Baltic Ferry Disaster, 1994

[chrisjpainter]

Anyone remember this? In 1994 a passenger car ferry sank in the Baltic, claiming 852 of the 989 lives on board. The line at the time was the bow loading door was ripped off in heavy seas, causing catastrophic flooding. The site was declared a maritime grave and no one was to disturb it. The bodies weren't even recovered, despite it being perfectly possible, according to one of the divers who was asked to observe the wreck. 

Well, there's going to be a new enquiry. A Swedish film maker broke the rules and sent a drone down. He's been acquitted of disturbing a grave and now his evidence has led to the promise of a full public enquiry. Why? Because he found a whacking great hole in the side of the boat that experts believe was something with massive force punching through the hull, outside to inside.

This one could have legs. A lot of countries, the UK included, were very quick to sweep this under the carpet at the time.

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Video rips a hole through official ruling on disaster in Baltic Sea | World | The Times

[chrisjpainter]

Full article, minus a couple of photos...

'The ferry left port carrying 989 souls and the pride of a nation. The new, German-built vessel was the largest ship flying the flag of Estonia and, in 1994, was a symbol of the new state’s independence.

Force eight winds blew waves up to six metres, but this was the Baltic in autumn. No other ferries had cancelled and the 15-hour Tallinn-Stockholm crossing would take its usual 15 hours.

Just over six hours in, passengers heard a loud noise, variously described as one or two bangs that sounded like the ship hitting rocks or ploughing through ice. They felt it shudder and said that it began to list almost immediately.

Within an hour the Estonia lay at the bottom of the Baltic taking 852 lives, Europe’s worst maritime disaster since the Second World War.

In the 26 years since, the sinking has never been explained, at least not to the satisfaction of the 137 survivors and the bereaved families. Their scepticism was heightened by the discovery of a mysterious hole in the ferry’s hull.

A court ruling this week has revived calls for a full inquiry. Relatives are threatening to launch a private investigation because they don’t trust government pledges to re-examine the case.

Lennart Berglund, head of the Swedish Estonia relatives association, told The Times the official conclusion that the sinking was caused by the bow door being wrenched open in a stormy sea was wrong. The ruling was marred by both incompetence and a cover-up.

Some witnesses said that they saw seawater flooding in from below the car deck, that the ramp behind the torn-off bow visor was closed and not letting in much water and that the ship began listing crucial minutes earlier than the report stated.

The 4m by 1.2m hole recently found by a Swedish film crew has revived speculation about the cause. Suspicion has ranged over the years from a collision, possibly with a submarine, to wild conspiracy theories such as an on board explosion triggered by Russia’s military establishment to stop Soviet missile technology being smuggled out of Estonia by British agents.

The Joint Accident Investigation Commission of Estonia, Finland and Sweden declared in its final report in 1997 that the ship capsized because water flooded the car deck through the broken bow.

Berglund said, however, that pressure for a new public inquiry had mounted after a court this week acquitted two Swedish filmmakers charged with violating the sanctity of the wreck when they examined it with an underwater drone and found the gash in its side.

Their Discovery Channel documentary Estonia: the Find that Changes Everything, released last September, has prompted the three countries to promise a new investigation.

That will take time because it entails amending a 1995 agreement signed by the governments of Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the UK declaring the site a marine grave and prohibiting further exploration of the wreckage. It will be up to Estonia to lead a new inquiry.

“We hear signals from Estonia that the investigation will probably be in early 2022,” Berglund said. “We think that’s a little late so we will certainly use the opportunity now to put some pressure on the government.”

“With the acquittal it could be an opportunity for us to do a private investigation. We have no trust in what the authorities are doing.

“We were not surprised that they found the hole because there had to be one. It was a cover-up from somebody, how high up I don’t know, but somebody knew about this hole for sure. It could not have been missed.”

Henrik Evertsson, the director of the documentary, and Linus Andersson, a deep sea analyst, were cleared by a court in Gothenburg on Monday because they had chartered a German-flagged boat for the dive. Germany did not sign the treaty on the sanctity of the Estonia.

Evertsson told The Times that he had received hundreds of messages from survivors and relatives of the deceased since the documentary was aired.

“They said that for the first time someone is listening to us,” he said. “This is not only about the causes of the accident but also the mishandling of the whole process, for example the promise by the Swedish prime minister to salvage both the wreck and the bodies which is something they then turned 180 degrees on.”

The international agreement in 1995 to ban any further exploration of the wreckage on penalty of two years in prison defied calls to raise the wreck and bury the dead. It stoked rumours that governments may have something to hide, as did a Swedish proposal to cover the whole vessel in a concrete shell. Sweden eventually backed down after a public outcry.

