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The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2022-203
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Use as open (not Ukraine) thread …
Shedding some new light on mind boggling high death toll events that took place in the past.
On Sept 28, 1994, a passenger ferry from Estonia to Sweden sank in the middle of the Baltic Sea, along with 852 souls. But what was officially explained as the tragic result of a defective bow design was, in fact, a massive NATO coverup.
By professional hog groomer (“>https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/) – 12 min read
On Sept 27, 1994, NATO military assets assembled around Norway for a naval military exercise called Cooperative Venture 94, the first “Partnership for Peace.” The exercises involved 15+ ships and several maritime aircraft prepared to conduct search & rescue operations.
That same day, vehicles and passengers in the Estonian city of Tallinn loaded onto the MS Estonia. They departed at 19:15, bound for Stockholm with 989 people on board, 803 of them passengers. The overnight journey typically took approximately 15 hours.
The ferry was large, with a total length of 157 m and nine decks. The ship’s internal passageways were labyrinthine, with long corridors and stairwells leading to dead ends. The lowermost deck, below the vehicle decks, was occupied by sleeper cabins.
Cars loaded the ship’s vehicle decks via a ramp at the bow. A bow visor concealed the ramp during the voyage. The ramp rotated upwards during loading and lowered and locked into place during transit. The ramp provided the primary watertight seal. The bow visor (highlighted)…Loading ramp, as seen from …
Initially, sailing conditions were moderate but soon became rougher once the ship reached open seas. Although a storm generated high winds from the southwest (50–60 km/h) and large waves (3–4 meters), conditions were in no way unprecedented for the North Baltic Sea.
At 01:02, passengers were awoken by a loud metallic bang followed by an abrupt heel to starboard. The bang was reported by several survivors, particularly those who were in the sleeper cabins on Deck 1 at the time. One survivor even reported being thrown from their bunk.
The bang was accompanied by scraping, as though the ship was moving through ice. Some witnesses assumed the ship had run aground. Survivors reported that after the sudden heel to starboard, the heel relaxed to a stable “list” (ie. persistent tilt) of ~10°.
Many survivors who were on Deck 1 (below the vehicle deck) during impact reported seeing water coming up from *below* Deck 1. A few minutes later, the list again increased, this time more slowly and steadily over the next 15 minutes.
Between 01:22–01:24, two distress calls were received over the emergency radio frequency by a nearby ferry. On the mayday call, Estonia’s navigator reported the ship had developed a bad list, which he estimated to be 20 – 30° to the starboard side.
However, as the accident unfolds, there are indications the mayday calls are being jammed, as are all radio communications throughout the Northern Baltic Sea. The regional telephone network also inexplicably goes down for an hour at 01:03, just a few minutes after the loud bang.
30 minutes after the loud bang, the ferry’s list had increased to 60-70°, making it easier to walk on walls than the floor. However, the rapidity of the listing and the labyrinthine corridors made escape extremely difficult. The ship’s corridors quickly became death traps.
Due to the rapidity of the sinking, lifeboats aren’t launched. Instead, life rafts are haphazardly thrown into the water, forcing people to jump into the 10°C stormy seas. Those unable to swim to a raft and climb aboard perished. Swedish truck driver Mikael…
The Estonia sinks in less than an hour, a speed that has only ever been seen in ships with hulls torn open by collisions or torpedoes. Yet, despite the battalion of NATO naval forces assembled within an hour’s flight time of the ferry, none assisted with the rescue. (Pg. 55) The Hole: Another …
8 nearby ships hear Estonia’s mayday, but only 5 redirect to help. Utö, a Finnish radar station 50 km to the north, records ship positions as they head toward Estonia’s last radar reflection. Two unknown vessels 11-13 km east of the Estonia’s position never assist and disappear.
Signals from emergency locator beacons (EPIRBs), which should have deployed automatically, were never received, despite the beacons being checked to be in full working order only a week prior. These buoys relied on direct communication with the Cospas-Sarsat satellite network.
Helicopters don’t arrive until 2 hrs after the distress call is received. 138 people were pulled from life rafts by helicopter and boat, with 1 later dying in hospital. In total, 852 people perished, making it Europe’s deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in the 20th century.
The morning of the sinking, and before any formal investigation, the Swedish PM Bildt ordered the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) to investigate bow visors on other ferries because “a construction fault may have caused the accident.” (Pg. 67) The Hole: Another …
Three surviving crew members were interviewed about what they saw on the morning of the rescue. One of the crew initially said he saw a leaking but closed ramp, but later adjusted his story to claim he didn’t see the ramp directly, only via video monitor.
