M/S Estonia
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The M/S Estonia was a car and passenger ferry built in 1979 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg. On September 28, 1994 the ship sank in the Baltic Sea, claiming 852 lives.
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[edit] Service history
The ship was originally ordered by SF Line. However as they already had two other ships under construction, SF Line sold the contract to Rederi Ab Sally, one of their partners in the Viking Line consortium. Her builders, Meyer Werft in Germany had constructed a large number of ships for various Viking Line partner companies during the 1970's. Her bow construction, which was thought to be safe at the time, consisted of an upwards-opening visor and a car ramp that was placed inside the visor when it was closed. This feature would later prove to be fatal.
[edit] Viking Line
On 29th July 1980 Viking Sally was delivered to Rederi Ab Sally, Finland and was put into service on the route between Turku, Mariehamn and Stockholm (occasionally also Naantali - Mariehamn - Kapellskär). She was the largest ship to serve on that route at the time. Like all ships, Viking Sally suffered some mishaps during her Viking Line service, being grounded in the Åland Archipelago in May 1984 and suffering some propeller problems in April of the following year. In 1985 she was also rebuilt with a "duck tail".
The year 1987 brought a change for Viking Line. Rederi Ab Sally had been experiencing financial difficulties for some years. In fall 1987 Effoa and Johnson Line, the owners of Viking Line's main rivals Silja Line, bought Sally. SF Line and Rederi AB Slite forced Sally to withdraw from Viking Line. Viking Sally was chartered to Rederi AB Slite to continue on her current traffic for the next three years.
[edit] EffJohn
When her charter ended in April 1990, Viking Sally had an unusual change of service. She was painted in Silja Line's colours, renamed Silja Star and placed on the same route that she had plied for Viking Line: Turku - Mariehamn - Stockholm. The reason for this was that Silja's new ship for Helsinki - Stockholm service was built behind schedule and one of the Turku -Stockholm ships, M/S Wellamo was tranferred to that route until the new ship was complete in November 1990. Also in 1990 Effoa, Johnson Line and Rederi Ab Sally merged into EffJohn.
The following spring Silja Star began her service with Wasa Line, another company owned by EffJohn. Her name was changed to Wasa King and she served on routes connecting Vaasa, Finland to Umeå and Sundsvall in Sweden. It has been reported that Wasa King was widely considered to be the best behaving ship in rough weather to have sailed from Vaasa.
[edit] Estline
In January 1993, at the same time when EffJohn decided to merge Wasa Line's operations into Silja Line, Wasa King was sold to Nordström & Thulin for use on EstLine's Tallinn - Stockholm traffic under the name Estonia. The actual ownership of the ship was rather complex, in order for Nordstöm & Thulin to get a loan to buy the ship. Although Nordström & Thulin were the company who bought the ship, her registered owners were Estline Marine Co Ltd, Nicosia, Cyprus, who chartered the ship to E.Liini A/S, Tallinn, Estonia (daughter company of Nodström & Thulin and ESCO) who in turn chartered the ship to EstLine Ab. As a result the ship was actually registered in both Cyprus and Estonia.
[edit] Disaster
The Estonia disaster occurred on September 28, 1994 at about 00:55 to 01:50 (UTC+2) en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden carrying 989 passengers and crew.
M/S Estonia was expected to arrive in Stockholm at about 09:30. The weather was rough, with a wind of 15 to 20 m/s and a significant wave height of 3 to 4 meters[1]. Some report peak waves over 15 meters (50 ft) and peak winds over 30 m/s (65 mph). Unlike other ferries on the route, she ran at full speed into the waves.
The direct cause of the accident was the failure of locks on the bow visor, that broke under the strain of the waves. When the visor broke off the ship, it brought down the ramp, which covered the opening to the car deck behind the visor, 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. (Similar problems also sank the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 and the Princess Victoria in 1953.)
The first sign of danger was a strange sound of metal against metal around 01:00, when the ship was in the outskirts of the Turku archipelago; but an investigation of the bow visor showed no obvious damage. 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 to 40 degrees to starboard, which made it practically impossible to move about safely inside the ship. Doors and hallways became deadly pits. 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. Due to black-out she could not give her position which delayed the rescue operation somewhat. The Viking Line passenger ferry M/S Mariella arrived on the scene of the accident at 02:12; the 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 (501 Swedes, 280 Estonians, 10 Finns and people from 19 other nations), by drowning and hypothermia (water temperature was 8°C [46°F]). Only 92 bodies of the total number of casualties were recovered.
The location of the hull is at , about 22 nautical miles (41 km) on bearing 157° from Utö island, Finland.
