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Few of us noticed some slight problems with the effects used in the video @Plainly Difficult, might want to add photo sensitive warning at the video beginning: time stamps 9:45 to 10:10 otherwise great content as always, keep up the good show!
An important thing to know about ships is that they are not like mass-produced family cars which simply have some generic characteristics expected of them. When ships are first built, they are always ordered and built - one could say "tailored" - to some kind of specification, such as a certain type of cargo, certain route or operation in certain climates or parts of the world, or a combination thereof. Problems tend to arise from the second owner on, when it's often tried to operate the ship outside of the original specification, sometimes dangerously so. The original specification that Viking Sally was built to was the Turku-Stockholm passenger/car ferry route. This is a very sheltered archipelago route which takes about 12 hours and has a single stretch of open sea lasting about 2 hours, also relatively sheltered in the prevailing winds by the land masses on both sides. The ship was built to this specification in the fastest possible time with the absolute minimum cost and use of resources possible. In fact, the authorities allowed the shipowners to cut several corners regulations-wise in the design of the ship, on the understanding that the ship would operate on this route and this route only - and with the limitation that the ship would operate even on this route only if the weather was good enough, and if not the sailing would be cancelled and the ship would stay in port. This is a well known fact to everybody who was involved in the ordering & building of the ship and it's operation in the first years. When the ship was sold abroad, none of this of course applied anymore or could be kept track of. Therefore it's not surprising what happens when a ship like this, after one and a half decade of hard use, with a weakly designed bow door to begin with which also was not properly maintained, secured or controlled, is driven headlong at full speed for several hours into one of the worst recorded adverse autumn weathers in the Baltic, in the vast open sea between Tallinn and Stockholm. I tend to trust the word of a professional, especially a professional who actually was there and is not merely speculating from his or hers knowledge and experience, extensive as they may be. Therefore, to me, one of the most telling testimonials of the whole Estonia case will always be the one from the chief officer of a Polish cargo ship that passed Estonia shortly before the disaster, and regards the course, speed and handling of the ship: "I thought whoever at the helm of Estonia a madman... I have never seen anything like it in the Baltic sea."
So there is something to the superstition that renaming a boat is bad luck after all, just not because of the renaming process itself. It’s always freaked me out how ships are just repainted and renamed and used as though they’d never been operated elsewhere, and I didn’t know why it seemed so freaky. Your explanation makes it make perfect sense, thank you.
"Lost most ships, the Sally had its fair share of screwups, including a couple of murders..." I hate when my ships have murders on them. You'd think they'd have designed that out by now.
No doubt! How silly. They could have at least hung a couple signs up forbidding murders. People now a days have no common sense and forget how easy it is to simply exclude murder from their design.
In the resulting public enquiry, a British survivor was asked why, being a person trained in "righting" an upturned liferaft, he did not do so when on an upturned liferaft with a group of survivors. His reply: "They would not get off"; hence the introduction of self-righting liferafts.
I experience something like that very often in my work. To fix the issue, customers have to stop using all of the machines, but they always refuse to. So the problem doesn't get fixed for like an hour, and the complaints continue.
@@pulaski1 Absolutely. Part of the reason I enjoyed working as a Dominatrix so much was that at most jobs, if you swear at, yell at, spit at, and slap around your customers, you will get fired. If you do that as a Pro-Domme, you will get extra tips. ;D
Plenty of stories on the great lakes like that. And even stories of survivors getting to the life boats, but later dying after freezing to death in the life boats.
There where 26 helicopters involved in the rescue effort, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia where all there, to only mention one is an insult to the crew of the other helicopters.
@@gonace I strongly disagree. It is not an insult to only mention one. There were only heroes on place that night and everybody worked tirelessly to rescue as many as possible. Im certain, that OP was not meaning to diss anyone, he just happenes to name only one.
honestly the sinking of the MS Estonia just fucks me up mentally. like... if you didn't get off essentially right away, you were just trapped. there's a really good article in the Atlantic about the sinking if you don't feel like sleeping tonight
the distress calls are legitimately distressing especially if you understand Finnish. the way it's so difficult for the crew of the MS Estonia to even establish their coordinates to give to the Silja Europa radio operator, the panic in their voices... augh. RORO ferries are a special kind of helll when they go wrong
@@ExperimentIV I can usually never listen to audio or see live video of disasters, its just too much. Its one thing to read about it, but its so heartbreaking when you are experiencing everything :( rip to all the victims
@@SangheiliSpecOp this one is truly tragic. so many people were just trying to get home, or go see stockholm. there wasn't enough of a warning to do most of the passengers any good, and the people who did survive all have the most horrifying stories
If there is no major loss of life, then the burocrates have no fire under their asses to actually look at dangers before they explode. also, there is a degree that events like this teach us where we were weak, and what doesnt work.
What makes this sad reality worse is that all those safety features that could have saved many lives on the Estonia were already available. But that costs money, so rewriting the safety manual in blood it is.
@@Ansset0 I can tell you first hand, as someone who’s worked with and been friends with a lot of blue collar workers, almost all workers DESPISE safety and will go to great lengths to circumvent it, with their arrogant and naive belief that accidents only happen to “idiots” and thus, could never happen to them. I could walk into any automobile garage anywhere in the world and easily find at dozen circumvented safety measures in probably less than 30 minutes. They reason that “that’s just some nonsense the lawyers came up with, they don’t work on this stuff, they don’t know a damn thing.” I used to work with a guy helping him as he built a world record setting 600hp snowmobile (video I shot is posted on my channel 700K views) who would leave open (no lid at all!) 5 gallon pails holding racing gasoline in a narrow chokepoint of the shop and didn’t blink twice when cigarette smokers passed right over the top. He would use a 3” air powered cutoff wheel , one of the most dangerous tools in any shop, and hold the workpiece against his belly to steady it as he performed the cuts. This was his standard practice and NOBODY could convince him otherwise because he was so sure of how superior he was compared to everyone else. In my Dad’s old car dealership’s service area, The mechanics would use tricks like duct taping spring-release vehicle hoist safety switches, so they could set the noise to lift the car and then walk away, rather than having to personally stand there holding the switch the whole time. I had a good friend who was a great super generous and humble guy, but he always joked about all his reckless adventures in the garage and how he was amazed he still has all 10 fingers and still alive etc. Well one day his luck ran out. His newlywed bride came home only a few months after they got married, to find his legs sticking out from underneath his truck he had jacked up to take a quick look at something, but failed to use sufficient jackstands to secure it in the event of a jack failure. I’ve never seen a family member as distraught as his widow, even months later, that poor woman. We all still miss Dave, except his jokes about his recklessness have lost all comedic value in retrospect. But BOYYYY you better believe I think of him every single time I jack up one of my cars, and shortly after he died I invested in wheel chocks as a backup for my jackstands, which I always used in the first place (thanks Dad).... I have a hobby of watching videos like this and other shocking incidents caught on camera and I’ve seen some of the worst stuff there is, and probably the biggest effect it’s had on me is to make me the most safety conscious person I know. I’ve seen the unbelievably GHASTLY outcome of when powerful rotating machinery such as a machinists’ lathe snags a workers hair or clothes and pulls them in. Truly one of the worst sights I’ve seen in my 40 years alive. It looked more like a butcher shop’s sausage links wrapped around the lathe rather than a human being.🤢🤢🤮☠️ People who remove the safety guard off their cutoff wheels , that’s so dangerous I cannot physically watch them, I literally have to turn away because I know all too well how gruesome a scene it is and how instantly it happens when that disc unexpectedly explodes. But when I try to warn them, I almost always get Famous last words: “I’ve always done it this way. Never had a problem! That safety shit is for pussies! Real men don’t need that crap.” 🤦🏻♂️🥴🙄
Actually, most are constructed so the front doesn’t fall off at all (not in this case, obviously) being built to rigorous maritime engineering standards. I just want to make it clear that: this was _not_ typical.
My teacher knew a person who was on the ship with his wife and parents, he told me the story. They were still some of them down in their cabins when the Estonia started to tilt. His wife hit her head during one of the waves knocking her uncountious, his parent were old and could not walk very well. All they said was ”leave us here we have lived long enough” and so he did, he was the only survivor in his family. Imagine making the choice of leaving them. There was no time to react when that ship sunk
The person you reference here was interviewed in one of the well-known documentaries about the sinking. I think it was the Seconds From Disaster one. His struggle with that decision--to leave his whole family behind and live--is very evident when he tells his story.
One of my mothers old friends was on the Estonia when it sank. She told me a story when I was 10 years old. About how her friend managed to get on a lifeboat. when they were waiting for a rescue, 2 women swam up to the lifeboat, they were not let on because if they were the raft would have been too heavy. Those two women froze to death while holding onto the liferaft, so close to safety but with no possibility of survival. The story still haunts me to this day. I also think one decently famous Estonian singer died on the ship aswell.
Even with the new investigation, it's worth remembering it won't invalidate the lessons learned here. The engineering math doesn't lie. Even if the cause turns out to be something different, the higher standards and better understanding of the forces on a hinged bow are valuable takeaways that have no doubt saved lives.
I bet everything I own that it will not turn out to be another cause. I don't think that hole was the cause of the sinking. It's an indisputable fact (except to a few conspiracy nut-jobs) that the bow visor came loose and pulled down the ramp. The visor was found far away from the ship so we positively know that it did come off before the ship sank. A hole in the side of the ship would not cause the visor to come off and the probability that two catastrophic damages occurred independently the same night is so close to zero that I don't consider it as a possibility. If there is a hole (or two), I think they were caused either by the visor hitting the side of the ship after falling off or after the ship hit the seafloor.
@@skunkjobb if it is just a conspiracy that something strange happened, explain why they started burying the ship in gravel and constantly patrol the area to keep people away.
@@sheeplord4976 Don't forget that sweden (who had a submarine in the area at the time) is trying to give the filmmakers who published the video showing the somehow previously missed gigantic hole 2 years in prison, and that all this came out last year and the governments involved have carefully waited for everything to become nice and quiet in the hopes people will just forget about it while doing no investigation of said giant hole themselves Not suspicious at all
@@Syclone0044 tell me another passenger shipwreck where they tried to bury it in gravel with no permission. It is normal to keep people away. It is not normal to keep everyone, including investigators, away.
As a Swede, MS Estonia is probably our biggest national trauma in modern times. An incredibly sad story which we probably wont see the end of for many more years.
the only loss of life i can think of in modern times where sweden had loss of life anywhere near this scale that even compares is the 2004 indian ocean tsunami
The Estonian news has said that there'll be a new investigation into the sinking of the MS Estonia after the discovery of the hole in the starboard side. If I remember correctly, it'll be a joint venture between Estonia, Finland and Sweden, though I feel like I'm forgetting something.