Divers from the company Rockwater were contracted to explore the wreck in December 1994. The documentary said that they were not instructed to conduct a systematic examination of the hull and expressed surprise at the decision not to sal

Stewart Rumbles, a British diver involved, said: “There were dead bodies everywhere . . . people trying to escape out of the doors, some people in dressing gowns running out of their cabins.

“They were actually still in relatively in good condition. Some of them had lipstick on still fresh as two months before. To not actually recover those bodies, it was upsetting. As divers we could have brought them up. It would have taken a few hours, wouldn’t have been a problem.”

The divers recorded 125 bodies. “They could have taken them up to the surface,” Evertsson said. “But they had orders not to do so. That is something that has created a wound.”

The ferry left Tallinn at 18.30 on September 27. The 803 passengers were mostly Swedish, the 186 crew mainly Estonian.

The official report concluded that the bang heard by passengers was caused by a wave hitting the bow visor which minutes later, at 01.14, was torn off, lowering the watertight ramp behind it and allowing water to rush in. The report claimed that only then did the ship start listing.

“The listing was worsening jerkily,” Sara Hedrenius, a survivor, said. “I knew something wasn’t right, this wasn’t going to end well.”

Yasmina Weidinger said: “Many were losing their grip and footing and slid to the other end of the boat.”

The alarm did not sound until about 01.20, by which time the ship was listing so badly that many people in cabins could not reach the boat deck and water was pouring through shattered windows. At 01.29 the Estonia was listing 60 degrees and dispatched its last radio call: “Really bad, it looks really bad here now.”

At 01.50 the ferry sank, stern first. The last people hanging on to the hull were left in the cold, storm-tossed sea or dragged to its depths. Most of the survivors were young men.

Those whose testimony was ignored included Carl Eric Reintamm, who was in one of the cheaper cabins under the car deck. He reported seeing seawater that was not

He rushed up the stairs and said that he was the first to reach the upper deck. “I looked down and saw something strange in the water,” he told the documentary. “I saw something white that was several metres long and wide, and it was moving to the left while waves were rolling over it.

“I never served in the military, I have no idea what a submarine looks like in the water, the weather was dark. I don’t know if a submarine can appear brighter than the water but obviously the vessel hit something.”

Evertsson said one marine expert claimed that the Estonia would not have sunk so quickly if only its car deck had been flooded. Air pockets under the car deck would have caused it to float upside down.

He decided to defy the diving ban in 2019. The discovery by the little drone of the gash in the starboard side facing the clay seabed came as a surprise, he said.

He asked: “How could they have missed that? We knew this was important new information because it was not mentioned in the official report.”

Frank Borresen, a Norwegian Navy munitions expert shown images of the hole, said that it was unlikely to have resulted from an explosion because there was not enough displacement of metal. “Based on the images and graphics it seems like an external force pushed into the side of the hull,” he said.

Jorgen Amdahl, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, estimated that to punch such a hole into the hull would have required a force equivalent to a 1,000 tonne ship travelling at four knots or a 5,000 tonne ship travelling at 1.9 knots.

The hole could also have been made by the ship hitting a rock on the sea bed — but the bed appears to be smooth in that area,

“To create this kind of damage you need a lot of force and mass,” Evertsson said. “I wish I could give you an answer on what caused it but we lack that knowledge and if there’s anything the Estonia disaster doesn’t need it’s more speculation.”

Any new investigation will have to examine how the hole ties together with the bow visor being torn off. If there were no connection, the two events occurring within minutes of each other would be some coincidence.

Evertsson said that he hoped the new probe would shed further light on the disaster. It may, though, remain a mystery “like the JFK assassination or TWA Flight 800”. For Berglund, the Swedish relatives’ spokesman who lost his parents-in-law on the Estonia, there is only one way to find the truth. “They will have to raise the entire wreck.”

David Crossland, Berlin. Friday February 12 2021, 5.00pm, The Times

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Shocking.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, is the consensus a Russian Sub ?

[Newbie to this]

Hopefully they get the truth and some closure. But if it was a cover up, I expect it will remain one.

[12gauge82]

11 minutes ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, is the consensus a Russian Sub ?

I think the person uncovering this doesn't want to add more speculation and harm the families so rather than guessing has called for an inquiry. There was an eyewitness report that was rubbished at the time, he said he saw a white vessel, or brighter than the water, under the ship, so a sub is a good bet, although white sounds a bit odd

[bavarianbrit]

Not sure about this one but I had to return from Zeebrugge to Dover a week after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster and our ferry went alongside the ship still lying on its side in a few metres of water so one third of the hull was out of the water, very moving as I lived in Deal at the time and a lot of locals were lost on it.

