'Governments should take all necessary steps to ensure that they have available sufficient means and suitably qualified personnel and material resources to enable them to undertake casualty investigations'.
Imo Res. A.849(20) 11
1.3 The false Position of the Wreck is announced
During the night to Wednesday 28 September 1994, just before the alleged 'accident', i.e. the sudden listing due to water loaded on the no. 2 car deck several, 2,5, meters above waterline, systems engineer Henrik Sillaste attended, as he has testified, a compartment inside the hull on deck 0 below and forward of the Engine Control Room, ECR, on deck 1. He said that he was repairing a fault in the vacuum toilet system. 1.48 about his trustworthiness - it is clear that Sillaste is lying or is being quoted incorrectly or that his written testimonies have been changed or manipulated.
The fault is not described in the Final Report.
The writer thinks that Sillaste is describing something he had repaired previously in port. It is probable that he had been called down to do something more urgent, e.g. 2.23. Sillaste has later told Estonian journalists that he is incorrectly quoted in the Final Report (5). This is very good. Sillaste knows exactly what happened. But he has not yet told the full truth.
So let's assume that Sillaste was repairing a fault in the vacuum toilet system. Let's assume that the vacuum toilet system manifold was installed adjacent to the two sewage tanks on deck 0 adjacent to the conference rooms - see Figure 1.3.1 in this window Plan of decks 0 and 1 and below:
The strange Story of Sillaste
According to the edited testimonies (chapter 6.2.4 in (5)) which the Commission has included in the Final Report Sillaste had been called upon at 00.30 hrs (according a later hearing it was 00.45 hrs to suit another scenario) and the innocent repair work, which had nothing to do with the 'accident' had taken about 20-25 minutes. Then the 'Estonia' was suddenly shaken by some impacts and heeled over according to Sillaste 2.1.
While all other passengers were stricken by panic and tried to escape - they all reported a sudden listing >30° to starboard- Sillaste returned quietly - as he says - after one or two minutes up to the ECR on deck 1, where oiler Kadak and third engineer Treu already were in place.
Sillaste had not suspected anything unusual before or after the 'accident' - the listing. Only some 'strange' noises. Therefore he apparently walked to the ECR to find out what was going on. Sillaste was calm, e.g. didn't rush straight up to open decks to save his life. No, Sillaste walked to the ECR.
We do not know or are told how Sillaste returned to the ECR. Referring to fig. 1.3.1 above and below it seems logical that Sillaste would have rushed into the stairwell adjacent to the sewage tanks and climbed up to deck 1:
Then he could walk back on deck 1 in the centreline corridor to the ECR via three open watertight doors - but then he would have met a lot of passengers 2.12 screaming for help on deck 1. Alternatively Sillaste could have walked back on deck 0 through three, assumed open, watertight doors to the generator room below the ECR and taken a vertical ladder up to the ECR, or proceeded into the engine room aft (via another watertight door), up a sloping ladder and then into the ECR (via another watertight door).
Regardless what way Sillaste took - he was probably not in the sewage tank room but in the engine room - he states that he returned to the ECR without meeting any passengers. He does not mention the watertight doors but they must have been open, as his colleagues state in other hearings that the watertight doors were closed long after the 'accident' occurred (even if they had no means to know it).
The Bow Ramp is closed
On the car deck monitor in the ECR, which then showed the bow ramp from inside, Sillaste saw, and it is clearly described, how water leaked in at both sides of the closed but not tight bow ramp at least two minutes after the sudden listing 1.30, i.e. the ramp was not open. This is a very strange observation. All other passengers had reported a sudden, >30° listing, and were rushing up to open decks, while Sillaste instead calmly looks at a monitor of a closed ramp. In a later testimony Sillaste said that engineer Treu had asked him to check the car deck via the monitor. The cars were in place and Sillaste could not see any water on it (he saw the roofs of the cars), even if some water apparently was leaking in at the ramp. The light was still on on the car deck.
