(Redirected from
MS Estonia)
The M/S Estonia was a car and passenger ferry built in 1979 in Germany. The ship operated as Viking Sally 1980–1990 between Turku and Stockholm, as Silja Star 1991 and as Wasa King 1991–1993 between Vaasa and Umeå.
The ship was bought by the Swedish-Estonian shipping company EstLine Marine Company in January 1993. Half of the company was owned by newly-independent Estonian government and other half by Swedish company Nordström & Thulin. After the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain between Nordic and Baltic countries vanished, and the first voyage between Tallinn and Stockholm took place February 1, 1993. Traffic continued with departures every other day from Tallinn and Stockholm respectively.
On September 28, 1994 the ship sank in the Baltic Sea, claiming 852 lives.
The disaster
The Estonia disaster occurred on September 28, 1994 at about 00:55 to 01:50 (UTC+2) enroute from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden carrying 989 people, passengers and crew.
M/S Estonia was expected to arrive in Stockholm at about 09:30. The weather was rough, with a wind of 20–25 m/s (45–55 mph) and waves of 6–10 meters (20–30 feet). Some report waves over 15 meters (50 feet) and wind over 30 m/s (65 mph). Unlike the other ferries on the route she ran, at full speed, into the waves.
The direct cause of the accident was the underdimensioned locks on the bow visor that broke under the strain of the waves. When the visor broke off the ship, it brought the ramp, which covered the opening to the car deck behind the visor, down with it. This allowed water in on the car deck which destabilized the ship and started a catastrophic chain of events that brought the ship down. (A similar problem also sunk the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987).
The first signs of danger was a strange sound of metal against metal around 01:00, when the ship was in the outskirts of Turku archipelago. Investigation of the bow visor showed no signs of danger at that time. At about 01:20 a weak female voice called "Häire, häire, laeval on häire" the Estonian words for "Alarm, alarm, there is alarm on the ship", over the public address system. Just a moment later an internal alarm for the crew was transmitted over the public address system. Soon after this the general lifeboat alarm was given. Soon the vessel lurched some 30–40 degrees to starboard (right hand side), which made it more or less impossible to move about inside the ship. Those who were going to survive were already on the deck by then. Mayday was communicated by the ship crew at 01:22, but did not follow international formats, which delayed the rescue operation somewhat, as she could not give her position. The Viking Line passenger ferry M/S Mariella arrived on the scene of the accident at 02:12. First rescue helicopter arrived at 03:05.
Out of the total 989 people on the ship only 137 were saved. The accident claimed 852 lives, by drowning and freezing to death in the cold water. Only 95 bodies of the total number of casualties were recovered.
The location of the hull is at , about 22 nautical miles on bearing 157° from Utö island, Finland.
Uncovered flaws
The accident uncovered a huge number of flaws in the systems for rescuing people during and after the sinking of a large passenger ferry. Some of the more important conclusions were:
- A clear message to the passengers may have saved many lives. Most of those that were killed never managed to get out of the ship. When the ship had a list of 30 degrees or more, moving about inside it was almost impossible and very dangerous due to the risk of falling or getting crushed under falling equipment.
- The lifeboats could not be released due to the list.
- Most passengers did not understand how to inflate the liferafts or use the lifevests provided.
- The liferafts were hard to board, were easily overturned and very hard to assemble by the people that got aboard. An overturned liferaft provided almost no protection from the weather.
- Searched liferafts had to be marked so time wasn't wasted by searching the same raft multiple times. In later phases of the rescue operation, this was done by cutting the roofs of the rafts.
- Several of the rescue helicopters had their winches burn up or the wires frayed. They had not been built for the load.
- One rescue man per helicopter was not enough. At least two should be brought along as the rescue work was exhausting. Several of the rescue men were wounded.
While some of these flaws have been corrected, an accident of the same magnitude today would probably result in an even larger amount of casualties. There are simply not as many rescue helicopters available today, after several years of downsizing.
Sanctity
Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the ocean floor, but also fearing the financial burden for the costs of lifting the entire hull to the surface and the salvage operation the Swedish government overhastily suggested burying the whole ship in situ with a shell of concrete. As the majority of the bodies were never recovered and a treaty between Sweden, Finland and Estonia declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting its citizens from even approaching the wreck. The treaty however is only binding for citizens of the countries that are signatories to the treaty and this has caused some problems in enforcing the sanctity. The Finnish Navy has, at least twice, disturbed diving operations at the wreck. The wreck is being monitored by radar from Finland (http://www.estoniasamlingen.se/content.aspx?idx=3&sub=5&ex=n).
Official investigation and report
Remote videotapes of the wreck showed that the locks on the bow door had failed and that the door had separated from the rest of the vessel. The official report indicated that the bow visor and ramp had been torn off at points that would not cause an "open" or "unlatched" indication on the bridge, as is the case in normal operation or failure of the latches. There was no video monitoring of this portion of the vehicle bay either. However, a video camera monitoring the inner ramp showed the water as it flooded the car deck. If the crew had known the condition it is likely that they would have slowed or even operated the ship in reverse, which may have avoided the swamping and sinking. Recommendations of modifications to be applied to similar ships included separation of the condition sensors from the latch and hinge mechanisms and the addition of video monitoring.
Conspiracy theories
In the aftermath of the disaster, many relatives of the deceased demanded that their loved ones should be raised and given a land burial. Demands were also made that the entire ship should be raised so that the "real reason" for the disaster could be discovered by minute inspection. A minor industry of conspiracy theory interpretations of the events culminated with an American adventurer and his crew diving to the wreck and filming its hull with inconclusive results.
The German journalist Jutta Rabe also decided to ignore the imposed sanctity to make her own investigations, mainly based on conspiracy theories. Her investigations resulted in the motion picture Baltic Storm , which portrays the Russian secret service as being responsible for the sinking. The plot portrays the Swedish government as being responsible for using the ship to covertly transport Russian high-tech components to the United States. The story is unveiled by a young female journalist, not unlike Ms. Rabe herself.
In Autumn 2004 a scandal erupted in Swedish media after revelation made by retired customs officer that about the time of the accident in 1994 M/S Estonia has been used by Swedish military intelligence to bring in electronic equipment illegally acquired in Estonia from Russian Army (former units of USSR Baltic Military District). Swedish court investigator Johan Hirschfeldt later confirmed that the military intelligence indeed used M/S Estonia in September 1994 for bringing in secret military equipment, but the content of the shipment will remain classified for 70 years, thus adding up arguments to possible conspiracy theories.
See Also
External links
Last updated: 05-21-2005 14:53:21