Finnish parliament passed a temporary law just this week that allows new dives to the wreck. New investigation will take place next spring to determine at what point the cracks in the hull might have happened and if they played a role in the sinking.
sweden might be the one of few that dont want someone to look in to the accident again as they feelt the need to bury the ship under stone and concrete after the accident and make it a no dive zone.
There's a magazine article about it from a few years ago -- I wish I had the reference -- that is just utterly horrifying. People robbing each other, rapes, kicking each other over railings ... the worst hell you can imagine, except at two degrees centigrade in pitch darkness.
@@Syclone0044 Thanks! My thoughts are taken back to that article over and over again. That and, "The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy," which I think ran in Esquire.
I remember that night very well. My (then) wife and I lived on the Swedish island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Walking home together from dinner in Visby late that night in filthy weather, I remarked to her how awful it would be to be on a ship. Little did we understand how awful. As island dwellers, you become quite dependent on ferries, and used to stormy crossings. This was a traumatic event for Sweden, but a national tragedy for the newly-independent nation of Estonia.
It should also be noted that many passengers reported of _being robbed_ of their jewelry while on deck by other passengers, and some being threatened for their life jackets. Other passengers were frozen in place with fear in the stairwells becoming human pylons that made traversing the difficult orientation even harder.
You know what they say : "The rules of safety are written in blood" This applies to all industries in matter of building codes, fire codes, airline safety, maritime safety and so on.
I wasn't at all surprised when I heard about the Estonia. These ships have a nasty tendency to go down really quickly once they start taking on water, yet we continue to use them...
@@BrickworksDK it's not necessarily the hinged bow design, but having open decks across the entire width of the ship, for transporting vehicles. If water gets in there the free surface effect makes the ship massively unstable. As the ship rocks, all that water in one deck moves with it, causing a resonance which can quickly tip a ship over, even with less water than what would normally be necessary to sink it.
@@citizensnips2348 True. The open deck is a major issue once water has gotten onto the car-deck. Yet, the simple fact remains that the bow visor is a inherent weakness in the RoRo design. And that bow visors have failed on several occasions.
One extreme design flaw that I think you missed is that the car ramp in its closed position protruded into a "pocket" in the top of the visor. Therefore, when the visor fell off, it had no choice but to pull down the ramp in the fall. If only the visor had fallen off without pulling the ramp open, maybe the ship could have made it to port.
It's possible, but I could still see that fail as well. While the visor turned out to be too weakly designed to withstand heavy seas, the ramp wasn't so at all.
My grandfather was a sailor in the 70's when the larger Ro-Ro ferries started to become popular. He always said "It is only a matter of time before one of these things get involved in a major accident". The design may be practical, but it is extremely vulnerable.
In the 80's, a good friend of my parents was captaining the M/S Viking Sally, which only became the M/S Estonia after his time as captain. My dad would do stuff like call the Sally on his boat's VHF radio, and they'd pick up and he'd exchange some pleasantries with his friend. Such carefree times. It's chilling to think he might have been captaining a death-trap without even knowing.
Note the comment by StripedBottom - apparently, the ship was built for a very limited, calm set of conditions based on the waters it was expected to travel in, whereas the weather and water conditions the MS Estonia faced the night of the accident vastly exceeded those boundaries. In other words - at the time, given the conditions, he probably wasn't captaining a death-trap.
Tbh my brain's reaction to docked cruise ships is "that's unfloatable!" Even though the physics make sense, in person it feels like sinking's the thing they most want to do, if only there wasn't a legion of humans scurrying around denying the sea.
They have to lower the amount of draft the cruise ship makes for it to enter most vacation ports. These ships have so much sensors just for stability alone. And complex underwater wings to actively and comfortably correct the ship during operation. Bulk carriers tend to do the traditional style of stability, make the cg as low as possible. It wont sway as much and costs less to build but cant access shallow ports. Container ships are the middle class in stability. They are lighter than bulk carriers even considering how much containers they carry. They got so much space when a container is just not filled. And they must access some lucrative yet shallow ports. The ballast tanks helped them on these cases but the tanks themselves are a hazard if not done right. Especially when cg gets dangerously higher away from cb.
@@kimpatz2189 ...I don't find all of that reassuring. I'm kind of opposed to cruise ships anyway. Lots of CO2 output for what's an entirely luxury application, notorious for worker abuse, petri dishes for disease. Now I don't know if taking a plane gives you a less CO2 intense vacation, though, I'd have to look into it. Maybe sardine-packing all those people together is a net CO2 savings over them all flying or driving somewhere. Maybe I'm just weirded out with the idea of being crammed into a can with 1500 normies. 😬
@@grmpEqweer I'm a bit of a shipwreck afficianado and occasional Great Lakes wreck diver, and I will never get on a cruise ship. Partly because of the microbiological issue of being trapped on board with at least a thousand other people and a closed water supply, partly because I find the whole idea of cruises fairly inane, (unless it's a way to get somewhere really interesting, like Antarctica, or an attempt to sail a tall ship through the Northwest Passage, then I'm game!), but mostly because of the size vs. safety issue. People keep building bigger and bigger, but nature keeps proving that size doesn't matter; everything is sinkable. And the bigger they are, the more complacent the crew - just look at the behaviour of the captain of the Costa Concordia! I'll note that I trust container ships far less than cruise ships, as they're lost far more often than the general public is aware of, but the other safety issues involved on cruise ships, mainly the crime rates onboard, which are carefully swept under the rug by the cruise companies, make them an unlikely sailing choice for me.
Good job Plainly, My father worked for P&O in Aberdeen, i remember him coming home saying they were welding closed all the bow doors on the ships they ran up to orkney/shetland after this.
For a second I though you were referring to Aberdeen proving grounds, I was like “I thought they only tested tanks there? Pretty sure it’s landlocked?” Then realized you weren’t talking about the US lmao
Bc ferries did some re-engineering of their similar ocean going car ferries after this incident, installing a secondary interior water tight door to prevent this. Unfortunately a BCFerries crew managed to sink the queen of the North by missing a course change in calm weather and opening the bottom of the ship doing 19 knots on a rocky outcrop. Fortunately virtually everyone survived that one. 2 people perished sadly though, but the ship managed to remain afloat for 1 hr surprisingly despite the engine room and below water deck flooding in a very few minutes.
This accident demonstrates why the feds stopped BC Ferries from allowing people to stay in their cars during Covid. When the ship lists the vehicles would slide together preventing people from leaving their vehicles, or if they can climb out, smashing windows of empty vehicles, they will have to climb over or through cars. It would be a nightmare. I've always wondered if the 2 people who perished were in their car, tried to get to safety but were washed away by the in-rushing water.
@@mikedavey1996 I’ve wondered the same thing about the 2 that didn’t make it out. It was truly amazing the shipped stayed afloat as long as it did. Quite the commendation for the crew (not the bridge crew on this watch however)
i might be the no shit person here but idc. in 2019 a pair of german and swedish divers and Technicians deployed an robot "submarine" to look for what there had been theories about for an long time wich was an big hole, about an half hour in i bealive it was they found an 4 x 1,5 meter hole in the starboard side, likley caused by an submarine (probably russian because of the russian military equipment they had on board). the front came of at the time the boat hit the ground.
Incidentally, the hole on the starboard side of vessel in unlikely to have been responsible for the sinking, as it's not very large compared to the size of the ship, so any flooding caused by it should have been able to be contained, and accounts by survivors are consistent with the bow visor being torn off. In fact, the most likely cause for the hole is the bow visor collising with the side of the ship after it was torn off.
The only thing that still doesn't make sense is that many survivors from the lower decks recall seeing the water pouring up from below through vents and other openings. If the bow visor had been the sole cause of the sinking, the water wouldn't have come from below, but from above. But it didn't. And, what's also strange is that the ship sank like a stone once it had capsized, which it wouldn't have if the bow visor was the only thing wrong with the ship. The air must've had a way to escape the hull, otherwise it would've stayed afloat for hours. And I don't know if that one single hole was enough to have that effect.
Well, the fact that it sunk so fast actually contradicts the theory that the bow-visor malfunction and subsequent flooding of the car deck was the root cause of it's sinking. Compare it to a similar incident just a year prior where the polish Ro-Ro ship Jan Heweliusz stayed afloat upside down for days even though the car deck was completely flooded. Also the theory that the bow visor caused the hole was dismissed in the recent documentary by a naval-engineer. FEA showed that mass and velocity was insufficient to produce the necessary force for the hole to open up. A recent memorandum from the Swedish Maritime Administration doesn't list it as a cause; instead it presents the theory that a large rock on the seabed caused it after the ship had already capsized. This is of course another can of worms in and of itself since bottom survey of the area where it sank indicates up to 10 meters of sediment before the bedrock starts.
@@leDespicable The car deck was undivided and almost the entire length of the ship. Figure at least 15ft high, that is a huge cavern for water to fill rather quickly, especially at speed and in rough seas. Look at some reports of damage caused by speed+water to the Bismarck and other warships when they have holes in them at the waterline. Water will tear things up internally if a ship is up to speed, which can result in water in pipes and vents that may be ruptured. Once the water is in that cavern, though, the heavy seas will have it slosh around, slack tanks in essence, and that will cause a capsize very easily.
@@markgormley7431 Looking at some photos of the sinking of the Jan, that ship rolled completely over, allowing air to be trapped in the hull. This happened in other capsizings like the Princess of the Stars or the Sewol. Estonia lay on her side, which allowed air to escape at a quicker rate.
Our close family friend Pierre Thiger survived the sinking, while also trying to save others. Edit: he got out early because he recognized that the listing of the ship was too far to come back up and told people to get out. He may have saved some people by doing that, but he never talked about that night much. I've heard his story through the investigation. He passed away from cancer some years ago. Life is unfair. I miss him so much, documentaries about Estonia always make me cry for multiple reasons. EDIT 2: oh, I just noticed that the article some people are linking to tell part of his story of that night.