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Sillaste was certain that 3rd engineer Treu had seen that water entered at the closed ramp and Treu has testified to this effect - the ramp was closed after the sudden listing. At the last questioning Sillaste was requested to sketch what he had seen in the monitor. It is the sketch, figure 6.1 in the Final Report (5) - figure 1.3.2 to the right, showing a closed and leaking ramp! Henrik Sillaste is a consistent observer. In total five hearings he told, with minor exceptions in details, the same story. The first questioning (2) was held nineteen hours after the accident by Finnish police (Jari Paakkari) with director/master mariner Simo Aarnio 1.5 from the Finnish NMA present as expert and an Estonian interpreter. What Sillaste says is that, when he was on deck 0 '...I noticed that something was wrong because the ship heeled over to starboard'. Can we believe that? Didn't Sillaste observe anything before the heel to starboard? Was he really fixing the toilet system? Where was he? |
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"water entered at the sides of the ramp, more on the starboard side".
It is thus clear that the ramp was still closed two minutes after the first sudden strong listing >30 degrees had occurred. Sillaste never saw an open ramp. Sillaste says later in (2) that
' My opinion is that Treu then had told the bridge that water was entering the ship. The bilge pumps were running to pump out the water'.
The Bilge Pumps
Notice that Sillaste talks about 'bilge pumps' and 'water was entering the ship'. In the Final Report (5) this is described as follows:
"While he (Sillaste) was still in the control room, the systems engineer (Sillaste) heard the bridge ask if it was possible to upright the ship. He (Sillaste) thought that the third engineer at that time had informed the bridge that water came in on the car deck. The pumps were on to get the water out. Then the ferry heeled more and lose objects fell around him".
Note that the Final Report (5) speaks, apart from an open ramp, about water on the car deck, while Sillaste (2) talks about water entering the ship = the hull below the car deck. Note the sentence: 'The pumps were on to get the water out (from the car deck)' . What pumps? Water on the car deck inside the superstructure above the waterline flowed out by gravity through scuppers. There were no pumps with suction from the car deck and the superstructure 2,5 meters above the waterline and Sillaste knew this!
The six bilge pumps of the 'Estonia's were situated below the car deck with suction only from the bilges of the hull six meters below the car deck in each watertight compartment. So if the bilge pumps were running, there was water in one, two - or more! - watertight compartments on deck 0 below the car deck 2 in the hull! It is clear that the Commission in the Final report (5) changes the statement of Sillaste to make the illogical impression that water was pumped out from the superstructure.
Sillaste had worked 18 months aboard the 'Estonia'. He knew the various systems. When did Henrik Sillaste give his observation about the bilge pumps? According to documents with the Commission it was at the first questioning (2), nineteen hours after the accident:
"The bilge pumps were on to get the water out".
Five days later he repeats it for the Estonian police:
"The bilge pumps were on to pump out the water" (act D13).
That the bilge pumps were running is evidence that the hull, decks 0 and 1, of the 'Estonia' was leaking and that the hull plates were damaged. The Final Report (5) does not mention the bilge pumps of the hull 1.24 at all!
The Final Report (5) has censored all information about the bilge pumps pumping the hull bilges on deck 0 dry in order to support the history of water on the no. 2 car deck in the superstructure above the hull. It is quite easy to reveal this falsification of the Final report.
Another question is: Who started the bilge pumps? And when were they started. And why?15
Panic among the Passengers - Calm in the ECR
The staff in the ECR, Treu, Sillaste and Kadak, is alleged to have talked four times to the bridge about, i.a. uprighting the ship after the listing.
It was then full panic onboard to get out from the passenger accommodation public spaces, but on the bridge the crew allegedly talked calmly to the crew in the ECR. Can we believe that? Of course not.
No alarm had been sent from the bridge at that time. According to the surviving passengers 2.1 the ship had suddenly listed a lot >30° (at 01.02 hrs) and uprighted and reached a position with a list <15° and then the passengers had immediately started to evacuate to open decks, but the Final report (5) states that the only crew action on the bridge was to telephone the ECR (at 01.16 hrs) and ask if you could ballast the ship upright. It does not make any sense! The vessel was already almost upright. Otherwise you could not get out!
