6 ms·

M/S Estonia accident radio transcript

121 points by _delirium 12y ago

MDCore 12y ago
Here is the relevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia
- 0x0 12y ago
  It's 20 years to the day since this event. I'm guessing that's the reason this was posted now?
  - tazjin 12y ago
    Yes. Newspapers here in Sweden ran different kinds of "Remember Estonia" articles during the last days. Aftonbladet had a pretty interesting (and very long) article about it: http://story.aftonbladet.se/?id=602 http://story.aftonbladet.se/?id=602 (in Swedish)
    - bybjorn 12y ago
      Norwegian Aftenposten also published a pretty good interactive story of the event: http://mm.aftenposten.no/estonia/ http://mm.aftenposten.no/estonia/
  - _delirium 12y ago
    Afaik this transcript is also new (spurred by the 20th anniversary). Oona Räisänen transcribed the recording, and translated the Finnish and Swedish parts into English. I saw her post it on Twitter, and thought it might be of interest here too.
codezero 12y ago
Reading these disaster transcripts always haunts me. But it's also nice to see strangers rally to help each other. There is no discussion of cost, delay, or hardship. It seems very weird to me that ultimately, according to Wikipedia, they buried he ship with pebbles. Why was this done, I thought most sunken ships were left alone.
- wbl 12y ago
  It is an ancient tradition, codified in SOLAS, that mariners help those threatened by the sea. You do it, because it will be you that needs help sometime.
- retrogradeorbit 12y ago
  The wreck is covered with pebbles at great cost to prevent anyone diving on the wreck to investigate what happened. Then no one can prove anything and everything remains just speculation. Ban any diving, threaten anyone diving the wreck with arrest and then just completely ignore the relatives' calls for an independent investigation. Then in this information vacuum ordinary people do the rest by alleging anyone who questions the official line is a "conspiracy theorist". I mean science can answer so many questions, but only when you have trace evidence to examine.
  - Crito 12y ago
    The Edmund Fitzgerald (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald) has a similar diving ban, although in that case the family members of the victims support it.
  - codezero 12y ago
    I saw the thing about the conspiracy theory, but is this effort partly because of the depth of the debris? It seems like lots of ships have sunk, and not many of them have been covered in pebbles or had a diving ban.
  - m_eiman 12y ago
    There have been investigations and video inspection of the wreck. "Everyone" agrees that the official explanation is correct. The reason for covering the wreck is that the disaster was a major national catastrophe; if 800+ hadn't died it would never have been considered. Says Wikipedia: "In the aftermath of the disaster, many relatives of the deceased demanded that their loved ones be raised from international waters and given a land burial. Demands were also made that the entire ship be raised so that the cause of the disaster could be discovered by detailed inspection.[27][28] Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the sea floor (the majority of the bodies were never recovered), and fearing financial burden 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.[29][30] As a preliminary step, thousands of tons of pebbles were dropped on the site.[28] The Estonia Agreement 1995, a treaty among Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the United Kingdom, declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting their citizens from even approaching the wreck.[31]"
tjaerv 12y ago
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/28/newsid_2542000/2542093.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/2...
bashshell8833 12y ago
RADIO fit with an ALLEGED 'conspiracy theory'? http://heiwaco.tripod.com/app1.htm http://heiwaco.tripod.com/app1.htm Anders Bjorkman. book Lies and Truth about the ... Accident what fun. with no degree in Naval or Maritime Engineering does the human obervations fit with the official explanation of the PROCESS and using open source basic stability calculations / physics? What is disturbing is that the human process is flawed similar to the Costa Concordia - Italy Cruise Ship. The captain can just decide to change course to a dangerous path and there are FEW CHECKS on the captain or LEADER OF THE TITANIC. Full Speed Ahead! Damn the icebergs. Welcome to Bash shellshock and the process 'fork bomb'
toomuchtodo 12y ago
Wikipedia says the wreck site is monitored by the Finnish navy with radar. If you were to approach the wreck via submersible, I would assume you would not be detectable.
- Tuna-Fish 12y ago
  The gulf of Finland has one of the most extensive underwater listening systems in the world. You cannot start up a screw anywhere between the Marienhamn and St Petersburg without the Finnish Navy knowing about it.