What is missing completely is the poor maintenance the vessel have had. Some of the looks at the visour couldn't be engaged. Especially the atlantic look. Also the sealings at the ramp had been missig and the hinges of the visour had wrong repairs. Due to that more than 150 tons of water had entered the visour and the force of the moving water inside the visour had coused the hinges first to collaps which opend up the ramp which was the bulkhead. The vessel had been sailing in the winter with full speed throug ice, due to schedule, causing many of the damages. The design of the ship was made for sailing in the closed waters of the islands between Sweeden and Finland and not for the open sea in the baltic. This was the reason why no special regulations for the construction were necessary. The class was changed when she changed owner and there the classification made the mistake not to ask for additinal bulkhead for a secoundary sealing system.
the fact that they found different rulers in the Vasa wreck is the best part to me. two of them were in amsterdam feet, two were in swedish feet. i don't understand how that possibly could have backfired!
I was 5 years old at the time of the sinking. The images of the sinking on TV had affected me very much at the time and I was afraid of deep water for a while.
That happened to me when an “A Night to Remember” was on television at my house. I was scared of large ships for quite a while after that. Large ships still fill me with awe.
@@beepbeeplettuce5890 to be fair, unless you're unlucky enough to be caught by a n a s t y rogue wave, it's almost always the ship or people itself that's the problem. Either terrible designs, or just something *not* maintained. Or generally people like the crew of the Concordia. Additionally, situations like the MV Wilhelm Gustloff got put in, or the Titanic of course. Infact this ship's was really likely a combo of all of those. Dubious-ish design WAY out of it's element, possibly? bad care, incompetent crew.
Actually, the arch bishop of Finland asked in his prayer, broadcasted the next day after the accident: "God, where were You last night?" I live in Turku and close to the university hospital and heard the helicopters early in the morning. I heard about the accident later that day and it was difficult to believe. A school friend of mine worked as a rescue swimmer and when we later met, he told me about that night. Like... you are down on a life raft, the helicopter is almost full of rescued people and you have to choose whom you pick with you and who is to die. He was only 23 then. So, God, where were You? Smart people, where were you that night?
I was on the Silja Star in November 1990 between Turku and Stockholm. It was a rough night at sea, you could hear the propellers speeding up and slowing down with each wave. I was trying to sleep in the cabin on the lowest passenger deck, if this disaster had happened to me I would of stood no chance of getting out alive due to the distance to reach an outside deck. This disaster still fills me with fear and the thought 'it could of been me'
@@Menape so he worked on one of the upper floors(one below the outer deck) so it was easier to him to get out. the scariest thing about the story is the way he got out when the ship was basically on the sideways. he had to step on other people that weren't strong enough just to get out. he was on one of the life boats. well they werent really boats they were just like a blow up mattress with sides, and no top. he was on there with 8 other people at the beginning, and in the end with 5. 2 of them we're lost at sea because of the wawes. the third one was a women that he worked with at the time. while escaping she hit her head pretty bad. so basically they had a dead body of a women with them until they got rescued. my english is lowkey bad and i apologise for that
For peacetime the Doña Paz has the highest maritime deathtoll at nearly 4400 deaths. The MV Wilhelm Gustoff has the highest wartime deathtoll at about 9400. Both deserving of 9.
My aunt and uncle were supposed to be on Estonia that night, but my aunt had a bad feeling about the weather and so they stayed home. Estonia is a tragedy here in Sweden and I hope they find the answer to it now that they're looking into it again.
Thanks for covering this topic. Having researched maritime safety in my degree, this accident hit me the hardest - mainly in that it was so utterly preventable and unnecessary.
there are so many holes in the official story. In the countries that have been neared to it, no one really believes "official" version. Also I am pretty sure that we will not find out the real cause of this for many years or maybe never and just have to live with it.
I was born in Turku, Finland in January 1994. Turku was the closest city in Finland (except Marienhamn) where the injured were brought. My mom has told me many stories about the morning after Estonia sank. About the helicopters flying over our apartment building, the sirens of emergency vehicles and the all around panic not knowing whats happening. And silence. Still a deep wound in our memories.
" Alarm ! Alarm! There is alarm on the ship! " Gee I wonder if this ambiguous announcement could have contributed to the passenger confusion and stalling their ability to exit the ship in any kind of safe and timely manner..? Also is it normal for ships to have the car park drive in bit at the bow (front) of the ship?
Considering the hallways were all at a 50 degree angle and you'd be walking partly on the wall and the corner of the floor alongside hundreds of other confused and terrified people at 1am... methinks they were fucked well before the alarm was even sounded.
@@sadenuttie2234 It doesn't affect the car deck since the engine decks are down below. I've been sailing on several ships with a huge stern ramp and the car deck is still completely flat. The reason for having the ramp up front is more likely because it's way easier to berth by going straight in instsead of reversing. I would also think a single ramp up front wastes less car space aboard than having side ramps.
There's nothing really complicated with this accident, her owners pushed her into operation far beyond the ships capability, going out in severe weather other cruising lines refused to operate because of safety reasons. They pushed her beyond the ships sailing envelope, which would eventually lead to disaster in this case sooner than later. I have no doubt a catastrophy would've happened anyway.
They didn't push it beyond it's limits though, as these ships deal with this kind of weather all the time. Actually, there was a recent documentary made, and they went down to the wreck (which the Swedish government made an illegal site) and found a massive hole on the side of the ship that wasn't mentioned in the official report because... Well the whole report contradicts everything the survivor's said. So now, they're making another investigation to find out what happend. So it's entirely possible it was the hole that caused it to sink
@@Taevas___ I was a passenger on the Estonia, not that unfortunate night but some months previously. And it was the scariest ride I've ever been on. I know for a fact they pushed that boat harder than it could take on a daily basis, and when the accident happened I was not surprised.
There were other passanger ferries out during that night. Including the obvious examples of Mariella (Viking Line) and Silja Europa (Silja Line) which took part of the rescue effort, so there was definitely no "refusing to operate" going on. The weather was not abnormal, it was typical bad weather for that time of year.
My mum watched the helicopters go back and forth between Utö and Turku from the University. She told me it's still one of the most depressing things she has ever seen. Nobody really got anything done that day, they were just huddled around the break room TV and watching the news coverage. The disaster was incredibly traumatic for everyone involved, even if indirectly. We're still reminded about it every time we go on ships. There are pictures of the deceased and the Estonia on some Viking Line ships, friends and family remembering their lost loved ones. Thank you for making this video.
Personally, I love the “Patented Plainly Difficult Disaster Scale” with it’s essential foam finger pointer, and ... the talking bubble cartoons. Brilliant, John !
I clicked on this video without realizing it's a fundraiser, then when I did see the tab for it I was blown away. I've never seen someone raise awareness and/or money for OCD, so from someone who has it, thank you.
I know a sizeable chunk of us have been requesting this for a good while now. Thank you for making this. Something about this disaster messes with me. I don't usually feel weird after learning about these sorts of things, but this one is different. Maybe it's the way most people never had a chance. Then the dives on the wreck... the women still had lipstick on their faces many days later. Then there's the last photo of the M/S Estonia. The story behind this photo is pretty amazing, but God it's creepy. RIP to all those who perished.
If you are at sea and the ship you have gets compromised (fire, flooding, etc) you are right and truly fucked unless someone hears your distress call, I know a lot of people who were scientific minded who were superstitious
Engineers: "Guys, I have an amazing idea. Let's put a big fuck-off hole at the prow of the ship, because nothing bad could ever possibly happen. You can trust us; we're engineers."
Visor bows are still used, especially in railway ferries. In new designs however the bow is inverted, so that the waves tend to keep it closed, instead of opening it. That's the modern railway ferry "Messina". www.ferrovie.it/portale/images/articoli/07754101.jpg
When I worked in Estonia up til 1993, I travelled with Estonia many times. Good you cover this story! Don't forget about Tjörnbron, while you're still next to Sweden. One theory is that a log, from one of the many Russian vessels transporting logs to paper-mills in Sweden and other Baltic countries, was picked up by waves and wind and slammed into the front of Estonia like battering ram. The force estimated was huge. But since no new evidence of UFOs, submarines, terrorists, KGB or whatever, I stick to what has come up so far.
This disaster is still in fresh memory of many people in the countries around the Baltic sea. It is often used in discussions about cutting down in seas rescue resources. Those 26 helicopters are long gone, and never replaced.
I remember learning about this as an example of bad radio communication causing a disaster. They couldn't tell them where they were, talked more about the blackout than the fact that they were sinking, and didn't make it clear that they had a serious emergency. Of course, people like to exaggerate stuff like this so they can blame someone, but considering the lack of communication on the ship itself, it sounds realistic.
Estonia (the country) had been free from soviet regime for 3 years. Too little time to get rid of the soviet "meh" thinking. This resulted - among other problems - to this accident where captain insisted sailing full ahead against severe storm waves...
this is one of, if not the biggest tragedy in modern times for all finland, estonia, sweden… despite not having been even born in ’94, im very well aware of what a horrific tragedy this was. it shook all of finland, and other countries. rip to all the victims. 💔
Blown off by explosives actually. This video is like doing a video on chernobyl and just saying that "there was a small incident and the government had everything under control. There was one death."
@@FieldMouse88 So uh... where's the actual physical evidence of explosives at the Bow Visor? There's a dent in it but that came from *outside.* Unless you're telling me that someone had been onboard, climbed down on something, strapped a bomb onto that spot, climbed BACK on the ship, and either died or was a survivor, or just dived into the ocean or buddies showed up after it was set up. Or that he rowed up in some stealthy boat in a storm, planted that explosive, and moved off casually. There are no signs from any pictures, or the visor you can actually go *look at* that indicate an explosion. No scorch marks, no shredded metal, nothing. So please enlighten us
OKAY BUT HOWWWWWW DO YOU ONLY RATE THIS A 5️⃣ ON YOUR DISASTER SCALE, JOHN?!😲 800+ ppl died! That’s way more than any video you’ve ever posted, unless I’m forgetting something. I thought for SURE you’d give this at least a 9.
I vaguely remember this happening and I remember wondering why you'd build a ship with a bow that opens. To this day I don't understand why you'd do that rather than have it either load from the stern or from the port side. The bow just seems like the part of the ship that will experience the most variable and intense of loads. I don't think I'd want to fly on an airplane that had foldable wings either (and, yes, I know they exist).
There's these small boats made by a company Boston whaler which a are as close to unsinkable as you can get. They're filled with lightweight foam, so they can't take on water. You could cut it in half and it would still float for days.
@@ananthropomorphictalkinggo6641 “Close to Unsinkable” is NOT “Unsinkable” - that’s my point exactly. Lol. Besides what good is a boat you’ve cut in half - pretty sure that’s not even a “boat” anymore. Otherwise you made a good point
@@russlehman2070 Styrofoam floats because it has tiny air bubbles in it. It eventually gets water logged and sinks. I’ve found it on the ocean floor when scuba diving
You should watch Fascinating Horror’s episode on the Chicago Iroquois Theater Fire disaster. The deadliest building fire in USA history. In the beginning he shows a vintage advertisement for the show, and I swear to god in the upper right corner it says “ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF”!! You have to see it to believe it!! What a bizarre thing to print in a theater advertisement, much less the extreme subsequentirony....
