According to a report
dated 23 April 2022 is the structural damages of
the forward bulkhead of the Estonia caused by an
explosion and explosives under water, i.e. the visor
didn"t drop off due to "wave impacts"!
ooOoo
'The vessel was on
the starboard side, i.e. the heel was about 90°, at
about 01.30 hours (several witnesses) and continued to heel
to starboard until she was, probably at about 01.40 hours,
completely upside down with the stern deep down and the bow
rising higher and higher. It has to be assumed that the
visor fell off by gravity once the vessel had turned far
enough, probably to 130°/140°, when the forepeak
deck sticking in the visor bottom and also the bow ramp did
not support the visor anymore. It has to be assumed that the
foundation of the fully extended starboard actuator broke
when becoming exposed to the full weight of the
visor.'
UPDATE to the INVESTIGATION REPORT ON THE
CAPSIZING ON 28 SEPTEMBER 1994 IN THE BALTIC SEA OF THE
RO-RO PASSENGER VESSEL MV E S T O N I A by the German 'Group
of Experts' dated May 2000 and available in the Internet
under www.estoniaferrydisaster.netsince that time. THIS UPDATE COVERS THE TIME FROM JUNE
2000 - DECEMBER 2006
The M/S "Estonia" sank in
the Baltic on 28 September 1994 under mysterious
circumstances. At least 852 persons died. The ferry had
frequently carried ex USSR military material from Tallinn to
Stockholm, some of it on behalf of the Swedish Armed Forces.
Immediately, without any evidence, the authorities stated
that the bow visor had caused the accident. However it seems
that the visor had nothing to do with the accident but was
simply removed
from the
wreck under water by the Swedish Armed Forces
after the accident - so you could blame the
accident on the visor. It explains all lies and official
false information about the sinking presented 1994-2005. To
support the official lies many surviving Estonian
crewmembers were kidnapped
by the authorities later on the day of the event. Other
crewmembers were forced to
lie about
what happened. All information was then falsified to support
the official story.
Many persons interested in the 'Estonia' sinking 1994
wonder why Heiwa Co suggests that the visor fitted to the
superstructure was removed under water after
the sinking. Secret Swedish
divings to the wreck took place a few days after
the accident and a few days later the visor was removed!
This page explains how then the investigation was
manipulated.
The JAIC alleges, e.g.
that the visor locks and hinges in the superstructure of the
'Estonia were broken due to ship motions and wave forces,
when the ship was doing 14-15 knots, and
that the then lose visor ripped open the bow ramp,
and
that the visor sank to the bottom, and
that water allegedly entered the superstructure of the ship,
which therefore listed at 01.15 hrs, and
that the ship turned 180° back towards Tallinn,
and
that the ship sank about 35 minutes later 1 560 meters East
of the visor after 01.50 hrs, when four crewmembers in the
water observed
Heiwa Co now concludes, based of the fact that the
Commission lied about the sinking, that the visor was
attached to the 'Estonia' superstructure, when she sank and
that the visor was removed under water after
the accident using explosives and pulling the visor arms
from the deck hinges.
The evidence and the facts of this conclusion of Heiwa
Co, that the visor was attached to the superstructure,
when the ship sank and was later removed under water, are
shown in the book Disaster
Investigation but a summary for easy reference of 21
events is given below:
No.
JAIC allegation
Comments and references
1.
The visor Atlantic lock were broken by a wave
impact on the superstructure (at 00.55 hrs
heard by Linde).
Not proven - the Atlantic lock was
probably damaged before the accident and not
in use - 3.7.
2.
The visor side locks were broken by another
wave impact (at 01.05 hrs).
The visor hinges were broken by wave loads
and ship/visor motions. The visor became lose. Ten
minutes of metallic noise followed.
Not proven or described - 3.9.
Starboard hinge probably broken under water. Nobody
heard the 55 tons heavy visor being lose! Wave
loads acting aft and upwards cannot pull a visor
hinge apart forward.
5.
The visor hinge arm lugs were cutting open
the upper deck of the superstructure.
Not proven - 3.10.
There are no scrape marks on the lugs or on the
underside of the visor arms.
6.
The visor hydraulic pistons were cutting open
the front bulkhead of the superstructure.
Not proven - 3.10.
The very big starboard front bulkhead damages
cannot have been caused by the piston - rather by
explosives - probably below water - and are not
even mentioned by the JAIC.
7.
The ramp was closed and locked before the
accident, so that no water could enter the
superstructure.
Not proven - the ramp locks are
undamaged, 3.10
- and the Gemans suggest that the ramp could not be
locked (it was twisted) in port and that it was
secured by ropes - 3.17
- that could not be torn apart. The ramp was never
open. Attempts have been made to open the ramp
under water. The visor (55 tons) could not jump
over a closed ramp.
8.
The visor pulled open the ramp. Two visor
locking hooks broken and four side locks ripped
apart.
Not possible, not proven - 3.10.
Neither hooks nor locks seem damaged.
9.
The ship was doing 14-15 knots.
Not proven. The radar plot of the ship
has disappeared.
10.
The visor sank to the bottom.
Not proven - 3.11.
The position of the visor 1 560 meters West of the
wreck cannot be correct and is not proven.
11.
Water entered the superstructure (car
deck).
Not proven - would have caused immediate
capsize - 1.9.
12.
The ship listed at 01.15 hrs.