- jpalomaki 12y ago
  The wreck is in international waters. In Finland we have a law that prohibits diving to the wreck, but the navy or cost guard can't enforce this against foreigners. There was some initial plans to cover the wreck, but I don't think that was actually done.
reitanqild 12y ago
01:41.39 Helsinki Radio You see, someone on channel 16 has had a carrier on the whole night and nothing is going through. I can hear you now though.
Matti 12y ago
The mayday call from Estonia and the ensuing radio traffic is available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7cZTEQJ2VQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7cZTEQJ2VQ
EliRivers 12y ago
William Langwiesche wrote a really good article on the view of passengers from inside the sinking vessel. It's well worth a read. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-st... It would be nice if someone could please not stick a fatuous "TLDR" here.
- fphhotchips 12y ago
  Just to reiterate, this is an excellent article, even if it is chilling. It's funny, you wouldn't think, even 20 years ago, that this sort of stuff could still happen. But humans are still human, and the sea is still the sea.
- theflyingkiwi42 12y ago
  Thank you for posting this. Fascinating and terrifying read.
Gravityloss 12y ago
Having spent a little time on the sea, it's remarkable how much weather impedes any operations, and naturally accidents often happen at night in bad weather. These huge ferries just had to wait there and about a hundred people died right outside in the sea. Just running a regular rubber boat in normally windy weather on the Baltic is next to useless as the propeller spends a large portion of time out of the water and you can't get anywhere. Coast guards and specialized rescuers have better high speed RIB boats. And in the Baltic it's probably nothing compared to North Sea weather. If one could develop a large enough quad- or hexacopters that could be stored on all ferries and deployed to pick up people and lower them to ferry decks, that would help a lot. Hypothermia kills people so quickly there's often not enough time to send specialized help craft from far away.
- exDM69 12y ago
  > If one could develop a large enough quad- or hexacopters that could be stored on all ferries and deployed to pick up people and lower them to ferry decks, that would help a lot. Unfortunately, quadcopters can not be scaled up because the physics of multirotors doesn't scale nicely. The inertia of the blades goes up to the fifth power of the blade length. Double the blade length, 32x inertia. This would give prohibitive power and mass requirements. A lot of quadcopter research focuses on using multiple copters for lifting co-operatively because building big ones is not feasible. Multirotors are not particularly good in high wind conditions either. Even the specialized search and rescue helicopters (e.g. Super Pumas and SeaKings) had difficulty operating (and some were unable to operate) in the hostile weather conditions during the Estonia disaster. Short of carrying on board search and rescue helicopters (and trained crews) and and other hoisting equipment, there is very little that can be done to rescue humans from the sea in storm conditions.
  - Gravityloss 12y ago
    Thanks for the good summary! I knew there was a limit to scaling, didn't realize it was the fifth power... On the other hand, if you're just lifting the copter itself and one person, it doesn't have to be the size of a full blown helicopter. Then again, its utility is limited then.
villetou 12y ago
Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki Times) made an impressive article about the incident with background ambiance and videos. Do other newspapers do these kind of interactive stuff? http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/estonia/ http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/estonia/ There was also a similar article made about the Plura cave diving accident with all that stuff and a friggin minimap of the divers! http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/ http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/
- pavlov 12y ago
  There's an English-language newspaper called Helsinki Times, which is not affiliated with Helsingin Sanomat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Times
- Pyrodogg 12y ago
  The New York Times has also been publishing a number of these interactive types of articles. Ex. Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne...
- kzrdude 12y ago
  Aftonbladet's 20-years story on Estonia wasn't quite there, but it was "multimedia" http://story.aftonbladet.se/estonia/ http://story.aftonbladet.se/estonia/
pyre 12y ago
Am I missing something? The transcript ends with listing of helicopters and times. Is there supposed to be more?
rurounijones 12y ago
Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDGL_ehpkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDGL_ehpkI Warning: It is pretty bloody harrowing.