File this one under C for Clusterfluck 😳. I love how the same group that didn’t give standard guide numbers in building were the same group that decided not to update the requirement after that first accident. 🤯
A good addition to this video would be a discussion about "free surface flood effect". As a mariner I have used this disaster to train young/new mariners to the perils of free surface flood effect amd how a relatively small amount of water is very unstable and dangerous. If anyone wants to know understand what im talking about fill a large tray up with water and try amd keep it stable. The trick is to add mini bulkheads of baffles to stop the water moving freely and catastrophicly affecting stability.
Damn. One of my favourite teachers was lost on Estonia. Hadn't thought about it for a long time. To make things worse her reason for going on the journey was to deliver toys and supplies to an orphanage.
One of the survivors of the wreck used a cameras flash to try and signal for help. There's a couple blurry but haunting photos of another survivor actually sitting on the hull of the Estonia before it sank fully.
Congrats Mr. Plainly. To this day, not haven read all to much about it and just gathered my knowlede from Tv on this disaster, I have to say that this opened a full new way of seeing all this. If this channel covers it, it is not just submarine or not, it is all the contributing Factors wich had this Disaster waiting anyway.
One thing for sure is that there was something on that boat that Sweden did not want the other countries to recover as they insisted on putting concrete or confine the entire thing and to make the graveyard there. To not bring anything or anyone up from the sea floor. It could have been something they escorted, something important that they didn't want the public to know. Who knows, and they won't tell us. Maybe if lucky in 50 years.
@@AureaPersona I would not have been suprised really and I am almost convinced it could be so. Its not the first time Sweden has tried to obscure an incident like that.
Nice to hear about some cases around Finland too. Horrible the cases of course, but most channels ignore Scandinavia and fennoscandia all together. Appreciate that.
There were 3 people from the engine room who survived the night, and when they were questioned by the investigators they told that during the sinking they had looked in the surveillance cameras and then saw that the car ramp was still closed but the seal around the ramp was damaged which caused water to enter but not in serious quantity. And that was when the ship had an list of around 30-40 ° already. but for some reason it was omitted from the investigation
You should have a look at the Princess Victoria sinking in 1953. One of the first ever RoRo ferries, sank in a storm when the stern doors were smashed by waves flooding the car deck and capsizeing.
Hey, can you do a video about the worst high-speed train derailment in history? In 1998 the ICE884 was traveling at about 200 kilometers per hour when a steel-tire broke. The disaster caused over 100 deaths, 80 injured and a destroyed bridge. And a little fun fact: the train was named after Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen! And also thanks for your awesome content!
Am I the only one that comes here for PD's epic animations? It's so sad so many people died because of this accident. It's when I see stories like this that make me glad I live in the US where we don't have nearly as many ferries or trains as there are in Europe.
I come from the Baltic coast. was four when Estonia sank. I came to kitchen. Mum had left for work. Dad had his autum holidays and was taking care of us kids. I came to kitchen for breakfast but dad was glued to the early morning extra reports. We watched it together. I remember the footage. Life rafts in the sea, empty, only sloshing with water.
I couldn't sleep that night so I put on the radio. I followed the rescue all night. I couldn't stop listening and I couldn't sleep. It was an horrid night and it still haunts me. I never turned on the radio at night after that. I have a vague memory of an ytbärgare (rescue swimmer in English?) telling a reporter about how it was out there in the dark and cold, trying to save as many as possible. They were true heroes.
Audio sounds better on this one, is it a new mic? Idea for a video maybe for 300K subs, but do a spoof documentary of the resonance cascade accident from Halt Life.
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Odd question: What are the black and white stripes in the top right corner of the video at the end of each segment?
@@corrupt_reverend5123 they are to let you know adverts are coming
Perfect pronunciation of Silja line
Few of us noticed some slight problems with the effects used in the video @Plainly Difficult, might want to add photo sensitive warning at the video beginning: time stamps 9:45 to 10:10 otherwise great content as always, keep up the good show!
@@PlainlyDifficult Oooh, thanks!
An important thing to know about ships is that they are not like mass-produced family cars which simply have some generic characteristics expected of them. When ships are first built, they are always ordered and built - one could say "tailored" - to some kind of specification, such as a certain type of cargo, certain route or operation in certain climates or parts of the world, or a combination thereof. Problems tend to arise from the second owner on, when it's often tried to operate the ship outside of the original specification, sometimes dangerously so.
The original specification that Viking Sally was built to was the Turku-Stockholm passenger/car ferry route. This is a very sheltered archipelago route which takes about 12 hours and has a single stretch of open sea lasting about 2 hours, also relatively sheltered in the prevailing winds by the land masses on both sides.
The ship was built to this specification in the fastest possible time with the absolute minimum cost and use of resources possible. In fact, the authorities allowed the shipowners to cut several corners regulations-wise in the design of the ship, on the understanding that the ship would operate on this route and this route only - and with the limitation that the ship would operate even on this route only if the weather was good enough, and if not the sailing would be cancelled and the ship would stay in port. This is a well known fact to everybody who was involved in the ordering & building of the ship and it's operation in the first years.
When the ship was sold abroad, none of this of course applied anymore or could be kept track of. Therefore it's not surprising what happens when a ship like this, after one and a half decade of hard use, with a weakly designed bow door to begin with which also was not properly maintained, secured or controlled, is driven headlong at full speed for several hours into one of the worst recorded adverse autumn weathers in the Baltic, in the vast open sea between Tallinn and Stockholm.
I tend to trust the word of a professional, especially a professional who actually was there and is not merely speculating from his or hers knowledge and experience, extensive as they may be. Therefore, to me, one of the most telling testimonials of the whole Estonia case will always be the one from the chief officer of a Polish cargo ship that passed Estonia shortly before the disaster, and regards the course, speed and handling of the ship: "I thought whoever at the helm of Estonia a madman... I have never seen anything like it in the Baltic sea."
underrated comment. very informative, thank you.
This is very pertinent information. Thank you.
Good info.
So there is something to the superstition that renaming a boat is bad luck after all, just not because of the renaming process itself. It’s always freaked me out how ships are just repainted and renamed and used as though they’d never been operated elsewhere, and I didn’t know why it seemed so freaky. Your explanation makes it make perfect sense, thank you.
@@fredhasopinions I'd never even thought of it, but it does make a lot of sense.
"Lost most ships, the Sally had its fair share of screwups, including a couple of murders..."
I hate when my ships have murders on them. You'd think they'd have designed that out by now.
No doubt! How silly. They could have at least hung a couple signs up forbidding murders. People now a days have no common sense and forget how easy it is to simply exclude murder from their design.
It's a programming flaw in the human operating modules.
I mean, there is a whole murder mystery game called The Ship
@@Evildandalo I haven't thought about that marvelous game in at least a decade, whenever I last played the map in Garry's Mod. I feel so old.
@@superking208 Honestly I only ever played the Gmod map lol. Some of the most fun TTT rounds I can remember
In the resulting public enquiry, a British survivor was asked why, being a person trained in "righting" an upturned liferaft, he did not do so when on an upturned liferaft with a group of survivors. His reply: "They would not get off"; hence the introduction of self-righting liferafts.
I experience something like that very often in my work. To fix the issue, customers have to stop using all of the machines, but they always refuse to. So the problem doesn't get fixed for like an hour, and the complaints continue.
@@NecromancyForKids Customers are the bane of most businesses.
@@pulaski1 Absolutely. Part of the reason I enjoyed working as a Dominatrix so much was that at most jobs, if you swear at, yell at, spit at, and slap around your customers, you will get fired. If you do that as a Pro-Domme, you will get extra tips. ;D
Plenty of stories on the great lakes like that. And even stories of survivors getting to the life boats, but later dying after freezing to death in the life boats.
@@neuralmute lmaooo
Finnish coast guard helicopter crews did absolutely everything to save as many as possible in this horrible accident. Some true heroes.
Yeah, the weather was so bad the ships helping couldn't get close enough to save anyone safely.
And swedish airforce helicopters
There where 26 helicopters involved in the rescue effort, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia where all there, to only mention one is an insult to the crew of the other helicopters.
@@gonace I strongly disagree. It is not an insult to only mention one. There were only heroes on place that night and everybody worked tirelessly to rescue as many as possible. Im certain, that OP was not meaning to diss anyone, he just happenes to name only one.
@@gonace only seen interviews of the finnish ones in finnish documentary.
honestly the sinking of the MS Estonia just fucks me up mentally. like... if you didn't get off essentially right away, you were just trapped. there's a really good article in the Atlantic about the sinking if you don't feel like sleeping tonight
Reading this comment made me nervous but I'm starting the video now. All of these videos always ruin me lol
the distress calls are legitimately distressing especially if you understand Finnish. the way it's so difficult for the crew of the MS Estonia to even establish their coordinates to give to the Silja Europa radio operator, the panic in their voices... augh. RORO ferries are a special kind of helll when they go wrong
@@SangheiliSpecOp oh god im so sorry this is a bad one
@@ExperimentIV I can usually never listen to audio or see live video of disasters, its just too much. Its one thing to read about it, but its so heartbreaking when you are experiencing everything :( rip to all the victims
@@SangheiliSpecOp this one is truly tragic. so many people were just trying to get home, or go see stockholm. there wasn't enough of a warning to do most of the passengers any good, and the people who did survive all have the most horrifying stories
new regulations regarding safety are written in blood.
It's a sad reality.
If there is no major loss of life, then the burocrates have no fire under their asses to actually look at dangers before they explode. also, there is a degree that events like this teach us where we were weak, and what doesnt work.
What's really sad is that these ships are known to go down frighteningly quickly once they start taking on water. And yet we still use them...
Safety rules always are. Most of PD's videos are either "and then we added x rule to prevent this" or "x rule was to prevent this, but was ignored"...
What makes this sad reality worse is that all those safety features that could have saved many lives on the Estonia were already available. But that costs money, so rewriting the safety manual in blood it is.
@@Ansset0 I can tell you first hand, as someone who’s worked with and been friends with a lot of blue collar workers, almost all workers DESPISE safety and will go to great lengths to circumvent it, with their arrogant and naive belief that accidents only happen to “idiots” and thus, could never happen to them. I could walk into any automobile garage anywhere in the world and easily find at dozen circumvented safety measures in probably less than 30 minutes.