On the day after the sinking, Russia extended an offer to Sweden’s UD (Ministry for Foreign Affairs) to help rescue any potentially alive passengers trapped in the wreck, who may have been able to survive in air pockets for up to a week after sinking. Sweden never responds.
The Prime Ministers of Estonia, Finland, and Sweden soon met and agreed on a coalition investigation into the sinking, forming the Joint Accident Investigation Commission (JAIC). However, it soon becomes apparent that there is an informational hierarchy and Sweden is at the helm.
Shortly after, the head of the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) publicly criticizes Swedish Prime Minister Bildt and is forced to resign. His replacement was Johan Franson, the SMA’s Chief Legal Officer.
A week later, a new Swedish government takes over from Bildt. The new government puts Ines Uusmann, the Minister of Communications, in charge of the investigation. However, it becomes clear that Uusmann relies entirely on Franson for information. Press conference with Minis…
On Sept 30, Finnish vessels conducted a sonar scan of the wreck and found evidence that the ship’s bow visor is still partially attached, or at least resting directly on the wreck’s bow. But the bow visor is missing when the first official ROV returns video on October 2. Sept 30 sonar scans of wrec…Sept 30 sonar scans of wrec…Detailed scan of wreck’s bo…Pyramid shaped object at fr…
On October 18, the JAIC announced that it had found the bow visor a mile west of the wreck. The 56-ton visor is raised a month later and brought to shore to be scrutinized by the commission. This scrutiny forms the bulk of the commission’s analysis of why Estonia sank.
The official theory is that locking bolts holding the bow visor in place failed due to wave impacts. But when divers recover a crucial bolt from the bow visor and bring it to the surface for investigation, the Swedish navy commander throws it back into the sea.
But a 2021 review of the bow visor found unequivocally that the extensive damage present on the visor could not have come from mechanical impact forces alone. Instead, the damage must have been, in large part, the result of explosives.
Since the ship came to rest upside down on the very soft silty-clay seafloor only 80 meters below, it was easily accessible. Between 4-10 Dec 1994, advanced divers from Rockwater, a Norwegian dive company, descended to the wreck.
Divers recorded video and dive logs. In total, Rockwater officially logged over 70 hrs of video, which it passed into SMA’s custody, who are overseeing diving operations. However, when the other members of the JAIC requested copies of the videos, huge chunks of time were missing.
These video cuts, according to Franson, were made to protect the dignity of the deceased, but the cuts appear unrelated to areas where bodies might be expected. Additionally, the footage is non-chronological and inexplicably didn’t include a single shot of the starboard hull.
Officially, no Swedish divers ever descended to the wreck. But five years later, a Swedish Navy lieutenant and dive specialist H. Bergmark tells a Der Spiegel journalist that he and 10-13 other persons dove to the Estonia on October 1st, a mere *two days* after the sinking.
Intriguingly, Bergmark suggests that his team found a gash in the hull below the car deck on the starboard side. However, no official reports mentioned any such gash. Nor was this inspection ever officially announced or acknowledged by the commission.
From the outset, family support for raising the wreck along with the remains of their loved ones was nearly unanimous. However, their requests went unanswered by the Swedish govt, which quickly moved to entomb the wreck in concrete like a sarcophagus under Franson’s guidance. Still capture from 2020 Swe…Still capture from 2020 Swe…
This is perplexing, since the cost of raising and salvaging the wreck was estimated to be comparable to constructing the giant underwater sarcophagus, while also being significantly less complex. More perplexing still was why the wreck should be covered at all.
Despite huge public outcry over a plan seen as a massive insult and literal coverup, 1,000s of tons of stone/sand are dumped on the wreck by barge, particularly along the starboard side. After widespread outrage from victims’ families, the concrete plan was scuttled in June 1996.
On Feb 23, 1995, Sweden drew up a “gravesite treaty” and had every country bordering the Baltic Sea sign it. Only Germany declined. Despite being in extraterritorial waters, the treaty designates a 2 km square around the site as off-limits, making the site illegal to visit.
This commission was managed by Andi Meister, the Estonian Transport Minister, until 1996 when Meister abruptly resigned. His reason for leaving was that the Swedish side was withholding significant evidence from the other commission members.
After 3 years, the JAIC finally released a formal report on December 5, 1997. The report concluded that the bow visor and ramp were ripped off by large waves due to a faulty locking mechanism, even though surviving crew member testimonies directly contradict this theory.
The report states that the ramp was open, contradicting initial witness statements which saw it closed. It does not explain how the ramp, the suggested entry point for the massive volume of water, was closed when the wreck was surveyed.