121 points by _delirium 12y ago

Here is the relevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia

0x0 12y ago
It's 20 years to the day since this event. I'm guessing that's the reason this was posted now?
- tazjin 12y ago
  Yes. Newspapers here in Sweden ran different kinds of "Remember Estonia" articles during the last days. Aftonbladet had a pretty interesting (and very long) article about it: http://story.aftonbladet.se/?id=602 http://story.aftonbladet.se/?id=602 (in Swedish)
  - bybjorn 12y ago
    Norwegian Aftenposten also published a pretty good interactive story of the event: http://mm.aftenposten.no/estonia/ http://mm.aftenposten.no/estonia/
- _delirium 12y ago
  Afaik this transcript is also new (spurred by the 20th anniversary). Oona Räisänen transcribed the recording, and translated the Finnish and Swedish parts into English. I saw her post it on Twitter, and thought it might be of interest here too.

codezero 12y ago

Reading these disaster transcripts always haunts me. But it's also nice to see strangers rally to help each other. There is no discussion of cost, delay, or hardship. It seems very weird to me that ultimately, according to Wikipedia, they buried he ship with pebbles. Why was this done, I thought most sunken ships were left alone.

wbl 12y ago
It is an ancient tradition, codified in SOLAS, that mariners help those threatened by the sea. You do it, because it will be you that needs help sometime.
retrogradeorbit 12y ago
The wreck is covered with pebbles at great cost to prevent anyone diving on the wreck to investigate what happened. Then no one can prove anything and everything remains just speculation. Ban any diving, threaten anyone diving the wreck with arrest and then just completely ignore the relatives' calls for an independent investigation. Then in this information vacuum ordinary people do the rest by alleging anyone who questions the official line is a "conspiracy theorist". I mean science can answer so many questions, but only when you have trace evidence to examine.
- Crito 12y ago
  The Edmund Fitzgerald (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald) has a similar diving ban, although in that case the family members of the victims support it.
- codezero 12y ago
  I saw the thing about the conspiracy theory, but is this effort partly because of the depth of the debris? It seems like lots of ships have sunk, and not many of them have been covered in pebbles or had a diving ban.
- m_eiman 12y ago
  There have been investigations and video inspection of the wreck. "Everyone" agrees that the official explanation is correct. The reason for covering the wreck is that the disaster was a major national catastrophe; if 800+ hadn't died it would never have been considered. Says Wikipedia: "In the aftermath of the disaster, many relatives of the deceased demanded that their loved ones be raised from international waters and given a land burial. Demands were also made that the entire ship be raised so that the cause of the disaster could be discovered by detailed inspection.[27][28] Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the sea floor (the majority of the bodies were never recovered), and fearing financial burden 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.[29][30] As a preliminary step, thousands of tons of pebbles were dropped on the site.[28] The Estonia Agreement 1995, a treaty among Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the United Kingdom, declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting their citizens from even approaching the wreck.[31]"

tjaerv 12y ago

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/28/newsid_2542000/2542093.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/2...

bashshell8833 12y ago

RADIO fit with an ALLEGED 'conspiracy theory'? http://heiwaco.tripod.com/app1.htm http://heiwaco.tripod.com/app1.htm Anders Bjorkman. book Lies and Truth about the ... Accident what fun. with no degree in Naval or Maritime Engineering does the human obervations fit with the official explanation of the PROCESS and using open source basic stability calculations / physics? What is disturbing is that the human process is flawed similar to the Costa Concordia - Italy Cruise Ship. The captain can just decide to change course to a dangerous path and there are FEW CHECKS on the captain or LEADER OF THE TITANIC. Full Speed Ahead! Damn the icebergs. Welcome to Bash shellshock and the process 'fork bomb'

toomuchtodo 12y ago

Wikipedia says the wreck site is monitored by the Finnish navy with radar. If you were to approach the wreck via submersible, I would assume you would not be detectable.