Why Sillaste was called down
It is of course possible that the engine crew knew that the ship was leaking and that Sillaste had been called down to assist isolating the leakage and starting the bilge pumps just before the sudden listing took place. The logical way to do this was to close the watertight doors around the leaking compartment, e.g. the sewage tanks or the stabilizer room - and to start the bilge pumps! You normally start bilge pumps, when one hull compartment is leaking and filling with water. The Commission mentions nothing of this sort.
According to the Final Report Sillaste and his colleagues stayed at least another seven minutes 1.48 in the ECR, before alarms were given at 01.22 hrs and their evacuation took place a few minutes later, but there are no statements or evidence to the effect that Sillaste saw an open ramp in the superstructure. Or that he was in the ECR for that matter! No normal person stays down in a bottom of a ship, that is sinking.
The writer thinks that Sillaste escaped immediately to the open deck after the sudden listing, wherever he was, probably in the engine room. The sudden listing was maybe caused when the bridge by mistake opened the watertight doors around the leaking compartment and water spread, e.g. into the engine room - and the list developed - and when Sillaste was suddenly standing to his knees in water - in the engine room.
Thus he never looked at the monitor in the ECR and never heard any conversation with the bridge. His testimony is not trustworthy. It is probable that the Commission has made up his story (Sillaste has later told Estonian journalists that the Commission has falsified his (already false?) testimony).
Speculations - Falsification of History
Because in spite of the fact that Sillaste the 28 September told the Finnish police and the Commission that he thought the 'Estonia' sank due to leakage, the biggest newspaper in Sweden - Dagens Nyheter, DN, speculated the following day (29.09.94)
'Water on the car deck is a possible cause',
and supported this speculation or guess by
'Most experts (sic) agreed on Wednesday night that the tragedy was caused by water ... on the car deck'.
Who actually told the media about water on the car deck in the superstructure is not clear. And no names of any experts were given then or later. The falsification of History had started at full speed - supported by un-named 'experts'.
Mr Erik Wedin of the Swedish NMA disagreed and was quoted that
'...it alone could not have caused the catastrophe'.
Further according to DN
'During the Wednesday it was clear that there were only two probable causes for the catastrophe: (1) water has entered through one of the doors or (2) the ship ended up sideways in the seas after all four engines had stopped (and the cargo shifted)'.
Why it was clear that there were only two probable causes was naturally not explained.
Wermelin and the Visor 28 September 1994
A person named Hans Wermelin told DN 28 September 1994 that
'the visor has been ripped off!'.
Wermelin was a technical consultant at Stockholm working for Baltic ferry companies with company ADC Support, which later got various jobs by the Commission. Wermelin was paid SEK 140 000:- for writing Chapter 10 of the Final Report (5). How Hans Wermelin already on 28 September - the day of the accident - could know that the visor had been ripped off is one of the mysteries of the 'Estonia' disaster.
DN also informed that Swedish Prime Minister
'Carl Bildt knew personally several persons aboard. Bildt was informed at 01.30 hrs (Swedish time).16 … we must check everything (varje sten måste vändas på'),
Bildt told DN (more about Bildt in 4.4). Lethola 1.5 said that Sillaste should have said that
'a cover on the car deck has permitted water to get in'.
But according to the police report (2) Sillaste had never talked about a leaking cover on the car deck, but that the closed bow ramp at the forward end of the superstructure was leaking, there was water in the ship and that the bilge pumps were running. Who Mr Bildt knew aboard has never been published!
It is interesting to note how the media concentrated the interest on the unbelievable water-on-the-car-deck-in-the-superstructure-2,5 meters-above-waterline story and never mentioned the word leakage, bilge pumps and watertight doors/bulkheads of the hull below waterline or why a ship is actually floating. The instability of a ship with lose water loaded on top of the car deck in the superstructure was not reported 28/29 September or later. It could only have caused capsize - the ship turning upside down - or more likely - nothing! The water should have flown out when the ship stopped.