The final report also ignores the dozens of testimonies from survivors who reported injury during the sudden impact and the subsequent flooding of Deck 0 and 1 that preceded the severe list, with crew even reporting ‘water to the knees’ in the engine room. Excerpt from a 1999 letter …Soon after being rescued 3/…
In 1995, the shipyard commissioned a separate inquiry by the German Group of Experts (GGE). While the GGE clearly represented the interests of the shipyard, they were at least able to conduct a thorough investigation with relative independence.
The GGE’s report was finally published online in 2000. While their report took many of the JAIC’s findings at face value, the group uncovered several serious inconsistencies and discrepancies in the official investigation’s conclusions.
The GGE uncovers that Franson, head of the SMA, was questioned about a potential hole in the hull during a meeting with family and journalists in 1996 and admitted, “Yes, there is a hole in the starboard side, but I don’t know anything about it – next question please.”
The GGE report finds that the compartment on Deck 0, which contained the sauna/swimming pool, flooded very early. This suggests deck 0 took on water from the outside sea, which only a hole in the starboard hull could explain.
A GGE diving & explosives expert reviews the Rockwater video footage and finds that the points at which the bow visor had attached to the ship show several apparent blast holes. The blast holes have outward folded metal petals, a signature of high-energy explosives.
Shockingly, the videos captured via ROV on October 9th also revealed an orange cube attached to the bow near these blast holes. The cube resembles a small plastic explosive-type device. But the cube is nowhere to be seen in the Rockwater videos captured two months later.
In August 2000, Jutta Rabe, a German investigative reporter, and Gregg Bemis Jr, an American underwater equipment specialist, launched an independent expedition of divers and ROVs to the wreck.
The expedition reviews the area along the ship’s side where sand has been piling up against the wreck’s hull. But now, 6 years later, part of the sand pile directly adjacent to the hull has subsided, suggesting it was sucked through a hole in the hull.
This expedition takes samples of the petaled metal holes at the bow visor interface noted in the GGE report and submits them for metallurgical testing at 3 separate labs. All 3 labs find that the metallurgical structure shows strong evidence of explosive deformation.
During the expedition, the Swedish coast guard attempts to disrupt the investigation, including boarding their ship and threatening jail time if they ever set foot in Sweden. The expedition also experiences jamming of their GPS, satellite phones, and ship-to-shore communications.
In March 2005, the Swedish minister in charge of MS Estonia matters called for a study into the likely mechanisms by which the ship sank so rapidly. Three years later, the Safety at Sea Ltd. group produced a report relying on a software simulation of the sinking.
The simulation assumes a 2,000-ton deluge of water flooding the car decks via the open ramp, something no witnesses reported. All that water on the car deck would have made the ship top-heavy, causing it to turn turtle rapidly. Instead, the boat slowly leaned to one side.
The sinking simulation also fails to account for trapped air, which, when a ship overturns, has nowhere to escape if the hull remains intact. As such, capsized ships often stay afloat for days. But somehow, the Estonia sank in less than an hour.
Between 2005-2009, the Estonian government commissioned a second official investigation to be headed by Margus Kurm of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The investigation produced a report on February 6, 2009.
The Kurm report concludes that the original JAIC scenario, while plausible, did not exclude other equally likely mechanisms for the sinking and finds significant contradictions. It recommends the wreck’s exterior be systematically studied to determine what happened.
So if a simulation showed a sinking sequence entirely at odds with witness testimony and the bow visor never actually fell off but appears to have been covertly removed with explosives *after* it sank, why did the MS Estonia sink?
In August 2019, an expedition led by Swedish documentary filmmaker Henrik Evertsson set out from Rostock, Germany, via a German flagged ship to circumvent the gravesite treaty. The plan is to access the wreck via submersible ROV.
During the dive, the ROV finds previously unrecorded damage: a massive 4-meter gash in the starboard hull below the ship’s waterline. The steel hull on the sides of the large hole is pushed inward as if subjected to a very large but blunt force. ROV video from Evertsson ex…Tear in starboard hull is a…Orientation of starboard hu…Location of tear in starboa…
Additionally, the starboard hull fender was completely torn from either side of the hole. Soon, helicopters and planes from the Finnish coast guard arrived. Despite being in extraterritorial waters, the 2 Swedes aboard the expedition were charged with violating a gravesite.
Since the extremely soft seabed could not have caused the hole, Evertsson’s team commissions a simulation of the impact force required to create the hole. The simulation finds that the observed damage could have been caused by a 1,000-tonne object moving at 4 knots.