They reason that “that’s just some nonsense the lawyers came up with, they don’t work on this stuff, they don’t know a damn thing.”
I used to work with a guy helping him as he built a world record setting 600hp snowmobile (video I shot is posted on my channel 700K views) who would leave open (no lid at all!) 5 gallon pails holding racing gasoline in a narrow chokepoint of the shop and didn’t blink twice when cigarette smokers passed right over the top.
He would use a 3” air powered cutoff wheel , one of the most dangerous tools in any shop, and hold the workpiece against his belly to steady it as he performed the cuts. This was his standard practice and NOBODY could convince him otherwise because he was so sure of how superior he was compared to everyone else.
In my Dad’s old car dealership’s service area, The mechanics would use tricks like duct taping spring-release vehicle hoist safety switches, so they could set the noise to lift the car and then walk away, rather than having to personally stand there holding the switch the whole time.
I had a good friend who was a great super generous and humble guy, but he always joked about all his reckless adventures in the garage and how he was amazed he still has all 10 fingers and still alive etc. Well one day his luck ran out. His newlywed bride came home only a few months after they got married, to find his legs sticking out from underneath his truck he had jacked up to take a quick look at something, but failed to use sufficient jackstands to secure it in the event of a jack failure. I’ve never seen a family member as distraught as his widow, even months later, that poor woman. We all still miss Dave, except his jokes about his recklessness have lost all comedic value in retrospect. But BOYYYY you better believe I think of him every single time I jack up one of my cars, and shortly after he died I invested in wheel chocks as a backup for my jackstands, which I always used in the first place (thanks Dad)....
I have a hobby of watching videos like this and other shocking incidents caught on camera and I’ve seen some of the worst stuff there is, and probably the biggest effect it’s had on me is to make me the most safety conscious person I know. I’ve seen the unbelievably GHASTLY outcome of when powerful rotating machinery such as a machinists’ lathe snags a workers hair or clothes and pulls them in. Truly one of the worst sights I’ve seen in my 40 years alive. It looked more like a butcher shop’s sausage links wrapped around the lathe rather than a human being.🤢🤢🤮☠️
People who remove the safety guard off their cutoff wheels , that’s so dangerous I cannot physically watch them, I literally have to turn away because I know all too well how gruesome a scene it is and how instantly it happens when that disc unexpectedly explodes.
But when I try to warn them, I almost always get Famous last words: “I’ve always done it this way. Never had a problem! That safety shit is for pussies! Real men don’t need that crap.” 🤦🏻♂️🥴🙄
Well, the front's not supposed to fall off, so that's very unusual.
Chance in a million.
Actually, most are constructed so the front doesn’t fall off at all (not in this case, obviously) being built to rigorous maritime engineering standards. I just want to make it clear that: this was _not_ typical.
It will be taken out of the environment
Well, a wave hit it!
@@kalamalahala who could've predicted that
My teacher knew a person who was on the ship with his wife and parents, he told me the story. They were still some of them down in their cabins when the Estonia started to tilt. His wife hit her head during one of the waves knocking her uncountious, his parent were old and could not walk very well. All they said was ”leave us here we have lived long enough” and so he did, he was the only survivor in his family. Imagine making the choice of leaving them. There was no time to react when that ship sunk
The person you reference here was interviewed in one of the well-known documentaries about the sinking. I think it was the Seconds From Disaster one. His struggle with that decision--to leave his whole family behind and live--is very evident when he tells his story.
@@its99pm Yes ofc, i could see the terror in my teachers eyes when he told me the story. And thats not even his story.
@@prax4173 bs story! 😝
@@sunsetlights100 Well you might think so but atleast you wasted 1-2 minutes of your meaningless life to read it, so thats a win for humanity. :)
@@prax4173 I was only Kidding round!
One of my mothers old friends was on the Estonia when it sank. She told me a story when I was 10 years old. About how her friend managed to get on a lifeboat. when they were waiting for a rescue, 2 women swam up to the lifeboat, they were not let on because if they were the raft would have been too heavy. Those two women froze to death while holding onto the liferaft, so close to safety but with no possibility of survival. The story still haunts me to this day. I also think one decently famous Estonian singer died on the ship aswell.
That's really fucked up your mom told you that when you were 10 lol
The Estonian singer was Urmas Alender and he was really a loved musician.
why are you a socialist?
@@davefred Why are you Dave the Fred
@@higueraft571 lmao
Even with the new investigation, it's worth remembering it won't invalidate the lessons learned here. The engineering math doesn't lie. Even if the cause turns out to be something different, the higher standards and better understanding of the forces on a hinged bow are valuable takeaways that have no doubt saved lives.
I bet everything I own that it will not turn out to be another cause. I don't think that hole was the cause of the sinking. It's an indisputable fact (except to a few conspiracy nut-jobs) that the bow visor came loose and pulled down the ramp. The visor was found far away from the ship so we positively know that it did come off before the ship sank. A hole in the side of the ship would not cause the visor to come off and the probability that two catastrophic damages occurred independently the same night is so close to zero that I don't consider it as a possibility. If there is a hole (or two), I think they were caused either by the visor hitting the side of the ship after falling off or after the ship hit the seafloor.
@@skunkjobb if it is just a conspiracy that something strange happened, explain why they started burying the ship in gravel and constantly patrol the area to keep people away.
@@sheeplord4976
Don't forget that sweden (who had a submarine in the area at the time) is trying to give the filmmakers who published the video showing the somehow previously missed gigantic hole 2 years in prison, and that all this came out last year and the governments involved have carefully waited for everything to become nice and quiet in the hopes people will just forget about it while doing no investigation of said giant hole themselves
Not suspicious at all
@@sheeplord4976 the public is always prohibited from shipwrecks with bodies inside at least from what I know in USA here
@@Syclone0044 tell me another passenger shipwreck where they tried to bury it in gravel with no permission. It is normal to keep people away. It is not normal to keep everyone, including investigators, away.
As a Swede, MS Estonia is probably our biggest national trauma in modern times. An incredibly sad story which we probably wont see the end of for many more years.
Same for fins.
the only loss of life i can think of in modern times where sweden had loss of life anywhere near this scale that even compares is the 2004 indian ocean tsunami
@@ExperimentIV I guess a lot of Swedish nationals died during that tsunami then?
@@Calvin_Coolage circa 543 Swedish souls perished
@@Calvin_Coolage 543 Swedish nationals died in the 2004 tsunami.
The front fell off
Well, a wave hit it.
I read that in the same way as the "My dick fell off" vine
They should have towed it outside of the environment
"wave?!?, Chance in a million" hehe love the Clarke and Dawe
"A wave hit the ship"
"Is that unusual?"
"At sea? Chance in a million!"
The Estonian news has said that there'll be a new investigation into the sinking of the MS Estonia after the discovery of the hole in the starboard side. If I remember correctly, it'll be a joint venture between Estonia, Finland and Sweden, though I feel like I'm forgetting something.
Finnish parliament passed a temporary law just this week that allows new dives to the wreck.
New investigation will take place next spring to determine at what point the cracks in the hull might have happened and if they played a role in the sinking.
You are forgetting nothing comrade, there will surely be no new discoveries from this research da.
sweden might be the one of few that dont want someone to look in to the accident again as they feelt the need to bury the ship under stone and concrete after the accident and make it a no dive zone.
That crack in the hull has to be from crashing onto the seabed - or submarine flying 5 meters above sealevel in severe storm.
Plot twist: It was the norwegians trying to pin the blame on their ancient enemy, Sweden.
I recently watched a documentary about the Estonia disaster - it was terrifyingly quick.
Most of the passengers never stood a chance.
There's a magazine article about it from a few years ago -- I wish I had the reference -- that is just utterly horrifying. People robbing each other, rapes, kicking each other over railings ... the worst hell you can imagine, except at two degrees centigrade in pitch darkness.
@@CinemaDemocratica The Atlantic. Someone posted it further up “if you don’t feel like sleeping tonight”
@@Syclone0044 Thanks! My thoughts are taken back to that article over and over again. That and, "The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy," which I think ran in Esquire.
@@CinemaDemocratica You think that's a nightmare, you should check out the MV Wilhelm Gustloff
I watched that documentary several times, "Livlina som brast" one
I remember that night very well. My (then) wife and I lived on the Swedish island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Walking home together from dinner in Visby late that night in filthy weather, I remarked to her how awful it would be to be on a ship. Little did we understand how awful. As island dwellers, you become quite dependent on ferries, and used to stormy crossings. This was a traumatic event for Sweden, but a national tragedy for the newly-independent nation of Estonia.
It should also be noted that many passengers reported of _being robbed_ of their jewelry while on deck by other passengers, and some being threatened for their life jackets. Other passengers were frozen in place with fear in the stairwells becoming human pylons that made traversing the difficult orientation even harder.
I saw that as well. Zero hour programme on the disaster.
Most of it was rather going on in the stores and casino area tho.
You know what they say : "The rules of safety are written in blood"
This applies to all industries in matter of building codes, fire codes, airline safety, maritime safety and so on.
Ah yes. The Roll On, Roll Off, Roll Over ferries. I remember them being in the news every other week as a kid.
RO RO RO yer boat ...
I wasn't at all surprised when I heard about the Estonia. These ships have a nasty tendency to go down really quickly once they start taking on water, yet we continue to use them...
Certainly seemed that way, European Gateway and Herald of free Enterprise happened not long before this too.
@@BrickworksDK it's not necessarily the hinged bow design, but having open decks across the entire width of the ship, for transporting vehicles. If water gets in there the free surface effect makes the ship massively unstable. As the ship rocks, all that water in one deck moves with it, causing a resonance which can quickly tip a ship over, even with less water than what would normally be necessary to sink it.
@@citizensnips2348 True. The open deck is a major issue once water has gotten onto the car-deck.
Yet, the simple fact remains that the bow visor is a inherent weakness in the RoRo design. And that bow visors have failed on several occasions.
One extreme design flaw that I think you missed is that the car ramp in its closed position protruded into a "pocket" in the top of the visor. Therefore, when the visor fell off, it had no choice but to pull down the ramp in the fall. If only the visor had fallen off without pulling the ramp open, maybe the ship could have made it to port.
It's possible, but I could still see that fail as well. While the visor turned out to be too weakly designed to withstand heavy seas, the ramp wasn't so at all.
My grandfather was a sailor in the 70's when the larger Ro-Ro ferries started to become popular. He always said "It is only a matter of time before one of these things get involved in a major accident". The design may be practical, but it is extremely vulnerable.
