MS Estonia - Part 3
Evertsson Expedition
In August 2019, an expedition led by Swedish documentary filmmaker Henrik Evertsson set out from Rostock, Germany, via a German flagged ship to circumvent the gravesite treaty. The plan is to access the wreck via submersible ROV.
During the dive, the ROV finds previously unrecorded damage: a massive 4-meter gash in the starboard hull below the ship’s waterline. The steel hull on the sides of the large hole is pushed inward as if subjected to a very large but blunt force.
Additionally, the starboard hull fender was completely torn from either side of the hole. Soon, helicopters and planes from the Finnish coast guard arrived. Despite being in extraterritorial waters, the two Swedes aboard the expedition were charged with violating a gravesite.
Since the extremely soft seabed could not have caused the hole, Evertsson’s team commissions a simulation of the impact force required to create the hole. The simulation finds that the observed damage could have been caused by a 1,000-tonne object moving at 4 knots.
Far from being previously invisible, the resting position of the ship has made the entire hull visible since its sinking. As such, the only possible conclusion to be drawn by omitting this enormous gash is that it was deliberately covered up. But why?
Shortly after the new footage aired, Margus Kurm, who had from 2005-09 been chairman of the committee tasked by the Estonian government to investigate the sinking, makes a statement to the press that, after seeing a video of the damage, he now believes the most likely cause of Estonia’s sinking is that is was hit by a submarine.
Submarine
A sub recklessly surfacing and accidentally striking a civilian ship is not without precedent.
In 2001, a US Navy sub performed a rapid ascent maneuver during demonstrations in Hawaiian waters and struck a Japanese boat filled with high school students, sinking it and killing 9. But a 58 m fishing trawler is relatively small as ocean-going vessels go. Could a modern sub really mistakenly collide with a ship as large as the Estonia?
On the night of Aug 17, 1993, a French nuclear sub collided with an oil tanker off the coast of France while surfacing, tearing a 5 m hole in the tanker's hull, causing oil to spill into the sea. The tanker’s crew reported never receiving a call from the sub after the collision and only discovered the hole when they arrived back at port.
And while all subs have sonar, active sonar alerts enemies to your position. Collision avoidance by passive sonar, which listens for the sound of other craft, could have missed even a large ship like the Estonia in the shallow and stormy Baltic Sea.
NATO
Even so, submarine collisions are relatively rare. Was the increased presence of NATO military craft in the Baltic Sea at the time enough to explain this bizarre occurrence? Or is it possible that a NATO sub was near the Estonia for a reason?
Submarines sometimes move through sensitive territory by closely shadowing civilian ships, which can help mask the sound of their propeller. But this still leaves unanswered questions: Why would Sweden go to such extraordinary lengths to cover this up? And whose sub was it?
Given the management of the coverup, a Swedish sub seems more than plausible. But while Sweden is the obvious suspect, it’s hard to comprehend why they would immediately launch into such an expansive and risky cover-up and not simply own up to the mistake.
The only logical reason Sweden would do this is if they were acting on orders from another country whose sub shouldn’t have been there. Interestingly, there were six recorded violations of Sweden’s airspace on the night of the sinking, four of which remain classified to this day.
In 2004, author Drew Wilson submitted a FOIA request for any US govt info on the sinking. Despite no Americans aboard and no official US involvement during any stage of the accident, the NSA refused on the basis of national security.
While the Baltics officially joined NATO in 2004, the process to bring them under NATO control began years earlier. In 1994, as part of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, & Latvia officially declared they were seeking NATO membership.
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, NATO began facing a crisis of purpose. In September 1994, Sweden’s Prime Minister Bildt wrote an article for Foreign Affairs in which he framed Russia’s treatment of the Baltics as a litmus test of “Russian legitimacy.”
Given that 1994 was such a pivotal year in setting the trajectory of NATO expansion in Europe, would the process have been jeopardized by a catastrophic demonstration of NATO incompetence involving a US sub and the needless deaths of almost a thousand civilians?
It’s not hard to see how the sinking of a civilian ferry by a NATO vessel would lead directly to the public questioning the justifications for the significant NATO presence in the Baltic and potentially jeopardize public support for countries pursuing membership.
Sweden
Now, almost 30 years later, Sweden has been tasked with another high-profile investigation in the Baltic Sea: the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. And just as they were after the sinking of the Estonia, Russia’s requests to participate are being stonewalled.
A janitorial role of mopping up US messes is one Sweden began embracing after Olof Palme, their last truly left-wing Prime Minister, was assassinated 36 years ago. And in this shallow sea filled with secrets, Sweden once again dutifully conspires beneath the waves.
Speculated events timeline
So what actually happened?
What follows is my personal speculation based on the available evidence, the history of NATO cover-ups, and the geopolitical inflection point at which the tragedy occurred.
A surfacing NATO sub mistakenly collides with Estonia at 01:02. The nose of the sub impacts the starboard hull at close to a perpendicular angle. The damage to the sub is survivable and it covertly returns to port. The collision leaves Estonia with a 4 m hole below water level.
The sub notifies NATO’s European command and remains in the vicinity, jamming radio frequencies. This jamming is also likely why Russia never hears the distress call. Finland is contacted and disables phone lines, and NATO begins contingency planning.
A cover story involving the bow visor is hatched and disseminated to the Swedish Prime Minister within hours. This theory is pushed onto key witnesses, and the media faithfully runs with the bow visor explanation before the official investigation has even begun.
In the 3 days after the sinking prior to the start of the official investigation, Swedish divers covertly descend to the wreck to stage the bow visor separation. With the help of explosive charges, the bow visor is detached. In the rush to complete, a charge is left behind.
The rapidly evolving story soon requires that the bow visor have fallen from the ship a substantial time before it sank. Therefore, the bow visor is covertly moved again and deposited a distance away from the wreck prior to the Rockwater investigation.
NATO deputizes Sweden to head the investigation. The refusal to raise the wreck, the proposal to encase the wreck in concrete, and the dumping of gravel are all steps taken to prevent the discovery of the sub collision and the explosive scars from the bow visor removal.
The scale and coordination of the coverup suggests it was a US sub. NATO could weather incompetence by one of their members or close allies, but it’s hard to picture how the resulting global PR nightmare would play out if a US sub 4,000 miles from US shores were responsible.
Despite the horror of hundreds of people who needlessly lost their lives through a delayed rescue response in service of a cover-up, there may be an even more unsettling part of this whole story: a group of confirmed survivors who suddenly disappeared or turned up dead.
my god this is brillant and a bright red dot along the line of NATO and the current war and nord sream bombing