failure
The failure sequence may have
started at about 0055 hrs when the AB seaman
heard a metallic bang at the bow
ramp.
No failure is proven According to the first interview of the AB
seaman by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter
published on 7 October the AB seaman was on the
car deck at 0040 hrs and heard a loud bang not
associated with the bow. Reports that the bilge
pumps had started and that the engine room was
flooded (indicating hull leakage) were quickly
censored.
The visor worked its way
forward and forced the ramp partly open due to
mechanical intereference between the visor and
the ramp, inherent in the design. Water started
entering the car deck at the sides of the partly
open ramp.
Not proven (another invention). Wave
forces acting in the aft direction and a strong
deck beam prevented the visor to move forward.
The ramp locks are not damaged.
The ramp rested for a while
within the visor before the visor at about 0115
hrs fell into the sea, pulling the ramp fully
open.
Not proven (a third invention). There
is no evidence that the visor fell off or the
ramp was pulled fully open at any time,
including 0115 hrs. What most survivors said is
shown below. The visor position is not
proven
Capsize
Large amounts of water entered
the car deck and in a few minutes a starboard
list of 15° developed.
No capsize
A majority of survivors stated that the ship
suddenly lost its initial stability and rolled
twice >30° to starboard at about 0102
hrs and then stabilized itself at about
10-15° list to starboard for sufficient
time enabling them to evacuate. The vessel
never capsized! It was always stable, albeit
with a list, while it sank (due to water leaking
into the hull below the car deck).
Not proven - information that the
vessel slowed down before the sudden listing has
not been investigated, as it was a sign that the
crew was aware of the hull leakage.
The vessel drifted with her
starboard side towards the waves.
Not proven and impossible. Assisting
ships observed the ESTONIA immobile in the water
... no drifting ... from the time of the MAYDAY
(0122 hrs) and until the sinking about 0135 hrs.
The JAIC suggests that the sinking vessel
drifted at a speed >2.2 knots for more than
30 minutes, which is impossible
At about 0125 hrs the list
was more than 40°. By then windows and a
door had broken in the aft part on the starboard
side, allowing progressive flooding of the
accommodation. ...
At 40° list due only to water in the
superstructure the non-watertight deck house
is immediately flooded and the ship should have
capsized, i.e. turned and floated upside down on
the undamaged hull. But no capsize took
place.
As the list increased the
ESTONIA started to sink stern first. At about
0135 hrs the list was about 80°.
Not proven. At 0135 hrs the ESTONIA
had probably already sunk without capsizing due
to leakage of the hull, which has not been
investigated. The visor was then evidently
still attached to the ship! It had never come
lose!
Furthermore the JAIC cannot explain why the ship
would start to sink at this time due to water
loaded in the superstructure two meters
above waterline! Elementary stability
calculations of the ship and flooding
calculations of the superstructure would
indicate that the ship would have capsized and
floated upside down already before Finding 14
took place!
Action by the crew
Two reports of unusual sounds
from the bow area were given to the officers on
the watch, the first about 20 minutes prior to
the loss of the visor.
The Finding is based on statements of only
one survivor, the AB seaman, who
has given different accounts of what he did or
did not do or hear at various times - thus not
proven. In all probability the AB seaman gave an
accurate description of what happened in the DN
inteview - see 8, and was later forced by the
JAIC to change his story to suit the JAIC
inventions.
The master arrived at the
bridge and was present when the second attempt
was initiated shortly after 0100 hrs.
See 18 - not proven. As stated in 12
the sudden listing took place at that time
(starting about 0102 hrs). One reason why JAIC
delayed the time seems to have been to get the
master on the bridge before the accident.
21
The speed setting was
maintained until the list developed. At about
0100 hrs the speed was about 14 knots
...
Not proven - see 13 - an invention.
There is no evidence about these matters in the
Final report. The last hour of the Estonia is
totally unaccounted for.
22
The visor indicator lamps on
the bridge did not show when the visor was
detached ...
There is no evidence that the visor was ever
detached ... (it is an invention).
23
The ingress of water at the
sides of the partly open bow ramp was observed
on a monitor in the engine control room, but no
information was exchanged with the
bridge.
The Final report contains three testimonies
from crewmembers in the engine control room on
deck 1 that the bow ramp was in the closed
position two minutes after the sudden
rollings/listing, thus water on the car deck
could not have caused the listing. This was
allegedly seen by the seamen in the control
room. Much later the same seamen miraculously
escaped from the control room on deck 1 to deck
8, which was impossible! There is no evidence
that the three witnesses were in the control
room at 0115-0122 hrs. They had probably escaped
much earlier. According to the Final report
there were several telephone calls between
bridge and engine control room (but no
evidence).
