I remember this, even back then it was such a cover up
Dark "blast hole" has been covered when authorities photograph Estonia
Published May 24, 2022 at 9:47 p.m.
DOMESTIC. When the authorities dived at Estonia last year, the ferry's bow ramp turned out to have fallen off sometime after journalist Henrik Evertsson filmed the ramp in the raised position in 2019. The ramp now covers a hole in the ship's hull that was not photographed in 1994. be a blast hole - can not be photographed at the Accident Investigation Board's now ongoing dives either.
"It is doubtful whether it is possible," the authority's accident investigator Jörgen Zachau tells Fria Tider.
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The hole was not included in the pictures of hull damage published in the international accident investigation JAIC's final report from 1997. Instead, JAIC described the damage in words and stated at the same time that it was added when the shot in the bow was "torn" in connection with the bow visor falling off. According to JAIC, the visor hung for a while in the lifting hydraulics of the visor, which cut the hole in the ship's plate before it finally broke and the visor sank to the bottom.
In 2000, the American Gregg Bemi's team appeared at the wreck and published a film showing the hole. However, the film showed a 2 meter long and 70 cm wide hole where the ship's plate spread outwards in curved, soft shapes. A look that is more reminiscent of explosive damage than of damage caused by the only 35 centimeters wide lifting hydraulics, critics claimed.
Four German labs found traces of explosives in two pieces of steel that Bemi's divers cut loose at the hole, while a fifth lab did not. Traces of the explosive effect were also found in the autumn at the bottom of the salvaged bow visor, which Fria Tider wrote about then.
"Twin" - without holes
Since yesterday, an international team from Sweden, Germany, Poland and Estonia is at Estonia to make a new official photo of the wreck. It is about a 3D laser scan that will create a "digital twin" of Estonia, writes DN. What DN, on the other hand, does not write is that the controversial hole is completely expected to be missing in the "digital twin" that the authorities are creating.
When Swedish and Estonian authorities dived off Estonia last summer, it turned out that the ship's boarding ramp in the bow had come loose and fallen down sometime after the journalist Henrik Evertsson filmed the ramp in an almost completely raised position in the autumn of 2019.
Former Member of Parliament Lars Ångström (MP), who is currently investigating the Estonia disaster within the framework of the private initiative Focus Estonia, stated in a Youtube feature in April that the ramp now "completely blocks" the areas of damage that Gregg Bemi's divers filmed in 2000.
Perhaps impossible
When Fria Tider on Tuesday reaches Jörgen Zachau, accident investigator and investigation leader at the Swedish Accident Investigation Board who is on site in Estonia, he confirms that the authority does not expect to access the area under the ramp during the photography of the wreck that is currently underway.
"Accessing that area for detailed investigation would require a camera to come between the ramp and the affected area. It is doubtful if that is possible, but it is not possible to determine until we have been down in place, and we have not got there. yet ", he writes in an email to Fria Tider.
He does not want to comment on the likelihood that such an action will prove possible.
Lars Ångström states that the Accident Investigation Board will move on the blocking ramp, but whether this should be done or not is still an open question.
"No decision has been made to remove the ramp, or not to remove it," concludes Jörgen Zachau.
https://www.friatider.se/los-e....stonia-ramp-tacker-o