Tuna-Fish 12y ago
The gulf of Finland has one of the most extensive underwater listening systems in the world. You cannot start up a screw anywhere between the Marienhamn and St Petersburg without the Finnish Navy knowing about it.
jpalomaki 12y ago
The wreck is in international waters. In Finland we have a law that prohibits diving to the wreck, but the navy or cost guard can't enforce this against foreigners. There was some initial plans to cover the wreck, but I don't think that was actually done.

reitanqild 12y ago

01:41.39 Helsinki Radio You see, someone on channel 16 has had a carrier on the whole night and nothing is going through. I can hear you now though.

Matti 12y ago

The mayday call from Estonia and the ensuing radio traffic is available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7cZTEQJ2VQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7cZTEQJ2VQ

EliRivers 12y ago

William Langwiesche wrote a really good article on the view of passengers from inside the sinking vessel. It's well worth a read. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-st... It would be nice if someone could please not stick a fatuous "TLDR" here.

fphhotchips 12y ago
Just to reiterate, this is an excellent article, even if it is chilling. It's funny, you wouldn't think, even 20 years ago, that this sort of stuff could still happen. But humans are still human, and the sea is still the sea.
theflyingkiwi42 12y ago
Thank you for posting this. Fascinating and terrifying read.

Gravityloss 12y ago

Having spent a little time on the sea, it's remarkable how much weather impedes any operations, and naturally accidents often happen at night in bad weather. These huge ferries just had to wait there and about a hundred people died right outside in the sea. Just running a regular rubber boat in normally windy weather on the Baltic is next to useless as the propeller spends a large portion of time out of the water and you can't get anywhere. Coast guards and specialized rescuers have better high speed RIB boats. And in the Baltic it's probably nothing compared to North Sea weather. If one could develop a large enough quad- or hexacopters that could be stored on all ferries and deployed to pick up people and lower them to ferry decks, that would help a lot. Hypothermia kills people so quickly there's often not enough time to send specialized help craft from far away.

exDM69 12y ago
> If one could develop a large enough quad- or hexacopters that could be stored on all ferries and deployed to pick up people and lower them to ferry decks, that would help a lot. Unfortunately, quadcopters can not be scaled up because the physics of multirotors doesn't scale nicely. The inertia of the blades goes up to the fifth power of the blade length. Double the blade length, 32x inertia. This would give prohibitive power and mass requirements. A lot of quadcopter research focuses on using multiple copters for lifting co-operatively because building big ones is not feasible. Multirotors are not particularly good in high wind conditions either. Even the specialized search and rescue helicopters (e.g. Super Pumas and SeaKings) had difficulty operating (and some were unable to operate) in the hostile weather conditions during the Estonia disaster. Short of carrying on board search and rescue helicopters (and trained crews) and and other hoisting equipment, there is very little that can be done to rescue humans from the sea in storm conditions.
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  Thanks for the good summary! I knew there was a limit to scaling, didn't realize it was the fifth power... On the other hand, if you're just lifting the copter itself and one person, it doesn't have to be the size of a full blown helicopter. Then again, its utility is limited then.

villetou 12y ago

Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki Times) made an impressive article about the incident with background ambiance and videos. Do other newspapers do these kind of interactive stuff? http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/estonia/ http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/estonia/ There was also a similar article made about the Plura cave diving accident with all that stuff and a friggin minimap of the divers! http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/ http://dynamic.hs.fi/2014/syvalla/

pavlov 12y ago
There's an English-language newspaper called Helsinki Times, which is not affiliated with Helsingin Sanomat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Times
Pyrodogg 12y ago
The New York Times has also been publishing a number of these interactive types of articles. Ex. Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne...
kzrdude 12y ago
Aftonbladet's 20-years story on Estonia wasn't quite there, but it was "multimedia" http://story.aftonbladet.se/estonia/ http://story.aftonbladet.se/estonia/

pyre 12y ago

Am I missing something? The transcript ends with listing of helicopters and times. Is there supposed to be more?

rurounijones 12y ago

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDGL_ehpkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDGL_ehpkI Warning: It is pretty bloody harrowing.