[Scully]

8 hours ago, bavarianbrit said:

Not sure about this one but I had to return from Zeebrugge to Dover a week after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster and our ferry went alongside the ship still lying on its side in a few metres of water so one third of the hull was out of the water, very moving as I lived in Deal at the time and a lot of locals were lost on it.

That must have felt strange.

When we were waiting for our ferry to leave the Isle of Man after completion of a contract, a mate and me had a meander and came across the Solway Harvester tied up in the harbour. Very sombre and quite moving. 

[Vince Green]

I remember there was speculation at the time that it hit a sub. So why would there be a need to cover that up?

If it was one of ours why would Russia agree to the cover up and vice versa?

maybe it was an ET?

[Imperfection]

Are submarine collisions common? 

 

[Vince Green]

32 minutes ago, Imperfection said:

Are submarine collisions common? 

 

no they generally only do it the once.

Bigger question might be what else lies on the bottom nearby?  Has anybody looked?

Any sub hitting a ship that big would be very badly damaged, only difference might be subs have extensive damage control procedures and well trained crews.

But no sub I know of is white

It might have been a floating wreck, thats possible, not all ships sink straight to the bottom. Some remain half submerged for weeks, even months 

containers fall off container ships and float for years sometimes.

The thing I am curious about is why so many diverse countries acted so quickly to shut it down 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Vince Green

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Vince, if it was a submarine it will NOT be laying on the bottom nearby, it will have been quietly moved years ago.

[Rob85]

Remember this one, i was only 9 when this boat went down and it's one I always remembered. Was always told ny shipyard workers that ro/ro ferries are a dodgy design with how they react when water gets into the car decks, they tend to flip over pretty quickly.

[chrisjpainter]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Vince, if it was a submarine it will NOT be laying on the bottom nearby, it will have been quietly moved years ago.

Assuming it sank, yeah. The bit about Sweden offering to cover it in concrete was bizarre. I've never heard of that suggestion on any other maritime grave; why start with this one?

I'm just wondering what the political ramifications would be if a Russian sub hit it. Fresh out of the cold war, desperate to make friends across Europe, but then a sub accidentally sinks a ferry by striking it. Would they be desperate enough to avoid an international political disaster by getting big player countries to sweep it under the carpet...or concrete?

Edited February 13, 2021 by chrisjpainter

[12gauge82]

It was well known at the time that ferry was being used to smuggle recently fallen USSR weapons and secrets out of Estonia. The Russians had threatened to "take action" if the UK didn't pack it in. Its not much of a leap of imagination to guess what happened whether by an accident or intentional act. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

39 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

It was well known at the time that ferry was being used to smuggle recently fallen USSR weapons and secrets out of Estonia. The Russians had threatened to "take action" if the UK didn't pack it in. Its not much of a leap of imagination to guess what happened whether by an accident or intentional act. 

Well known? Really!

[JDog]

47 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

It was well known at the time that ferry was being used to smuggle recently fallen USSR weapons and secrets out of Estonia. The Russians had threatened to "take action" if the UK didn't pack it in. Its not much of a leap of imagination to guess what happened whether by an accident or intentional act. 

Fact check please. Can you quote any sources?

[12gauge82]

16 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Well known? Really!

Appoliges, well known by the Russians and Wisley accepted now. 

[12gauge82]

12 minutes ago, JDog said:

Fact check please. Can you quote any sources?

I've had a very look around on google, there is an official Swedish report that admits the Swedish were doing it and its no secret when the USSR fell, half the western world were grabbing whatever they could before bent Russia officals sold everything on the black market anyway. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

9 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

I've had a very look around on google, there is an official Swedish report that admits the Swedish were doing it and its no secret when the USSR fell, half the western world were grabbing whatever they could before bent Russia officals sold everything on the black market anyway. 

I quite agree, but most of it didn't go on the ferry route!

[12gauge82]

56 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

I quite agree, but most of it didn't go on the ferry route!

No but lots of it did. 

[henry d]

On 13/02/2021 at 08:08, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, is the consensus a Russian Sub ?

I would doubt it was a submarine in seas of that size as they don't react well unlike a ship with stabilisers, gyros etc in those seas they would be well down the water column.

[NoBodyImportant]

Wasn’t there a theory that a military sub hit it by accident or something.  

[harrycatcat1]

What an intriguing story, I have to admit I can't remember it.

[chrisjpainter]

On 14/02/2021 at 21:38, NoBodyImportant said:

Wasn’t there a theory that a military sub hit it by accident or something.  

There's ALWAYS a theory about military subs hitting things! This time though, it has the air of practicality to it too. Given the date and location, it's not a stretch to see how it could happen, whose sub it was (Russian...) and why it might be covered up.