[edit] Flaws in emergency response
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 could have saved many lives. Most of those who 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.
- 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.
- Initially time was wasted checking the same rafts repeatedly. When the rescuers noticed this was happening they started cutting the roofs of the rafts so that already searched rafts could be quickly spotted from helicopters.
- 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 injured.
[edit] Causes of the disaster
[edit] 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 might 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.
[edit] Independent investigations
A number of theories exist to explain the disaster, elements of which have been vindicated by new evidence gained from independent investigations, as well as testimony from witnesses. An American adventurer, Gregg Bemis, and his crew diving to the wreck and filming its hull retrieved pieces of metal from the ship which in laboratory tests showed evidence of an explosion.[1]
The German journalist Jutta Rabe also carried out her own investigations, which resulted in a book, which was turned into the 2003 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 Rabe herself. According to Rabe, divers hired by the Swedish government (signing contracts swearing lifetime secrecy) spent hours breaking into cabins frantically searching for a black attaché case carried by a Russian space technology dealer, Aleksandr Voronin. She highlighted US interest in various Soviet technology, including nuclear-powered satellites. It has been suggested that panic about the stability of some form of nuclear device is the most likely reason behind the initial Swedish government suggestion of burying the wreck in concrete, a highly unusual proposal for a wreck, reminiscent of Chernobyl's sarcophagus. In early 2005, Jutta Rabe reported that a helicopter log book had been found showing that some of the crew of the Estonia, including one of the captains, Avo Piht, had been flown to hospital after the disaster. Their stay at the hospital could be verified by the telephone logs of the hospital which unveilled calls to their families. These nine people, who would be strong eyewitnesses about the condition of and events on the ship, have since disappeared without trace. Eyewitnesses have since debunked Piht's survival. He was initially listed as a survivor when a man resembling him was seen on television; later a tape of the broadcast was reviewed and the list was corrected. The legend of the "mysterious disappearance" of his name from the list of survivors lives on. According to Stephen Davis, writing in the New Statesman in May 2005 [2], the ship was carrying a secret cargo of military equipment smuggled from the Russians by the British MI6, as part of ongoing efforts to monitor the development of Russia's weapons. This would explain Britain's signing of the Estonia Agreement.
[edit] Re-opening of investigations by the Swedish and Estonian Governments
In Autumn 2004, a scandal erupted in the Swedish media after the revelation by a retired customs officer that shortly before the accident in 1994, M/S Estonia had been used by Swedish military intelligence to bring in electronic equipment illegally acquired in Estonia from the 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.
In May 2006, the Estonian parliamentarian and member of the Estonian Parliament's Commission re-investigating the disaster, Evelyn Sepp, during her press conference in the Swedish Parliament, accused Johan Hirschfeldt of destroying the evidence which he collected as result of his investigation, a fact that Swedish government failed to explain. According to Ms. Sepp, the Swedish Government has not helped the Estonian team of investigators as was initially promised. Moreover, she declared that "Estonia sees connection between the military shipment and the disaster." Eventually, in the wake of Estonian election campaign and facing yet another instance of missing evidence, this time disappearance in archives of the Swedish maritime authority of a videotape of surveilance of the wreckage, done before placing it under concrete cover, in November 2006 Ms. Sepp suggested a possibility of a case of crime against humanity perpetrated in the disaster.
On 22 September 2005, Estonian state prosecutor Margus Kurm announced that the investigation conducted by the Estonian authorities confirmed the fact that military equipment was aboard the ship on 14 and 20 September 1994, and that Republic of Estonia was no part of this "Swedish operation." He claimed no evidence was found that such equipment was aboard the ship at the night of the disaster. Despite this, suspicions surrounding the alleged Swedish activities continued to exist, and in March 2006, Sepp expressed her opinion that the suggestion to cover the wreckage of the ship in concrete as proposed by the Swedish authorities may have been attempt to conceal the circumstances of the disaster. According to her, the Estonia Agreement of 1995 in fact prevents further in-depth reinvestigation of the disaster. On the 30 March 2006, a special commission set up by the Estonian government to investigate the secret military shipments aboard the ship partly disclosed its findings. In the published report the commission came close to blaming Swedish authorities for hiding the evidence and the circumstances of the disaster. Among other things, the commission emphasized the contradictions in the testimonies of witnesses and in the accounts of the persons who took part in the investigation in 1994. The Swedish government on several occasion refused to permit interviews with the witnesses. According to the commission, the contract with the private company (Rockwater) responsible for the divers and their operations at the wreckage in 1994 has made several crucial areas within the wreck, covered by the divers inside the ship, inaccessible. The Swedish government refused to give access to the file. The commission notes a case of the Swedish member of the 1994 investigation team disposing of an important piece of the evidence brought to the surface from the ship (the lock on the bow door, detached by the divers). Finally, the commission claimed that the divers had retrieved a specific piece of luggage, as seen in the film, content of which the Swedish government refused to discuss. The part of the ship with the item in question could not have been accessed through extant breaches, the commission said.