In the 80's, a good friend of my parents was captaining the M/S Viking Sally, which only became the M/S Estonia after his time as captain. My dad would do stuff like call the Sally on his boat's VHF radio, and they'd pick up and he'd exchange some pleasantries with his friend. Such carefree times. It's chilling to think he might have been captaining a death-trap without even knowing.
Note the comment by StripedBottom - apparently, the ship was built for a very limited, calm set of conditions based on the waters it was expected to travel in, whereas the weather and water conditions the MS Estonia faced the night of the accident vastly exceeded those boundaries.
In other words - at the time, given the conditions, he probably wasn't captaining a death-trap.
Tbh my brain's reaction to docked cruise ships is "that's unfloatable!" Even though the physics make sense, in person it feels like sinking's the thing they most want to do, if only there wasn't a legion of humans scurrying around denying the sea.
@@therake8897 So what you're saying is, the uneasy sensation of impending doom on a cruise ship _ins't_ off the mark?
Good to know!
That sinking feeling...
They have to lower the amount of draft the cruise ship makes for it to enter most vacation ports. These ships have so much sensors just for stability alone. And complex underwater wings to actively and comfortably correct the ship during operation. Bulk carriers tend to do the traditional style of stability, make the cg as low as possible. It wont sway as much and costs less to build but cant access shallow ports. Container ships are the middle class in stability. They are lighter than bulk carriers even considering how much containers they carry. They got so much space when a container is just not filled. And they must access some lucrative yet shallow ports. The ballast tanks helped them on these cases but the tanks themselves are a hazard if not done right. Especially when cg gets dangerously higher away from cb.
@@kimpatz2189
...I don't find all of that reassuring.
I'm kind of opposed to cruise ships anyway. Lots of CO2 output for what's an entirely luxury application, notorious for worker abuse, petri dishes for disease.
Now I don't know if taking a plane gives you a less CO2 intense vacation, though, I'd have to look into it.
Maybe sardine-packing all those people together is a net CO2 savings over them all flying or driving somewhere.
Maybe I'm just weirded out with the idea of being crammed into a can with 1500 normies. 😬
@@grmpEqweer I'm a bit of a shipwreck afficianado and occasional Great Lakes wreck diver, and I will never get on a cruise ship. Partly because of the microbiological issue of being trapped on board with at least a thousand other people and a closed water supply, partly because I find the whole idea of cruises fairly inane, (unless it's a way to get somewhere really interesting, like Antarctica, or an attempt to sail a tall ship through the Northwest Passage, then I'm game!), but mostly because of the size vs. safety issue. People keep building bigger and bigger, but nature keeps proving that size doesn't matter; everything is sinkable. And the bigger they are, the more complacent the crew - just look at the behaviour of the captain of the Costa Concordia! I'll note that I trust container ships far less than cruise ships, as they're lost far more often than the general public is aware of, but the other safety issues involved on cruise ships, mainly the crime rates onboard, which are carefully swept under the rug by the cruise companies, make them an unlikely sailing choice for me.
Good job Plainly, My father worked for P&O in Aberdeen, i remember him coming home saying they were welding closed all the bow doors on the ships they ran up to orkney/shetland after this.
Others did the same. DFDS from Esbjerg to newCastle did the same
For a second I though you were referring to Aberdeen proving grounds, I was like “I thought they only tested tanks there? Pretty sure it’s landlocked?” Then realized you weren’t talking about the US lmao
Bc ferries did some re-engineering of their similar ocean going car ferries after this incident, installing a secondary interior water tight door to prevent this. Unfortunately a BCFerries crew managed to sink the queen of the North by missing a course change in calm weather and opening the bottom of the ship doing 19 knots on a rocky outcrop. Fortunately virtually everyone survived that one. 2 people perished sadly though, but the ship managed to remain afloat for 1 hr surprisingly despite the engine room and below water deck flooding in a very few minutes.
"opening the bottom of the ship" - Actually, if I recall correctly, they ripped the starboard prop shaft right out of the hull.
This accident demonstrates why the feds stopped BC Ferries from allowing people to stay in their cars during Covid. When the ship lists the vehicles would slide together preventing people from leaving their vehicles, or if they can climb out, smashing windows of empty vehicles, they will have to climb over or through cars. It would be a nightmare.
I've always wondered if the 2 people who perished were in their car, tried to get to safety but were washed away by the in-rushing water.
@@MrSunrise- I did not know that.
@@mikedavey1996 I’ve wondered the same thing about the 2 that didn’t make it out. It was truly amazing the shipped stayed afloat as long as it did. Quite the commendation for the crew (not the bridge crew on this watch however)
@@mikedavey1996 didn't know that. Good info.
Did anybody else notice the now almost obligatory "at which point there was a shift change"?
at least in this case, the new shift actually checked the visor, if anything the old shift was worse
And the muggers on deck were replaced with well rested muggers...
Boats whole bow comes off:
"Well there's your problem."
"The front fell off"
I friggin' love recurring jokes on the internet. It's like being in on something without having to be in on anything -- best of both worlds.
Clearly it was made out of cardboard and had a crew of 1
czcams.com/video/3eMfv1i3eFk/video.html
i might be the no shit person here but idc. in 2019 a pair of german and swedish divers and Technicians deployed an robot "submarine" to look for what there had been theories about for an long time wich was an big hole, about an half hour in i bealive it was they found an 4 x 1,5 meter hole in the starboard side, likley caused by an submarine (probably russian because of the russian military equipment they had on board). the front came of at the time the boat hit the ground.
9:50 - that's a really annoying strobe effect over old photograph footage.
not half as frustrating as "an European", nor the random stress on the end of sentences as if everything was at fault
I have some issues related to sensory overload and I just couldn't watch it, scrolled down to the comment section to avoid a headache.
Incidentally, the hole on the starboard side of vessel in unlikely to have been responsible for the sinking, as it's not very large compared to the size of the ship, so any flooding caused by it should have been able to be contained, and accounts by survivors are consistent with the bow visor being torn off. In fact, the most likely cause for the hole is the bow visor collising with the side of the ship after it was torn off.
It's also unlikely that people drowned in the water, as humans are 70% water.
The only thing that still doesn't make sense is that many survivors from the lower decks recall seeing the water pouring up from below through vents and other openings. If the bow visor had been the sole cause of the sinking, the water wouldn't have come from below, but from above. But it didn't. And, what's also strange is that the ship sank like a stone once it had capsized, which it wouldn't have if the bow visor was the only thing wrong with the ship. The air must've had a way to escape the hull, otherwise it would've stayed afloat for hours. And I don't know if that one single hole was enough to have that effect.
Well, the fact that it sunk so fast actually contradicts the theory that the bow-visor malfunction and subsequent flooding of the car deck was the root cause of it's sinking. Compare it to a similar incident just a year prior where the polish Ro-Ro ship Jan Heweliusz stayed afloat upside down for days even though the car deck was completely flooded. Also the theory that the bow visor caused the hole was dismissed in the recent documentary by a naval-engineer. FEA showed that mass and velocity was insufficient to produce the necessary force for the hole to open up. A recent memorandum from the Swedish Maritime Administration doesn't list it as a cause; instead it presents the theory that a large rock on the seabed caused it after the ship had already capsized. This is of course another can of worms in and of itself since bottom survey of the area where it sank indicates up to 10 meters of sediment before the bedrock starts.
@@leDespicable The car deck was undivided and almost the entire length of the ship. Figure at least 15ft high, that is a huge cavern for water to fill rather quickly, especially at speed and in rough seas. Look at some reports of damage caused by speed+water to the Bismarck and other warships when they have holes in them at the waterline. Water will tear things up internally if a ship is up to speed, which can result in water in pipes and vents that may be ruptured. Once the water is in that cavern, though, the heavy seas will have it slosh around, slack tanks in essence, and that will cause a capsize very easily.
@@markgormley7431 Looking at some photos of the sinking of the Jan, that ship rolled completely over, allowing air to be trapped in the hull. This happened in other capsizings like the Princess of the Stars or the Sewol. Estonia lay on her side, which allowed air to escape at a quicker rate.
Our close family friend Pierre Thiger survived the sinking, while also trying to save others.
Edit: he got out early because he recognized that the listing of the ship was too far to come back up and told people to get out. He may have saved some people by doing that, but he never talked about that night much. I've heard his story through the investigation.
He passed away from cancer some years ago. Life is unfair.
I miss him so much, documentaries about Estonia always make me cry for multiple reasons.
EDIT 2: oh, I just noticed that the article some people are linking to tell part of his story of that night.
What is missing completely is the poor maintenance the vessel have had. Some of the looks at the visour couldn't be engaged. Especially the atlantic look. Also the sealings at the ramp had been missig and the hinges of the visour had wrong repairs. Due to that more than 150 tons of water had entered the visour and the force of the moving water inside the visour had coused the hinges first to collaps which opend up the ramp which was the bulkhead. The vessel had been sailing in the winter with full speed throug ice, due to schedule, causing many of the damages. The design of the ship was made for sailing in the closed waters of the islands between Sweeden and Finland and not for the open sea in the baltic. This was the reason why no special regulations for the construction were necessary. The class was changed when she changed owner and there the classification made the mistake not to ask for additinal bulkhead for a secoundary sealing system.
This 👆🏻
If the Estonia was stood on its aft, more than half of the ship would protrude above water.
Idea for a future episode: the Wasa in Stockholm.
the fact that they found different rulers in the Vasa wreck is the best part to me. two of them were in amsterdam feet, two were in swedish feet. i don't understand how that possibly could have backfired!
Deck Crew: "I heard a loud bang coming from the only thing keeping the massive hole in our bow closed."
Captain: "It's gonna be fine..."
I was 5 years old at the time of the sinking. The images of the sinking on TV had affected me very much at the time and I was afraid of deep water for a while.
That happened to me when an “A Night to Remember” was on television at my house. I was scared of large ships for quite a while after that. Large ships still fill me with awe.
Just saying... We should be afraid of deep water
@@beepbeeplettuce5890 to be fair, unless you're unlucky enough to be caught by a n a s t y rogue wave, it's almost always the ship or people itself that's the problem. Either terrible designs, or just something *not* maintained.
Or generally people like the crew of the Concordia.
Additionally, situations like the MV Wilhelm Gustloff got put in, or the Titanic of course.
Infact this ship's was really likely a combo of all of those. Dubious-ish design WAY out of it's element, possibly? bad care, incompetent crew.
