accident naval

Moise Bogdan Grupa 2122C

The sinking of MS Estonia

Ordered 11.09.1979 Builder Meyer Werft, Papenburg, West Germany Launched 26.04.1980 Identification IMO number : 7921033 Type Cruiseferry Tonnage 15 566 GRT 2 800 DWT Length 157 m

Beam Draught Decks Ice class Installed power Speed Capacity cars)

24.21m 5.55m 9 1A 23 636hp 21kn 2000 passengers (460

On the evening of 27th of September 1994 - the Estonia, a 500ft long passenger ferry set sail from Estonian capital -Tallinn - she was bound for Stockholm but would never arrive. Six hours into her voyage the largest car ferry of the Estonian fleet sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea claiming the lives of 852 passengers out of a total of 989 - it was the worse maritime disaster in Europe since World War II. The horrors of this tragedy have never gone away and shipyards have changed the way ferries are build by deciding to stop using bow visors as a feature and begun using instead clam doors. Shortly after 1:00 on the morning of September 28th 1994 the Estonia is pitching against the heavy sea. The vessel is approaching the half-way point to the voyage to Stockholm, she is now in the middle of the Baltic Sea. For captain Arvo Andersson this is a routine voyage. The weather was rough with winds ranging from 29 to 39kn a storm considered to be 7-8 on the Beaufort scale and waves as high as 6 meters. However, Esa Makela the captain of Silja Europa described the weather as "normally bad" for the Baltic Sea in September. Estonia's sister ship, Mariella has broken it's visor only months before and has just finished repairs, however Estonia has not been upgraded yet. Due to a delay of one hour the captain decides to maintain course and speed in order to show that Estonia can keep up with its Scandinavian neighbors. Most passengers are feeling ill and are in their cabins because of the storm outside. One of the structural mistakes made in the design of the ship was that only 10 cm of water on the car deck is sufficient to capsize the whole ferry. Access on the car deck is made by a lifting bow called a visor; inside this there is a strong water-tight door . Seaman of the watch is making his inspection when a loud metallic bang is heard from the low bow area. After a quick visual inspection of the indicator lights for the ramp and visor leads crewman to conclude that everything is secure. In reality the locking pins of the outer bow visor have been damaged by the force of the waves. Passenger described that prior to the break of the pins there were heard 3 bangs - the port, starboard and bottom locks breaking away from the 54 tone visor, all

that is left to support this massive peace of the hull are its hinges and the hydraulic arms on each side. The hinges are the next to tear away and then the hydraulic arms. A shockwave is felt across the entire ship as the visor fells, and it bounces of the hull. Without this part water is rushing in on the car deck. Now the design flaws of the ship conspire against Captain Andersson's crew . One of the issues is the warning sensors which do not relay any problems with the ship. Additionally, due to Estonia's superstructure the angle of sight does not permit the crew to notice the missing piece of the hull. The crewmen in the engine room notice some water on the car deck and assume is just water from rain and therefore decide to turn on the pumps to clear it, oblivious to the amount of water which is getting in. The first one to notice the fact that something is wrong is the chief engineer who notices that the pumps are overwhelmed and heads for the car deck to investigate; upon arriving on the car deck he realizes that if the volume of water on the deck surges to one side it could turn the whole vessel on one side as it will later happen. At 1:15 a wave causes the vessel to tilt starboard and with it all the water on the car deck; the list is violent, between 30 to 40 degrees. The captain tries to compensate for the tilt be filling all ballast compartments from the port side with water, reduce the ship's speed ( in the hope that the wind will correct the tilt) and make a hard turn to port. Due to the dynamics of the ship and the direction of the waves and wind these decisions prove fatal, therefore by 1:30 the tilt will be of 90 degrees. At 1:20 the main engines stop and the captain realizes the ship is unsalvageable, and therefore the he announces the emergency codeword ("Mr Skylight to Number One and Two") is announced to inform all crew that they are to present at their fire stations.

However, due to panic no other organized evacuation is being conducted; this will be later concluded by the commission set to analyzed what led to the death of so many people. At 1:22 the first Mayday is being send and received by 14 ships. The one closest to Estonia is Mariella - 9 miles away, which responds but it's message is not received by Estonia. In a state of panic the second officer ignores procedures and begins to radio blind on other frequency to another ship Silja Europa which the officer believes is the nearest ship to his location. The absence of Estonia from the emergency channel creates confusion on the emergency channel. Estonia fails to inform the other vessels about the seriousness of the situation and also due to the blackout is unable to transmit it's coordinates. In the aftermath of the disaster survivors declared that due to improper painting of the ship some of the storage boxes containing the life vests had doors blocked by the dried paint. During this time Mariella is trying to transmit the Mayday signal to the nearest port authority however they are unable to do that due to interferences. Estonia disappears from the radar screens at the finish military base at around 1:48. Due to low temperatures in the water - 10 C - many survivors cannot hold on to any floating objects and are swept away by waves. The first rescue helicopter arrive at 3 am but they have equipment failures and have to return to base for repairs. The first 6 survivors are saved by Mariella at 3:08 . The last survivors are saved around 9:00 a total of 97 people. The Swedish government decides it is too expensive and inhuman to recover the wreck due to the human bodies on board which might have been in a state of advanced decay.

Official investigation and report A 3 year investigation revealed the fact that there were many flaws that resulted in the accident : - the Finish authorities gave the vessel the A1 certificate which meant the vessel could sail anywhere in the world, yet the bow had failed to satisfy the regulations - poor welding and inadequate safety locks of the bow visor

- the Swedish and Estonian crew was responsible for the poor evacuation - commission determined that poor maintenance was also a factor which increased the number of deaths : doors were over painted, lifejackets not working properly, faulty life rafts

Changes made after the disaster In 1999 it was decided that training requirements in crowd and crisis management and human behavior were to be undertaken by all crew members on all passenger ships EPIRBs were modified so that they could activate automatically New regulations also require new ships to be able to stay afloat in case there are 50 cm of water on the car deck

References Final report on the MV ESTONIA disaster of 28 September 1994. Helsinki: Joint Accident Investigation Commission. 1997 Condition Survey of the Vessel "Estonia" for the Swedish National Maritime Administration. Survey Report. (Supplement No. 503). Rockwater A/S Chapter 13.5 – Failure sequence of bow visor and ramp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia http://www.marinefirefighting.com/Pages/Newsletters/Newsletter6.htm