The investigation Report of Margus Kurm can be viewed here: [3]
On the 12 September 2006 the Swedish MEP, Lars Ångström, accused his government in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter of possible secret divings by the military prior to the beginning of the official divings performed within the framework of the investigation. The deputy then presented his claims against the government to the Swedish ombudsman.
The Report of Lars Angström can be viewed here: [4]
In October 2006 Estonian media (EE, 5 Oct) reported that a group of relatives of the victims registered several complaints against Sweden in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg.
On 22 November 2006, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported that a film, taken at the turn of 1995-96 to investigate the depth to which the Estonia had sunk and the conditions of the seabed around the wreck, had disappeared from the archives of Sweden's Shipping Inspectorate.[5]
[edit] Protection of the wreck
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 cause of the disaster could be discovered by detailed inspection.
Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the ocean floor (the majority of the bodies were never recovered), but also fearing the financial burden for the costs of lifting the entire hull to the surface and the salvage operation the Swedish government suggested burying the whole ship in situ with a shell of concrete.
In the end, the Estonia Agreement 1995, a treaty between Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Russia and the United Kingdom (though the UK itself is not a Baltic state), declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting its citizens from even approaching the wreck. The treaty is, however, only binding for citizens of the countries that are signatories. The Swedish Navy has, at least twice, discovered illegal diving operations at the wreck. The wreck is monitored by radar by the Finnish Navy.
On 8 May 2006 the organizations of Estonian and Swedish relatives requested suspension of the diving ban by sending a letter to the governments who ratified the treaty: Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The joint letter entreats all who read it to use their influence to amend, modify, repeal, revoke, or suspend all practical or administrative measures prohibiting inspection of the wreck in order to secure new evidence. The letter also calls for an independent group of experts, working in a transparent manner, to make a new investigation of the sinking of M/S Estonia.
The letter can be viewed here:
http://estonia.kajen.com/Joint_letter.pdf
[edit] See also
- Baltic Storm
- Estonia, a song by Marillion
- List of RORO vessel accidents
- List of wars and disasters by death toll
- List of shipwrecks in 1994
[edit] References
- ^ Final disaster report, http://www.onnettomuustutkinta.fi/estonia/
- Jutta Rabe (2002), "Die Estonia. Tragödie eines Schiffsuntergangs", Delius Klasing Verlag GmbH
- Jutta Rabe, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 February 2005, "Estonia": Der Richter muss schweigen
- Peter R. Limburg, "Deep-Sea Detectives. Maritime Mysteries and Forensic Science", 2004 ECW Press, Canada. 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- William Langewiesche (2004) "The Outlaw Sea: Chaos and Crime on the World's Oceans" London: Granta Books.
- Drew Wilson (2006), "The Hole. Another look at the sinking of the Estonia ferry on September 29, 1994", Diggory Press, UK
[edit] External links
- Report to the Chancellor of Justice in Sweden, 12 September 2006
- Estonia Litigation Association - Organization of Relatives and Victims Pressing for Truth through Litigation- blocked by Internet Explorer, please use Mozilla, Netscape, etc.
- Anders Björkman, Disaster Investigation
- Web site with text of official report
- Estoniasamlingen — In Swedish. Governmental resource of material relevant to the catastrophe.
- BBC On This Day 1994: Hundreds feared dead in ferry disaster
- Stephen Davis, New Statesman, 23 May 2005, "Death in the Baltic: the MI6 connection"
- Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press, 5 September 2002, "New Book Says Russians Sank Baltic Ferry to Prevent Technology from Reaching West"
- "Ever So Blue" by Heini Vaikmaa, a song dedicated to the victims of the disaster.
- Animated videos (4 min) of the damage to visor and ramp. Several formats and file size available.
- Final report of MS Estonia disaster in Finnish. The .pdf-file has lots of pictures and other visual information available.
- The Outlaw Sea a book by William Langewiesche. Contains a section on the disaster.
- The German Group of Experts A report in English about the disaster
- Estonia 10 Artwork commemorating the 10th anniversary of the tragic disaster by Estonian artist
- Ferry-Site.dk historic images of Viking Sally and Silja Star
- Nine people disappeared without trace after being rescued.What happened?