The Commission was then busy trying finding the wreck.17 The wreck was officially found 30 September p.m.
The Commission 1.5 apparently had a first or second informal meeting on Thursday 29 September at police headquarters at Turku between 08.30 - 20.30 hrs (act A1). In the morning only Lehtola, Iivonen, Aarnio, Forssberg, Rosengren, Stenström, Anderson and Göransson were present. At 09.00 hrs there was a press conference (about the rescue work). At 14.00 hrs Meister, J. Kreek and Enn Neidre and another Estonian (Indrek Tarand?) joined the meeting (Neidre had probably arrived to Turku the day before). Later Karppinen arrived. They questioned three Estonian crewmembers. There are no records of the meeting.
According to the Final Report (5) chapter 8.2:
"At its first meeting on 29 September 1994 (i.e. before the wreck was found) the Commission decided that the wreck should be examined with a submarine Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to ascertain her general condition and whether the bow visor had been detached (sic)".
Thus - the visor scenario was clearly established by the Commission already on 29 September - before the wreck had been found (sic) or filmed - and later no other damages or causes were going to be examined or investigated.
The reader should note that already on the day of the accident (28 September) Mr Wermelin had suggested that the visor had been ripped off and on the following day the Commission, which was not yet formed, decided that an ROV should ascertain that the visor had been detached. But the wreck had not been found! Isn't strange?
Strange Meetings
The Finnish and Swedish members of the Commission and observer Sten Anderson and expert Simo Aarnio had another informal meeting on 30 September 1994 at Turku, i.e. the Estonians and a Danish observer were not present, when a number of questions were reviewed (the wreck was still not found):18
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1. … Discussion about partition of jobs … Loading = Estonia + Sweden, … , Pass.list = Finland, … , Weather = Estonia (but … ). 2. … (about exchange of info per fax), 3. …(about the next meeting), 4. …(about records of meetings), 5. Estonias involvement with NATO/Russia about the wreck. 6. … (how to handle the public media), 7. …(about an archive), 8. Swedish Accident Investigation Board members visit Nordström och Thulin this afternoon. Load plan. 9. … (about a meeting with the Swedish NMA), 10. …(about air rescue), 11. …(about contact with Estonia), 12. …(about hearings), 13. Discussion about the necessity to guard the wreck. 14. … (about crew alarm), 15. …(about plans and drawings of the ship - they are in Finland), 16. Finally: The Helsinki newspaper writes that one of the Estonian members of the Commission is involved with illegal arms trade! |
There is no protocol or record from the meeting - only the order of the meeting above - with so many interesting topics. The Swedish and Finnish members of the Commission did not discuss the salvage of dead bodies or the causes of accident (water on the car deck in the superstructure, lost visor?) and Mr Simo Aarnio did not inform that the 'Estonia' was leaking according to statements by Mr Sillaste two days earlier.
Instead it seems that they discussed the partition of jobs (sic), the cargo aboard (loading, loading plan), the wreck (Estonia's involvement with NATO/Russia, guarding the wreck - which was not yet found) and a newspaper article that one Estonian member was involved in illegal arms trade.
Why the Commission at the meeting did not question survivors (passengers and crew) present at Turku about what had happened aboard is not known.
They discussed 'contact Estonia', i.e. they did not know who the Estonian investigators were - they were officially not appointed until the 10 October 1.5.
The behaviour of the Swedish and Finnish members of the Commission on 30 September 1994 is very strange. Instead of interviewing survivors what had happened and calculate stability with water in the superstructure they bureaucratically met and discussed the partition of jobs - and Estonia's involvement with NATO/Russia (?) - and the necessity of guarding the wreck (how?) - and that an Estonian member of the Commission (who?) is involved with illegal arms trade (!), if you shall believe the written order of the meeting (act A2).
Why would the Commission concern itself with guarding the wreck? From what? What had it to do with the accident investigation?
What Estonian member of the Commission was trading in arms? What Helsinki newspaper reported that?