Survivors say it was at 01.02 hrs and that the
ship uprighted after the list - 2.1.
Not physically possible - 1.9
and a lie!
The plot 'proving' the statement is a
falsification.
15.
Crew members saw visor missing, when the ship
sank.
The same crew members lied about their escapes
from the ship - 1.48
- and cannot be trusted. They also testified that
the ramp was closed at 01.30 hrs, when they were in
the water.
.
Observations and facts of Heiwa Co
.
16.
The visor was at the
wreck on sonar pictures on 30 September. The wreck
was probably visited by Swedish divers the same
day.
1.4. Sonar
pictures are not explained by the Commission. The
Swedish divers could probably access the
superstructure via the open starboard pilot door -
1.16.
17.
The visor was filmed at
the wreck on 2 and 9 October.
1.14. From
the video films of 2 October it is clear that the
ROV-camera made a seven minutes trip to what is
assumed to have been the visor (hanging on the
starboard side), but the sequence has been
edited away from
the publicly available copy.
18.
The finding and position of the
visor on 18 October are not
proven.
1.14. No
logbook extract from the finding ship is available.
The visor position is false.
19.
The position of salvage of the
visor mid-November is not
proven.
1.14. The
salvage operation was secret and took probably
place at the wreck.
20.
The official plot of the sequence of accident
between the loss of the visor
and the wreck position is a falsification.
1.9. The plot
is in fact based on the movements of an
undamaged ship with some arbitrary
and false information added - angles of list at
various times, etc.
The best evidence that the visor (right) was
never ripped off the ship, when it was underway, is
evidently the visor itself.
Just look at the scrape marks (there are none)
below the visor hinge arms, on the visor lifting
lugs below the arms and inside the visor housing
and it is clear that no marks on the visor indicate
that it fell off as alleged by the JAIC. There are
also damages (rounded indents) on the visor that
must have been caused by explosives (applied some
distance away).
Had the visor fallen off and ripped open the
ramp as alleged by the JAIC (when the ferry was
under way to Stockholm), the vessel would have
capsized after one minute. The JAIC falsified all
stability calculations to this effect. The simple
conclusion is that the visor was thus attached to
the ship, when it sank.
The visor was probably lose and fell off
sideways over the ramp, when the ship had
>110 degrees starboard list ,when it sank. The
visor then hanged on to the superstructure
by help of the starboard hinge and lifting
hydraulics. To support the false suggestion that
the visor had fallen off before the
accident, the JAIC simply arranged that the visor
was removed from the wreck under water. A
false position of the wreck was announced and
marked by a blue buoy to keep curious
parties away.
The Swedish and Finnish divers doing that
job apparently used explosives to remove the
visor from the superstructure and caused
various damages to the wreck and left one
unexploded explosive device on the port side of the
ramp, where it was filmed on 9 October 1994. When
these damages could not be hidden on the underwater
films taken of the wreck, rumours were spread that
these damages had been caused before the
accident in an attempt to stop the ship. Evidently
by blowing off the visor under way you would not
have sunk the ship. The visor was just a
'decoration' at the forward end of the
superstructure. The weather tightness of the
superstructure was ensured by the ramp,
which was never open.
To support the false allegation that the visor
caused the accident the Commission then spread the
false
information that roro-passenger ferries
with intact underwater hull sink (sic) due
to free water loaded in the superstructure
on the large open roro deck.
Collision
damage on visor
All information about intact and damage stability of
roro-passenger ferries was shamefully falsified. The
standard procedure was using an 'expert', e.g. Mr Hans
Wermelin stating that roro-passenger ships were inherently
unsafe mixing them up with roro-cargo ships. Mr
Wermelin was later paid handsomely writing chapter 10 in the
Final report.
That a roro-passenger ferry has a substantial
freeboard and reserve buoyancy inside a subdivided
hull was not mentioned. Instead it was suggested that
roro-passenger ships were built like roro-cargo
ships, which have minimum freeboard and no reserve
buoyancy or subdivision in the hull at all. And the
International Maritime Organization agreed silently.
Both the official Commission and the German Group of
experts used the same Finnish 'stability' expert Veli-Matti
Junnila of Ship Consulting Ltd. to provide false stability
calculations - e.g. 3.12.
The 'Estonia' never sank due to the visor - she simply
sank due to normal leakage of the hull below the
waterline. The ship was simply unseaworthy without correct
lifesaving equipment and
with watertight doorsthat could not be closed, etc. And this the JAIC and the
Swedish Maritime Administration decided to cover up by
blaming the accident on the visor (and the German
shipyard)!
In order to blame the accident on the visor it simply
had to be removed from the wreck under water.
The visor could not and had not fallen off the ferry
under way. It was a lye from day one convincingly presented
to the public by the media. However, it was not easy to
write an investigation report based on that lye, so every
essential fact in the Final report had to be falsified too.
The three governments of Estonia, Finland and Sweden
cooperated nicely with this dirty job.
It is an unprecedented scandal in the history of
marine accident investigations. Why did the Commission lye
and write a totally false Final report for more than three
years? How could the International Maritime Organization
believe it? And it is very sad that serious mariners and
naval architects have not protested during seven years to
have the matter corrected.
that the visor locks and hinges in the superstructure of the
'Estonia were broken due to ship motions and wave forces,
when the ship was doing 14-15 knots, and