Swedes, Finns and Estonians saw the upload and shouted yoooooo in unison
YOOOOOOO
YOOOOO
YOOOOOOO
YOOOOOOO
im not swedish or finnish but i might as well be and when i got the notification for this my immediate reaction was "oh, shit"
YOOOOOO
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
- Gordon Lightfoot
That’s God - nowhere to be seen when needed
Wrech of the Edmund Fitzgerald. classic
Man, you dont order protection of God For 33 days, you belive and live good and fair lige, waiting For the truth
Actually, the arch bishop of Finland asked in his prayer, broadcasted the next day after the accident: "God, where were You last night?" I live in Turku and close to the university hospital and heard the helicopters early in the morning. I heard about the accident later that day and it was difficult to believe. A school friend of mine worked as a rescue swimmer and when we later met, he told me about that night. Like... you are down on a life raft, the helicopter is almost full of rescued people and you have to choose whom you pick with you and who is to die. He was only 23 then. So, God, where were You? Smart people, where were you that night?
I was on the Silja Star in November 1990 between Turku and Stockholm. It was a rough night at sea, you could hear the propellers speeding up and slowing down with each wave. I was trying to sleep in the cabin on the lowest passenger deck, if this disaster had happened to me I would of stood no chance of getting out alive due to the distance to reach an outside deck. This disaster still fills me with fear and the thought 'it could of been me'
Thank you for covering this disaster. I myself, being Latvian, local to the region, still recall the shock it brought over the media.
oh my goodness, i live in estonia and my dad was on that ship while he worked as a waitress. he thankfully was one of the people who escaped
if someone wants a story i can write it here, he was just 21 years old while he worked there
Please write the story
@@Menape so he worked on one of the upper floors(one below the outer deck) so it was easier to him to get out. the scariest thing about the story is the way he got out when the ship was basically on the sideways. he had to step on other people that weren't strong enough just to get out. he was on one of the life boats. well they werent really boats they were just like a blow up mattress with sides, and no top. he was on there with 8 other people at the beginning, and in the end with 5. 2 of them we're lost at sea because of the wawes. the third one was a women that he worked with at the time. while escaping she hit her head pretty bad. so basically they had a dead body of a women with them until they got rescued. my english is lowkey bad and i apologise for that
That hinge door makes it look like a Paw Patrol toy, with just as much structural integrity.
It is a pretty common thing on ships to this day.
I’d say this a level 9 disaster since most of the passengers and crew went under with the entire ship
Ahem...
MV Wilhelm Gustloff exists
For peacetime the Doña Paz has the highest maritime deathtoll at nearly 4400 deaths. The MV Wilhelm Gustoff has the highest wartime deathtoll at about 9400. Both deserving of 9.
lets make a huge hole and put a moving part , where the ships needs to be stronger ...
@Tim M aye, tis true. Paraffin be cruel and mysterious.
What could possibly go wrong!
Old times...
All ferries here have that feature
Seems like it would be common sense.
My aunt and uncle were supposed to be on Estonia that night, but my aunt had a bad feeling about the weather and so they stayed home.
Estonia is a tragedy here in Sweden and I hope they find the answer to it now that they're looking into it again.
Did he say it had fair share problems, including 2 murders?
I researched the ship and yes indeed there were 2 murders on board.
@crassgop Gunnar Gunnarssonsson up to his old tricks again.
Well.. dont research rape on those ships.
@crassgop Rederiet
Thanks for covering this topic. Having researched maritime safety in my degree, this accident hit me the hardest - mainly in that it was so utterly preventable and unnecessary.
Not an incident.
there are so many holes in the official story. In the countries that have been neared to it, no one really believes "official" version. Also I am pretty sure that we will not find out the real cause of this for many years or maybe never and just have to live with it.
I was born in Turku, Finland in January 1994. Turku was the closest city in Finland (except Marienhamn) where the injured were brought. My mom has told me many stories about the morning after Estonia sank. About the helicopters flying over our apartment building, the sirens of emergency vehicles and the all around panic not knowing whats happening. And silence.
Still a deep wound in our memories.
" Alarm ! Alarm! There is alarm on the ship! "
Gee I wonder if this ambiguous announcement could have contributed to the passenger confusion and stalling their ability to exit the ship in any kind of safe and timely manner..?
Also is it normal for ships to have the car park drive in bit at the bow (front) of the ship?
Yes. The ship I work on has a bow door, however it is not a visor, it is called a clam door which is far stronger than a visor.
Seems like it would be better to put the door in the stern, like an amphibious assault sbip has, then you'd have a strong bow.
Considering the hallways were all at a 50 degree angle and you'd be walking partly on the wall and the corner of the floor alongside hundreds of other confused and terrified people at 1am... methinks they were fucked well before the alarm was even sounded.
@@kdrapertrucker it’s a bit harder if you want a lot of space for cars, as the engine room is between the back and middle of most boats
@@sadenuttie2234 It doesn't affect the car deck since the engine decks are down below. I've been sailing on several ships with a huge stern ramp and the car deck is still completely flat. The reason for having the ramp up front is more likely because it's way easier to berth by going straight in instsead of reversing. I would also think a single ramp up front wastes less car space aboard than having side ramps.
There's nothing really complicated with this accident, her owners pushed her into operation far beyond the ships capability, going out in severe weather other cruising lines refused to operate because of safety reasons. They pushed her beyond the ships sailing envelope, which would eventually lead to disaster in this case sooner than later. I have no doubt a catastrophy would've happened anyway.
Not the owners fault. If I remember correctly, the Finnish maritime authorities certified the ship as able to sail anywhere on the globe
@@moppelipoika8320 It is of course entirely the owners fault if they push the vessel beyond its limit.
They didn't push it beyond it's limits though, as these ships deal with this kind of weather all the time.
Actually, there was a recent documentary made, and they went down to the wreck (which the Swedish government made an illegal site) and found a massive hole on the side of the ship that wasn't mentioned in the official report because... Well the whole report contradicts everything the survivor's said. So now, they're making another investigation to find out what happend. So it's entirely possible it was the hole that caused it to sink
@@Taevas___ I was a passenger on the Estonia, not that unfortunate night but some months previously. And it was the scariest ride I've ever been on. I know for a fact they pushed that boat harder than it could take on a daily basis, and when the accident happened I was not surprised.
There were other passanger ferries out during that night. Including the obvious examples of Mariella (Viking Line) and Silja Europa (Silja Line) which took part of the rescue effort, so there was definitely no "refusing to operate" going on. The weather was not abnormal, it was typical bad weather for that time of year.
I just shook my head during the whole video. So many failures and so sad.
My mum watched the helicopters go back and forth between Utö and Turku from the University. She told me it's still one of the most depressing things she has ever seen.
Nobody really got anything done that day, they were just huddled around the break room TV and watching the news coverage.
The disaster was incredibly traumatic for everyone involved, even if indirectly. We're still reminded about it every time we go on ships. There are pictures of the deceased and the Estonia on some Viking Line ships, friends and family remembering their lost loved ones.
Thank you for making this video.
Wasn't the Plainly Difficult Disaster Scale always arbitrary? haha I thought its very serious nature was evident what with the fridge magnets.
My first clue was the foam finger straight out of Monty Python...
Personally, I love the “Patented Plainly Difficult Disaster Scale” with it’s essential foam finger pointer, and ...
the talking bubble cartoons.
Brilliant, John !
Everything involving Ashen's couch starts off serious...
I wonder how those magnets stay in order on the carpet (and sometimes other materials).
I clicked on this video without realizing it's a fundraiser, then when I did see the tab for it I was blown away. I've never seen someone raise awareness and/or money for OCD, so from someone who has it, thank you.
William Langewiesche gives a terrifying account of the Estonia sinking in his book “The Outlaw Sea.”
I know a sizeable chunk of us have been requesting this for a good while now. Thank you for making this. Something about this disaster messes with me. I don't usually feel weird after learning about these sorts of things, but this one is different. Maybe it's the way most people never had a chance. Then the dives on the wreck... the women still had lipstick on their faces many days later. Then there's the last photo of the M/S Estonia. The story behind this photo is pretty amazing, but God it's creepy. RIP to all those who perished.
From someone who spent many years at sea, I will never get on a ship with a bow that opens or a ship that has been renamed
So pretty much anything that isn't a container/tanker or fishing boat?
I'll keep that in mind.
If you are at sea and the ship you have gets compromised (fire, flooding, etc) you are right and truly fucked unless someone hears your distress call, I know a lot of people who were scientific minded who were superstitious
Might want a photosensitivity warning, the flashing effects on those pictures of the rescue at 9:45 - 10:10 are pretty intense.
The lighting and shakiness gave me vertigo.
Was about to comment the same. From those of us with with epilepsy, and who enjoy your channel, please don't do that again.
Good thing you said it, i was about to comment the same also. A small flaw in a great library of videos Plainly Difficult makes
My parents used to sail in MS Estonia quite a lot. The sinking came as a shock to them and to this day, it is one of the biggest tragedies for Finns.
00:00 Video starts here. (your welcome)
Thank I was wondering when it started
I guess you add up the waves ‘slap’ on all those huge metal sheets and the forces are like an train hitting it :o
...Then the ship's reactor had a criticality excursion...
Someone dropped the upper half of a reflector onto the lower half because of the loud bang from the bow visor?
Heavy water was involved.
A blue flash of light emanated from the ship's bow...
@@Taladar2003 At least they didn't drop a brick on it.
It was transporting something military, probably nuclear, and definitely russian.
Engineers: "Guys, I have an amazing idea. Let's put a big fuck-off hole at the prow of the ship, because nothing bad could ever possibly happen. You can trust us; we're engineers."
“ We have developed a lighter than air form of transport . We re going to fill it with hydrogen “
Visor bows are still used, especially in railway ferries. In new designs however the bow is inverted, so that the waves tend to keep it closed, instead of opening it. That's the modern railway ferry "Messina". www.ferrovie.it/portale/images/articoli/07754101.jpg
I like how "fuck-off" is an adjective in UK English
@poqypp hows that racist
When I worked in Estonia up til 1993, I travelled with Estonia many times. Good you cover this story! Don't forget about Tjörnbron, while you're still next to Sweden.
One theory is that a log, from one of the many Russian vessels transporting logs to paper-mills in Sweden and other Baltic countries, was picked up by waves and wind and slammed into the front of Estonia like battering ram. The force estimated was huge. But since no new evidence of UFOs, submarines, terrorists, KGB or whatever, I stick to what has come up so far.