As the list developed the
officers of the watch reduced speed and
initiated at turn to port. They also ordered the
engineer to compensate for the list by pumping
ballast, but the pump sucked air and,
furthermore, the tank was almost full. The
officers of the watch also closed the watertight
doors.
There is no evidence of any of these actions
- they are all inventions to add substance to
the official fairy tale. And even if the turn
took place after the visor was lost, the
vessel could never reach the position where she
sank (1 560 m East of the visor). In all
probability the vessel just stopped soon after
the first listing (and the visor never fell
off).
Tecnical matters
There were no detailed design
requirements for bow visors in the rules of
Bureau Veritas, the classification society
concerned, at the time of the building of the
ESTONIA
This Finding is cleverly misleading as a bow
visor locking arrangement is generally not a
responsibility of a classification society (even
if rules are provided to estimate the loads on
the visor). Superstructure and deck house
doors and their locking devices, etc. including
visors in a ship's superstructure's sides is the
responsibility of the maritime administration
(Estonia) as per the International Load Line
Convention 1966.
28
The Finnish Maritime
Administration was, according to a national
decree, exempt from doing hull surveys of
vessels holding valid class certificates issued
by authorised classification
societies.
This Finding is irrelevant. The FNMA
was not concerned with the ESTONIA 1994. And the
visor was not attached to the hull, it was
attached to the superstructure and an important
part of the Load Line (not Hull) surveys done by
the FNMA.
29
The visor locking devices
were not examined by the Finnish Maritime
Administration, nor by Bureau
Veritas.
Another irrelevant Finding. The visor
locking devices were the responsiblity of the
Estonian National Maritime Administration, ENMA
- see 27. But when the ship was under Finnish
flag, evidently the FNMA should have checked the
locks.
30
The visor design load and the
assumed load distribution on the attachments did
not take realistic wave impact
loads into account.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading. It would appear that the design load
used by the yard/classification society (a head
of water times the total horizontal area of the
visor) >535 tons far exceeded any real
buoyancy and impact loads to be encountered in
service. The wave impact loads in the Final report are
based on manipulated
model tests and simulations. The
JAIC furthermore never presented any
calculations how wave impact loads would have
been transmitted to the ship's superstructure by
the 'attachments'.
The visor locking devices
installed were not manufactured in accordance
with the design intentions.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading. It would appear that the locking
devices could withstand the design
load/intentions as it worked well during 14
years in service. The JAIC never investigated if
the Atlantic lock were damaged before the
accident and out of order (which would appear to
have been the case!).
No safety margin was
incorporated in the total load carrying capacity
of the visor attachement system.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading - see 30 - and if it were the
case, the Estonian NMA was responsible.
33
The attachment system as
installed was able to withstand a
resultant wave force only slightly above
the design load used.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading. The Final report does not even
present a calculation how either a wave
buoyancy or a wave impact load on
the visor is transmitted to the superstructure
via the 'attachment system', the latter which is
not even defined.
35
Wave impact loads
generated on the night of the accident
exceeded the combined strength of the visor
attachments.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading - see 30 and 33. It would appear
that wave impact loads in a sea state Beaufort 7
with 4 m significant wave height (thus not even
a storm) would be insignificant (and that the
model tests and simulations had to manipulated
to show something else -see 36).
36
Wave impact
loads on the visor increased very
quickly with increasing significant wave height,
while forward speed had a smaller effect on the
loads.
Not proven in the Final report and
misleading - see 30 and 33. The model
tests and the simulations are false. It is of
course a scandal that a recognized ship model
test institute (SSPA Marin AB, Gothenburg,
Sweden) produces a false model test report, but
it remains a fact. The model tests cannot be
re-done by any other independent institution!
The SOLAS requirements for an
upper extension of the collision bulkhead were
not satisfied.
Irrelevant as the ship did not collide
(except with waves). Evidently the existing bow
ramp in the superstructure would have
acted as the upper extension of the existing
collision bulkhead fitted in the hull in
a real collision with another ship or
object.
The general maintenance
standard of the visor was satisfactory.
Existing minor maintenance deficiencies were not
significant factors in the accident.
Not proven - only based on statements
of un-named witnesses.
Information to the effect that the visor did not
fit and could not be locked due to wear and tear
or previous contacts has not been
investigated.
Evacuation
The time available for
evacuation was very short, between 10 and 20
minutes.