The false Wreck Position
At the same time of this unusual meeting the wreck was found on the 30 September.19 While the Estonian Foreign office informed at 18.00 hrs GMT that a Swedish ship was still searching for the wreck, Radio Sweden had already announced that the Finnish (navy) vessel 'Suunta' had found the wreck at 15.00 hrs GMT. The wreck was first scanned by sonar, probably on 30th September, and later filmed by an ROV on 2 October 1994 1.4 by the Finnish vessel 'Halli' and reported to be in position N59°23'54.60" (N59°23.9'), E21°42'10.20" (E21°42.2') by the head of the Finnish investigators team, Kari Lehtola.
This position was later found to be false 1.14! The reason for the false wreck position has never been explained. Maybe the Finnish vessel 'Halli' didn't know how to establish a position at sea? Or more likely - the Swedish war ship HMS 'Furusund' or HMS 'Urd' and its divers were examining the wreck to prepare for the removal of the visor still attached to it.
Sonar pictures were immediately taken of the wreck, but the media was not permitted to see copies of the pictures, which evidently could not show dead bodies, etc. The Commission stated that the sonar pictures were 'difficult to interpret', but everybody who knows what a sonar picture looks like knows that it is quite clear - particularly when it is a 155 meters long wreck with a height 25-30 meters above the sea floor. Mr Lehtola examined the sonar pictures and declared to media that the bow was pointing West and that the wreck was resting on its port side. Later it was found that the bow was pointing East and that the 'Estonia' was resting on its starboard side. It is apparently difficult to interpret sonar pictures.
Wreck isolated - a false Position announced
The wreck, and probably also the visor (!) 1.4, were found by the Finnish navy already on 30 September 1994 (perhaps earlier by a Swedish ship), but this Mr Kari Lehtola for unknown reasons would not tell the public and the media. It is a fact that Mr Kari Lehtola, chairman of the Finnish AIB, instead told the media a false position of the wreck, i.e. in his own words he 'isolated' the wreck at a position 2 100 meters Northeast of the actual wreck position. You should wonder why a high Finnish civil servant presents lies to the public!
The false wreck position was valid for several months and created confusion. When relatives and survivors arranged an ecumenical ceremony at the 'position of the wreck' on 26 November 1994, it did not take place above the wreck - it was at the false position! Independent safety at sea experts were misled.
The Swedish government (minister Ines Uusmann) later asked the Finnish government why a false position of the wreck had been announced. Lehtola then explained his decision in a letter dated the 11 January 1995 (act 24.408 in the German final report) to the head of department Mr Juhani Korpela of the Ministry of Transport, Helsinki (Trafikministeriet, Helsingfors). Lehtola says that he had
'discussed the matter with his legal colleagues, i.a. with the Swedes Johan Franson and Olof Forssberg. We concluded that ... I (Lehtola) had been touching the outermost limits of my responsibilities'.
Korpela certainly informed his superiors (the government) what Lehtola had written, but then nothing happened. The Finnish government accepted that Lehtola simply had lied, after discussing with Franson and Forssberg, about the position of the 'Estonia' wreck for several months and permitted him to continue to head the Finnish investigation. Naturally the Finns informed Swedish minister Ines Uusmann, but she did not take any actions either. You wonder why a Swedish minister accepts that the top investigators of an accident agree to lie!
Thus - the ship sank on 28 September. Crewmember Sillaste told the Finnish police that the ship was leaking and that the bilge pumps were running and there are many indications that the Commission must have known at this time about a severe hull leakage and a failure to stop it, e.g. that the watertight doors did not close - or were opened. So when the Commission met 29 and 30 September they did not discuss any cause of accident at all, while a false cause of accident was made up by help of Mr Wermelin and the media - the visor.