Far from being previously invisible, the resting position of the ship has made the entire hull visible since its sinking. As such, the only possible conclusion to be drawn by omitting this enormous gash is that it was deliberately covered up.
But why?
Shortly after the new footage aired, Margus Kurm, who had from 2005-09 been chairman of the committee tasked by the Estonian government to investigate the sinking, makes a statement to the press that, after seeing a video of the damage, he believes Estonia was hit by a submarine.
A sub recklessly surfacing and accidentally striking a civilian ship is not without precedent.
In 2001, a US Navy sub performed a rapid ascent maneuver during demonstrations in Hawaiian waters and struck a Japanese boat filled with high school students, sinking it and killing 9.
On the night of Aug 17, 1993, a French nuclear sub collided with an oil tanker off the coast of France while surfacing, tearing a 5 m hole in the tanker’s hull, causing oil to spill into the sea. The tanker’s crew reported never receiving a call from the sub after the collision.
And while all subs have sonar, active sonar alerts enemies to your position. Collision avoidance by passive sonar, which listens for the sound of other craft, could have missed even a large ship like the Estonia in the shallow and stormy Baltic Sea.
Even so, submarine collisions are relatively rare. Was the increased presence of NATO military craft in the Baltic Sea at the time enough to explain this bizarre occurrence? Or is it possible that a NATO sub was near the Estonia for a reason?
Submarines sometimes move through sensitive territory by closely shadowing civilian ships, which can help mask the sound of their propeller. But this still leaves unanswered questions: Why would Sweden go to such extraordinary lengths to cover this up? And whose sub was it?
Given the management of the coverup, a Swedish sub seems more than plausible. But while Sweden is the obvious suspect, it’s hard to comprehend why they would immediately launch into such an expansive and risky cover-up and not simply own up to the mistake.
The only logical reason Sweden would do this is if they were acting on orders from another country whose sub shouldn’t have been there. Interestingly, there were 6 recorded violations of Sweden’s airspace on the night of the sinking, 4 of which remain classified to this day. (Pg. 263) The Hole: Another…(Pg. 149) The Hole: Another…
In 2004, author Drew Wilson submitted a FOIA request for any US govt info on the sinking. Despite no Americans aboard and no official US involvement during any stage of the accident, the NSA refused on the basis of national security.
While the Baltics officially joined NATO in 2004, the process to bring them under NATO control began years earlier. In 1994, as part of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, & Latvia officially declared they were seeking NATO membership.
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, NATO began facing a crisis of purpose. In September 1994, Sweden’s Prime Minister Bildt wrote an article for Foreign Affairs in which he framed Russia’s treatment of the Baltics as a litmus test of “Russian legitimacy.”
Given that 1994 was such a pivotal year in setting the trajectory of NATO expansion in Europe, would the process have been jeopardized by a catastrophic demonstration of NATO incompetence involving a US sub and the needless deaths of almost a thousand civilians? Hearing before the subcommi…Hearing before the subcommi…
It’s not hard to see how the sinking of a civilian ferry by a NATO vessel would lead directly to the public questioning the justifications for the significant NATO presence in the Baltic and potentially jeopardize public support for countries pursuing membership.
Now, almost 30 years later, Sweden has been tasked with another high-profile investigation in the Baltic Sea: the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. And just as they were after the sinking of the Estonia, Russia’s requests to participate are being stonewalled.
A janitorial role of mopping up US messes is one Sweden began embracing after Olof Palme, their last truly left-wing Prime Minister, was assassinated 36 years ago. And in this shallow sea filled with secrets, Sweden once again dutifully conspires beneath the waves.
So what actually happened?
What follows is my personal speculation based on the available evidence, the history of NATO cover-ups, and the geopolitical inflection point at which the tragedy occurred.
A surfacing NATO sub mistakenly collides with Estonia at 01:02. The nose of the sub impacts the starboard hull at close to a perpendicular angle. The damage to the sub is survivable and it covertly returns to port. The collision leaves Estonia with a 4 m hole below water level.
The sub notifies NATO’s European command and remains in the vicinity, jamming radio frequencies. This jamming is also likely why Russia never hears the distress call. Finland is contacted and disables phone lines, and NATO begins contingency planning.
A cover story involving the bow visor is hatched and disseminated to the Swedish Prime Minister within hours. This theory is pushed onto key witnesses, and the media faithfully runs with the bow visor explanation before the official investigation has even begun.
In the 3 days after the sinking prior to the start of the official investigation, Swedish divers covertly descend to the wreck to stage the bow visor separation. With the help of explosive charges, the bow visor is detached. In the rush to complete, a charge is left behind.