Strange Finding. If the ship started to list
slowly at 0115 hrs as stated by the JAIC and the
list was 40° at 0125 hrs due to >2 000
tons of water in the superstructure, the time to
evacuate must have been less than 10 minutes, as
it is impossible to walk on a ship's deck with
list >18°. But if the loss of stability
and sudden heeling >30° took place at
about 0102 hrs and if the ship later was stable
for a fairly long time at 15° list, then
there was time for many persons to evacuate
until 0122 hrs. The suggestion that
approximately 300 people reached the open deck
means that the JAIC development of the list
cannot have taken place as stated.
42
The lifesaving equipment in
many cases did not function as intended.
Lifeboats could not be lowered.
This Finding is a scandal. The
lifesaving equipment was not as per recognized
(SOLAS) rules. Most of the passengers were
assumed only to jump into the water and try to
swim ashore or to a life raft that somebody was
supposed to throw into the water!
Of the approximately 300
people who reached the open deck, some 160
succeded in climbing into liferafts, and a few
climbed onto capsized lifeboats. Helicopters
rescued 104 people, and vessels rescued
34.
Another scandalous Finding. 99% of the
survivors had to jump into the water to get off
the sinking ship to survive in the first place -
extremely few climbed into any life raft
and none onto a capsized lifeboat. How do you
climb onto a capsized lifeboat from a
sinking and listing ship?
Actually there was no realistic evacuation plan
at all! In any event a majority of
persons aboard had to jump into the sea to
survive!
As can be seen from above table the JAIC makes a big
issue that wave impact loads on the Estonia
fore ship/visor attached to the superstructure in a
sea state with 4 m significant wave height (not even a
storm) far exceeded what would have been expected and that
the actual attachment system could not withstand the
resultant wave force.
Falsified Model Tests
Actually it is quite simple to demonstrate that the
alleged wave impact loads on the visor, gained from Swedish
model tests and Finnish simulations done by the JAIC, are
falsified (increased) by a factor of at least five! The
model tests ordered by
the JAIC and carried out by Messrs. SSPA Marin AB model test
basin, Gothenburg, Sweden, are falsified and cannot be
re-done by any other model test basin! Nor can the
simulations be re-done by any scientist! Just by visual
inspection of a similar ship in the same sea state B7 and
waves 4.2 meters confirms that the visor is hardly
submerged, when pitching into the waves and that wave
impacts on the visor high above the waterline are very rare
(seldom heard) and of small magnitude and does not even lift
the visor from its attachments! There is no way that
waves of 4.2 m significant height could have knocked off the
visor of the ESTONIA in September 1994! This is the central
lie of the whole cover-up! But in more severe weather B9
and waves 6 meters it is another story! If the ferry bow
then hits a wave it is heard like a big BANG all over the
ship and you must slow down.
10 years of patriotic
Lies
But how could the JAIC get away with its report of lies?
It is extremely simple! The Swedish government appointed
three Swedish investigators that were told to blame the
accident on the visor (that story was ready beforehand for
obscure reasons not developed here) in a totally secret and
illegal investigation and not on the real cause - hull
leakage (which would have been much simpler). It was easy to
put social pressure on the investigators - an affirmative
patriotic culture adapted to the political power - so that
they started to lie of patriotic reasons to protect what
they thought were Swedish interests. They were patriotic
liers, and it was the same patriotism that silenced them
(and killed one of them) when they were faced with their
lies. Not one investigtor was later able to explain/prove
any essential Finding in the Final report. But other
patriotic liers were prepared to stand up and support the
lying investigators and the large Swedish public was
generally happy. Consensus is part of the Swedish mind and
media, because Sweden is a small country with few
alternatives. Either you support the outrageous lies of the
leaders or you are destroyed unless you can leave the
country and defend the truth elsewhere. It is evidently
simpler to join the lying majority than to tell the Truth
alone. The Board of Psychological Defence assists of course
to cover up official lies in Sweden. Finland and Estonia are
the same; even smaller countries with the same narrow minds
as Sweden and even fewer alternatives and they were very
happy or forced to play along. The whole manipulation was
carried out by a dedicated few people. As basic stability
calculations confirmed that the whole official sequence of
events was false, all JAIC stability
calculations had to be falsified. When that failed,
admiral Rosenius had to step in to produce a falsified water
filling study 2003.
Pictures of Damages caused by
Explosives
In order to support the visor story Sweden (read the
Swedish Navy) had to remove the visor from the wreck
under water the first week after the accident using
explosives. The explosive
damages seen on underwater films, e.g. the
big hole in the starboard side of the superstructure bow
ramp frame (officially undamaged according to the
JAIC), are caused by these actions after the
accident! Quite a story that probably will be told one day!
But first the patriotic liers of Sweden, Finland and Estonia
and their Final report must be taken to pieces by the legal
Court at Paris.