Swedish Rescue Service - Räddningsverket - dives on the Wreck 1 October 1994
In December 1999 a Swedish Navy lieutenant and dive specialist - H. Bergmark - informed Der Spiegel journalist J. Rabe that he and about 10-13 other persons had dived on the 'Estonia' already on 1 October 1994. Bergmark had been called up already on 28 September to be stand-by and had sailed to the wreck on the Swedish navy vessel 'HMS Furusund' (or 'HMS Urd') on 30 September. The diving lasted more than 24 hrs and a large number of 20 minutes videos were taken of the wreck. The purpose was to inspect the hull and Bergmark suggested that they found a gash in the hull below the car deck on starboard side. This inspection has never been officially announced or acknowledged by Swedish authorities and the Commission has never made any reference to the findings. In a later interview 28 September 2019 Bergmark dived 2/3 October 1994! Bergmark says he dived on orders of MUST, Swedens military investigation agency. Bergmark says he saw a hole in the hull caused by explosives.
Rumours in the Media
On 1 October DN announced that Sillaste had said (sic) that he had seen water on the car deck -
'the visor was pushed up and the ramp pulled down' - 'seamen saw an open visor'.
DN and other media seem to have published a lot of rumours without substance about an open visor and a pulled out ramp. Maybe they wanted to put the blame on the crew, which had failed to save the ship. But the alleged statement of Sillaste in DN was not in accordance what he had told the Finnish police (2).
The scoop of DN that seamen saw an open visor and a pulled out ramp was disinformation (compare 1.44). And we have to remember that Sillaste was alleged to have seen the ramp closed two minutes after the 'accident', when everybody else on the ship was panicking, trying to get out.
Water on Deck 1
On 2 October DN published that, according to the AB Linde,
'people escaped from deck 1, which was filling up with water'.
It is probable that Linde had met these people on deck 7, where he was when the sudden listing took place. If there were water at the side on the no. 2 car deck at this time, no water could evidently have been seen on deck 1, but the media reported water on deck 1. Sten Anderson, the Swedish NMA observer in the Commission, explained in DN that
'Silver Linde met passengers who rushed up and screamed that water flowed into the cabins below the car deck. It supports the theory that water has entered the car deck'.
You can here observe how the strange behaviour also spread to observer Sten Anderson in the Commission. Passengers stated according to Linde on deck 7 that water flowed into cabins on deck 1 in the hull three meters below the watertight car deck no. 2, and the conclusion of Anderson was that the water came from above inside and at outboard the side of the superstructure, through the watertight, solid car deck no. 2 above the cabins and two meters above the waterline.
Anyway DN Sunday 2 October reported that
'Linde was completing his (fire) patrol round. Somebody alerted that something was happening down below in the ship. Linde was sent down. He heard persons screaming that water had entered through the interior of the cabins below the car deck'.
Linde had actually completed his fire round and returned to the bridge when he was sent down again. This DN report actually supports the assumption that the ship was leaking on deck 0 before the sudden list, that the leak had been isolated (by Sillaste?) by closing some watertight doors on deck 0 and starting the bilge pumps, and that the water started to rise up on deck 1, where the passengers lived!
Sten Anderson informed to DN the same day, when talking about third engineer Treu and Sillaste, that
'they saw water on the car deck'.
What Anderson referred to was of course that Treu and Sillaste were alleged to have seen water leaking in at the closed bow ramp at the forward end of the superstructure 1.10 on a monitor in the ECR several minutes after the sudden listing had occurred. But Sillaste did not see any water on the deck according to (2). It was full of cars and trucks - you could not see the deck. Actually the ship must have been heeling >15 degrees at this time (and rolling), so any water on the car deck must have been hidden on the starboard side below and behind the trucks and cars there. But how could Treu and Sillaste see little water leaking in at the ramp after the listing, while Linde reported that people escaping from deck 1 reported that deck 1 was filled up with water - before the listing.
It must be recalled here that later - on 15 December 1994 - the Commission changed everything reported in the media and in the police records above. The ramp had immediately been pulled fully open 1.17 according to the Commission and there was no time to see a leaking ramp two minutes after the 'accident' - the listing. Treu and Sillaste must have been mistaken. According to the Commission the ramp was fully open at 01.15 hrs. Thus Treu and Sillaste could not have seen a closed ramp at 01.18 hrs! Regardless, at 01.20 hrs the vessel had stopped! If the ramp was open, all water would have flowed out by itself. This is basic. But according to the Commission more water came in trough the open ramp. This is not possible. The opening was pointing East and in lee, away from the waves.