This disaster is still in fresh memory of many people in the countries around the Baltic sea. It is often used in discussions about cutting down in seas rescue resources. Those 26 helicopters are long gone, and never replaced.
Nothing to calm me down like a disaster in the waters I and everyone I know use all the time. :)
Usernameme checks out.
Welcome to life on the Great Lakes! ;D
czcams.com/video/hgI8bta-7aw/video.html
I am so happy you did this one. I had been obsessed with this disaster since I was a kid hearing about it on tv.
I remember learning about this as an example of bad radio communication causing a disaster. They couldn't tell them where they were, talked more about the blackout than the fact that they were sinking, and didn't make it clear that they had a serious emergency. Of course, people like to exaggerate stuff like this so they can blame someone, but considering the lack of communication on the ship itself, it sounds realistic.
I remember this growing up in Sweden. I was only eleven. We were all shocked and speechless. That was my first experience with a major public tragedy.
Estonia (the country) had been free from soviet regime for 3 years. Too little time to get rid of the soviet "meh" thinking. This resulted - among other problems - to this accident where captain insisted sailing full ahead against severe storm waves...
the (meh) thinking or the (vodka) drinking? the 90's hit the former bloc pretty hard with alcholism for a while.
Trying to push blame on the soviets is a cheap shot
@@command_unit7792 I repeat my previous joke lol;
Shots of ALL kinds were very cheap then.
@@command_unit7792 Justified though. Soviet Russian basically nonexistent safety culture and lack of quality control had infected Estonia by then.
just starting to watch this, but as someone who deals with ocd i really appreciate you having a fundraiser to help fund treatment research
This is why any locking bolt mechanism should be accompanied with some sort of independent limit switch. Nothing wrong with a secondary sensor.
this is one of, if not the biggest tragedy in modern times for all finland, estonia, sweden… despite not having been even born in ’94, im very well aware of what a horrific tragedy this was. it shook all of finland, and other countries. rip to all the victims. 💔
Designing a ship where the front of the ship can be literally knocked off ...
@urinecontainer00 yes
Blown off by explosives actually. This video is like doing a video on chernobyl and just saying that "there was a small incident and the government had everything under control. There was one death."
the front fell off
@@FieldMouse88 So uh... where's the actual physical evidence of explosives at the Bow Visor? There's a dent in it but that came from *outside.*
Unless you're telling me that someone had been onboard, climbed down on something, strapped a bomb onto that spot, climbed BACK on the ship, and either died or was a survivor, or just dived into the ocean or buddies showed up after it was set up.
Or that he rowed up in some stealthy boat in a storm, planted that explosive, and moved off casually.
There are no signs from any pictures, or the visor you can actually go *look at* that indicate an explosion. No scorch marks, no shredded metal, nothing. So please enlighten us
Technically, the front of any ship can be knocked off. It all depends on what you hit.
The docu-series on discovery plus about this is absolutely brilliant. 100% recommend to anyone else interested in this.
OKAY BUT HOWWWWWW DO YOU ONLY RATE THIS A 5️⃣ ON YOUR DISASTER SCALE, JOHN?!😲
800+ ppl died! That’s way more than any video you’ve ever posted, unless I’m forgetting something. I thought for SURE you’d give this at least a 9.
I vaguely remember this happening and I remember wondering why you'd build a ship with a bow that opens. To this day I don't understand why you'd do that rather than have it either load from the stern or from the port side. The bow just seems like the part of the ship that will experience the most variable and intense of loads. I don't think I'd want to fly on an airplane that had foldable wings either (and, yes, I know they exist).
It greatly speed up the unload of the cars. By alternatively dock bow-first or stern-first, the cars enter and exit the ship always going forward.
“Unsinkable” shouldn’t even be a word. Because nothing is unsinkable it has no application.
There's these small boats made by a company Boston whaler which a are as close to unsinkable as you can get. They're filled with lightweight foam, so they can't take on water. You could cut it in half and it would still float for days.
Styrofoam is unsinkable, but you wouldn't want to build a ship out of it.
@@ananthropomorphictalkinggo6641 “Close to Unsinkable” is NOT “Unsinkable” - that’s my point exactly. Lol. Besides what good is a boat you’ve cut in half - pretty sure that’s not even a “boat” anymore. Otherwise you made a good point
@@russlehman2070 Styrofoam floats because it has tiny air bubbles in it. It eventually gets water logged and sinks. I’ve found it on the ocean floor when scuba diving
You should watch Fascinating Horror’s episode on the Chicago Iroquois Theater Fire disaster. The deadliest building fire in USA history. In the beginning he shows a vintage advertisement for the show, and I swear to god in the upper right corner it says “ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF”!! You have to see it to believe it!! What a bizarre thing to print in a theater advertisement, much less the extreme subsequentirony....
This is what I look forward to every week. Thank you PD for this wonderful work you do.
File this one under C for Clusterfluck 😳. I love how the same group that didn’t give standard guide numbers in building were the same group that decided not to update the requirement after that first accident. 🤯
A good addition to this video would be a discussion about "free surface flood effect". As a mariner I have used this disaster to train young/new mariners to the perils of free surface flood effect amd how a relatively small amount of water is very unstable and dangerous. If anyone wants to know understand what im talking about fill a large tray up with water and try amd keep it stable. The trick is to add mini bulkheads of baffles to stop the water moving freely and catastrophicly affecting stability.
Damn. One of my favourite teachers was lost on Estonia. Hadn't thought about it for a long time. To make things worse her reason for going on the journey was to deliver toys and supplies to an orphanage.
One of the survivors of the wreck used a cameras flash to try and signal for help. There's a couple blurry but haunting photos of another survivor actually sitting on the hull of the Estonia before it sank fully.
"Wasa" is pronounced "vasa", just so you know.
Pronunciation isn’t his strong suit. At least we’ve kinda-sorta been able to get him to stop pronouncing “roentgens” as “rotajens”...
@@tookitogo and free is pronounced three.
@@RichardDTube at least pronouncing “3” as “free” is an actual feature of some London dialects! :p
The English never care about being understood. The sun never sets on their stubborn inarticulate post-colonial hubris.
@@ezekielbrockmann114 😂 they are a bit bitter about it, aren’t they? 🤣
Congrats Mr. Plainly.
To this day, not haven read all to much about it and just gathered my knowlede from Tv on this disaster, I have to say that this opened a full new way of seeing all this.
If this channel covers it, it is not just submarine or not, it is all the contributing Factors wich had this Disaster waiting anyway.
Idk why I thought there would be a nuclear reactor on the boat
One thing for sure is that there was something on that boat that Sweden did not want the other countries to recover as they insisted on putting concrete or confine the entire thing and to make the graveyard there. To not bring anything or anyone up from the sea floor. It could have been something they escorted, something important that they didn't want the public to know. Who knows, and they won't tell us. Maybe if lucky in 50 years.
There actually might have been. The Estonia was secretly carrying military equipment.
@@AureaPersona I would not have been suprised really and I am almost convinced it could be so. Its not the first time Sweden has tried to obscure an incident like that.
Lol, I suppose because its plainly difficult =P
@@gordonm.9280 Lol exactly
Nice to hear about some cases around Finland too. Horrible the cases of course, but most channels ignore Scandinavia and fennoscandia all together. Appreciate that.
There is nothing arbitrary about your disaster scale, it is the most accurate scale for measuring disasters out there and should be adopted world wide
There were 3 people from the engine room who survived the night, and when they were questioned by the investigators they told that during the sinking they had looked in the surveillance cameras and then saw that the car ramp was still closed but the seal around the ramp was damaged which caused water to enter but not in serious quantity. And that was when the ship had an list of around 30-40 ° already. but for some reason it was omitted from the investigation
You should have a look at the Princess Victoria sinking in 1953. One of the first ever RoRo ferries, sank in a storm when the stern doors were smashed by waves flooding the car deck and capsizeing.
Thank for a clear and concise summary. I’ll be less likely to believe conspiracy theories about the accident now.
Hey, can you do a video about the worst high-speed train derailment in history?
In 1998 the ICE884 was traveling at about 200 kilometers per hour when a steel-tire broke. The disaster caused over 100 deaths, 80 injured and a destroyed bridge.
And a little fun fact: the train was named after Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen!
And also thanks for your awesome content!
Thank you for the suggestion!!
Fun fact: Wilhelm is a fucking cursed name...
MV Wilhelm Gustloff happens to be one of the bloodiest, itself
@@higueraft571 9,000 out of 10,000 dead on that one. and i think it's the deadliest ship disaster ever, correct me if im wrong
@@chickensouvlaki Yeah, though the numbers arent quite confirmed, but... v e r y likely, yeah.
I'm into a lot of horror stories, fictional or otherwise, but the story of the MS Estonia sinking is one of the most horrific IMO.
If I've learned anything from Plainly Difficult, never use an older design to save time 😂
Am I the only one that comes here for PD's epic animations? It's so sad so many people died because of this accident. It's when I see stories like this that make me glad I live in the US where we don't have nearly as many ferries or trains as there are in Europe.
Really hate to break it to you but trains and ferries are statistically far safer than car travel.
The strobing effect at 9:53 nearly gave me a seizure
I come from the Baltic coast. was four when Estonia sank. I came to kitchen. Mum had left for work. Dad had his autum holidays and was taking care of us kids. I came to kitchen for breakfast but dad was glued to the early morning extra reports. We watched it together. I remember the footage. Life rafts in the sea, empty, only sloshing with water.
Should definitely do an episode of Herald of Free Enterprise one day
Or the ferry in Korea, apparently there was only two doors for several hundred people to get out of, in a few minutes.
@@worldcomicsreview354 I'm not sure on that. What I do know is the crew told people to stay in their cabins while they abandoned ship
Minutes in to watching this video I was already looking for comments about the Herald of Free Enterprise.
@@elementaldraco happy to oblige 😂
The Princess Victoria in 1953 is another, only that time it was stern doors that caused the car deck to flood.
852…… that is horrendous
For all my fellow PD fans with epilepsy or photosensitivity, there is a flicker warning from 9:45 to 10:18. Please be careful out there!
I couldn't sleep that night so I put on the radio. I followed the rescue all night. I couldn't stop listening and I couldn't sleep. It was an horrid night and it still haunts me. I never turned on the radio at night after that. I have a vague memory of an ytbärgare (rescue swimmer in English?) telling a reporter about how it was out there in the dark and cold, trying to save as many as possible. They were true heroes.
Audio sounds better on this one, is it a new mic? Idea for a video maybe for 300K subs, but do a spoof documentary of the resonance cascade accident from Halt Life.