The rapidly evolving story soon requires that the bow visor have fallen from the ship a substantial time before it sank. Therefore, the bow visor is covertly moved again and deposited a distance away from the wreck prior to the Rockwater investigation.
NATO deputizes Sweden to head the investigation. The refusal to raise the wreck, the proposal to encase the wreck in concrete, and the dumping of gravel are all steps taken to prevent the discovery of the sub collision and the explosive scars from the bow visor removal.
The scale and coordination of the coverup suggests it was a US sub. NATO could weather incompetence by one of their members or close allies, but it’s hard to picture how the resulting global PR nightmare would play out if a US sub 4,000 miles from US shores were responsible.
Despite the horror of hundreds of people who needlessly lost their lives through a delayed rescue response in service of a cover-up, there may be an even more unsettling part of this whole story: a group of confirmed survivors who suddenly disappeared or turned up dead. Some of the bodies recovere…
In the immediate aftermath of Estonia’s sinking, relatives began scrambling for news of their loved ones aboard the ship.
One person who understandably receives particular media attention is Estonia’s second in command, Captain Avo Piht.
On the morning of Sept 28th, Captain Moik, a friend of both Estonia’s captains, called Piht’s wife from Rostock to tell her that he and multiple colleagues had seen Piht on a German TV channel as he was being transferred from the ambulance to the hospital.
The 6PM news also reports that Piht is amongst the survivors.
Piht’s name then appears on multiple official lists issued by the Port of Tallinn, the Finnish embassy at Tallinn, Tallinn City Hall, and the Baltic News Service.
However, later that day, his name is not on the list issued by the Turku police. No explanation is given. In the first list of surviv…The initial list of those w…
Estonian radio station Kuku broadcasts an interview with a Swedish helicopter crew member who says that he saved Piht.
When Spiegel TV’s Jutta Rabe later tried to obtain the interview tape, the station manager tells her that Estonian police have already confiscated it.
Additional witnesses involved in the immediate disaster response claim to have seen Piht in person, including a doctor in Turku. Enno Tammer (T) talks to ca…
Two days later, Reuters interviews Bengt-Erik Stenmark, safety chief of the SMA, who also says he had been in contact with Piht after the accident. Stenmark is fired shortly after but never retracts his statement.
On Oct 7, 1994 Interpol issues a message looking for Piht, reiterating that many witnesses had seen him. But Piht is never seen again. “Summary of the case: Avo P…
Piht seemingly disappeared after he reached the Turku University Central Hospital. Attempts by family and friends to locate the video tape of the German news report in which Piht was seen were unsuccessful.
Years later, a clip is uncovered appearing to show Piht in an ambulance.
More disturbingly, twin sisters (Hannely & Hanka-Hannika Veide), reportedly rescued from the same raft as Piht, also go missing. On Sept 29th, their brother, having seen on the news that his sisters are alive at Stockholm’s Huddinge hospital, calls his parents.
When the parents arrive at Huddinge to look for their daughters they are told that their daughters have drowned. Inexplicably, one twin’s name was recorded on the survivor list as “Anne” Veide, a nickname she went by that few others knew.
In total, 11 people initially confirmed as survivors turned up drowned days later or were never seen again. Several were listed with full names/DOBs, information other survivors have said was verified multiple times by rescue workers and medical staff before being added to lists.
Even heroic rescue work gets retracted.
Sailor Kenneth Svensson, who descended via helicopter to retrieve 9 survivors from the stormy sea and was awarded a medal for his efforts, eventually has his rescue total whittled down to 1 or 2 in the JAIC’s final report.
But without question, the most disturbing non-surviving survivor story is Kalev Vahtras, the ship’s store assistant.
The ship’s watchman, who was in the same ward in Turku hospital, confirmed that Vahtras had escaped the shipwreck easily, was in perfect condition & high-spirits.
Later in the day, Vahtras’ ward mate returned to find his bed gone and was told that he had been transferred.
His body was later reported washed up on the coast of Finland. When the coffin was opened in Estonia, his body had apparent signs of violence.
As a result of the retractions, families are doubly traumatized, while many more are left bewildered.
Did these surviving crew members pose a threat to the fraudulent bow visor theory and, as a result, become the final victims of one of the biggest cover-ups in recent history?
The flight records following the disaster may hold a clue.
On 28 September 1994 an empty Gulfstream 4 landed at Stockholm’s Arlanda at 22:56 and departed the next day with five passengers at 17:13 to Bangor, Maine.
Could the disappeared Estonians have been on board?
Posted by: xor | Nov 21 2022 13:53 utc | 94
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