Wermelin again
Monday 3 October consultant Hans Wermelin spoke again in DN about the accident.
Wermelin now stated that a ship not only lists but sinks (sic) with water on top of the car deck in the superstructure. No correction to this completely false information has ever been published by DN. or anybody.
DN should have published a simple technical report what happens with water on the car deck in the superstructure - capsize and floating upside down on the hull - or simply nothing - the water flows out. Apparently there was not one expert in Sweden (or Finland and Estonia) knowing a little about ferry stability 1994.
False information was immediately fed to the public by Mr Wermelin. A false wreck position was necessary to establish the false cause of accident as announced by Mr Lehtola.
Why was a false wreck position announced and why were not divers sent down to film the wreck without visor immediately?
Probably the visor was found hanging on the wreck superstructure side on 30 September as seen on the sonar pictures and Swedish navy divers were actually sent down on 1 October to inspect the wreck, but this the Commission evidently could never admit. The divers, at a second expedition on 3-4 October, probably blow off the visor under water using explosives and made at the same time a big hole in the 'Estonia' fore bulkhead just aft of the visor. The Commission never reported this hole! It was found by Czech divers not until August 2000. A picture of the big hole can be seen in a later chapter 3.10. The Commission has always maintained that there is no hole in the bulkhead - the bulkhead is undamaged. The film with the hole has been shown on Swedish and Estonian TV 2000, but the sequence with the hole was cut out! Isn't it strange? What a wonderful world they live in in Sweden and Estonia. Censored films about mysterious wrecks are shown on TV, and nobody reacts. OK, an arrest order was issued for the heads of the divers and a panel of 'experts' was invited to discuss the film and explain it to the viewers after the show. Yes, they said, we could not see any hole. So there is no hole. The Czech divers never saw or filmed a hole. Not even an ass hole.
Actually when the writer saw the film of the explosion hole in the bulkhead of the 'Estonia' for the first time, at Pilzn, December 2000, he finally concluded that everything that the Commission had stated so far was false. Thus this book. He was then living across the border in Freiberg, Saxony and had plenty of time to reflect over all the previous information given to him.
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15 And when did they start the bilge pumps? It is amazing that a Final Report about the sinking of a ship does not have one word about bilge pumps in it.
16 Bildt was informed about the accident 60 minutes after the Mayday was sent.
17 Press Release from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Estonia Immediate
Release 30 September, 1994 18:00 (gmt +2) … Finnish
authorities are now attempting to locate the ship. When the
ship has been located it will be photographed to determine
the next steps required. However, strong winds and rough
conditions are expected to continue until Wednesday, next
week, making any operations difficult. The Governments of
Estonia, Finland and Sweden have pledged that they will do
all that is necessary to uncover the cause of the
disaster…The international commission has two main
responsibilities:
one, to investigate the causes of the
disaster; and
two, oversee and co-ordinate any further
operations.
In Tallinn, a Danish observer
1.5
has arrived, and experts from Finland and Sweden are also in
Estonia to assist in the work of the international
commission. …
18 See act A2.
19 Press Release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Estonia Immediate Release 29 September, 1994 20:50 PM… The Commission reported that a Swedish survey vessel has been attempting to pin point the exact location of the 'Estonia', while the Commission has opened negotiations with several diving companies. … (Subj: Wreck of M/S Estonia found! Sent from: guchw@gd.chalmers.se 30/9 at 1700 (GMT+1) The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes (see footnote above) (in part): The [Government Crisis] Commission reported that a Swedish survey vessel has been attempting to pin point the exact location of the 'Estonia'. Swedish radio news just reported that the Finnish (not Swedish) survey vessel 'Suunta' localized the wreck of the 'Estonia' about half an hour ago (that is, at 1530 GMT)).
20 The writer was at sea in the Mediterranean, when the accident took place and above extracts from the press were published. When reading them many years later you get the impression that a few persons were feeding false information to the media and that the media just published it without further analysis 1.44.