The worst part that people often fail to acknowledge, is the panic. There were many reports of people stealing life vests off other passengers due to not having one themselves. There were a few looters that took chains and jewelry off passengers. Usually the victims were women as they couldn't defend themselves and are simply too weak to fight someone off. And since most were trying to surive they simply didn't care. This is also partially the reason that 97% of all female passengers died, most never got a life vest, some didn't get help and often couldn't make it on a lifeboat or raft because the men simply beat them to it. Some simply didn't have the strength anymore to climb up the massive angle, and fell. I'm not saying they should've gotten help, but when it's everyone for themselves the ladies have no chance.... They will never make it first on a lifeboat or raft because they don't have the strength. It's really sad to think about how so many people died in the ship because they couldn't get out or simply had no chance with all the people climbing over them. I heard a story of a young girl that died on this ship, supposedly she managed to make it out onto the deck, but there was no help for her and her life vest was supposedly taken from her. She died together with the 800+ others. Imagine how many similar stories happened.
Absolutely tragic.. I remember it it very well. My cousin from Jylland lost a friend there. Many took the train to Stockholm, and then went on foot to the ferry. That friend there because of some national celebration in Estonia. Very tragic that something like that happens afterwards
Read "A Sea Story".. it was an article written in the Atlantic in 2004 about this disaster. It's still one of the most harrowing things I've ever read.
Thanks for the recommend! Just read it and it's indeed harrowing. Similar to "The Clock is Ticking" by the same author, about the 2015 sinking of the El Faro. I recommend that one as it too is a harrowing read!
@esMusicalus wow... had no clue there was another one. That guy is a great disaster writer. Thanks for the return recommend! I think the thing that gets me about "A Sea Story" is how the author stresses that on such a crowded small location it was a terribly lonely way to die because most people were separated from families/friends and due to the disorienting nature of the sinking. It basically became every man for himself trying to escape a fun house like nightmare of physical challenges. It's terrifying. "Moreover, the cabins themselves were smaller than cells, and though this must have been unimaginable to even the most miserable of their occupants that night, many soon turned into traps and then coffins." GAH!
Now an explanation for the huge holes in the side of the wreck, and one for why Sweden doesn't want anybody taking a closer look at the wreck, and then I would be satisfied.
Hull of ship bents, rips and get crushed when on end of the ship crash against sea bottom before other end. Hull of ship is not desing to endure laying in agle against solid surface
You are one ignorant and stup1d individual if you think that would have caused the ship to sink so quickly 😂if the water had gotten into the deparments from hole under the car deck, those compartments could have been sealed off and even if not, the flooding would have never caused Estonia to sink as quickly as it did. Think about Titanic for a moment and how long it took for that to sink... The only thing that could have caused the ship to sink so quickly without vast majority of passangers getting even out was exactly what the official reports say, because the car deck is the ONLY thing on the ship where the water could enter to entire length of the ship and quickly destabilize it. Also this is supported by the FACT that the visor DID break lose, and by the eyewitness stories of the survivors, including what they heard as the visor started to break lose (the loud bangs as if someone was hitting the side of the ship with some large rock)...and there were report of those kind of sounds over LONGER period of time, not just once, which again goes exactly with the evidence that it was the sound of the lose visor that was hanging by its locks. But I bet you are never gonna believe the official report no matter what is said to you, same way Holocaust deniers can never admit that they are wrong.
Just one thing: nobody of the crew looked at the car deck from the monitors. The panel on the bridge said, that the front was closed, and in comparison to other ships like the Estonia, they couldn't see the ship bow from the bridge. So they saw no reason to watch the sequences from the security cameras on the monitors.
Note that the time of the Bow visor detaching is believed to be ~01:10 at night. Estonia disappeared from radar at 1:50. Meaning that it stayed afloat for 40 minutes (not even rolling over until the very end) with a gigantic hole at sealevel. Not even the animator found that believable enough to animate and doesn't show a single wave entering the ship, heading straight into waves as high as the Estonias draught it would've instantly flooded and turned over, much like the MS Herald of Free Enterprise that capsized in 90 seconds. Survivors from below the car deck testifying about water leaking up from decks beneath them also raises red flags about the whole thing.
@@DonFelixGallardo Sabotage, the Russians knew Estonia and Sweden used her to smuggle soviet era tech into the hands of the UK and US. All I know is there is no way the bow visor came off and ripped the car ramp down as the official story says. They found one of the arms that are supposed to hold the bow visor to the ship. They tossed it back into the ocean for some reason. Other vessels simular to Estonia who have capsized without a massive hole in them have stayed afloat upside down for days.
I read that the vast majority of the survivors were in good athletic shape. That’s why they managed to get out. Fat people, injured people, old people etc. didn’t stand a chance.
Another reason to take the best care of yourself as possible. Being able to outrun a knife welding maniac, escape a sinking ferry or out run the fat person while being chased by some man eating predator… all depend on being in shape. Injuries and old age are just hard luck. But being a fat slob is no excuse
A real disaster and Sweden's right-wing government between the years 1991-94 and the Western Alliance is to blame for the catastrophe after smuggling military equipment out from Russia after the end of the Cold War.
I personally believe the visor broke off, Stayed afloat riding down the staurbord side long enough for the ship to impale itself with it's own visor. Strange and outlandish I know , But that is a possibility of how the huge whole on the side came from.
This has been proven to be impossible as the impact damage required at least 2000 - 4000 tonnes to be able punch into the metal frame of the ship and result in the damage found by Henrik Evertson. The bow visor was only 50 tonnes and could not have caused that hole, which has now been shown in the new investigation to be even 20x larger in length than first discovered.
@@EricBlair-jg2ux I haven't seen the new investigation. But to me If the ship was riding up and down in the storm the force of the ship coming down could cause the 4k metric ton force to break the plating.
No watertight/splashtight compartments on the car deck at all. Nothing to stop water from moving around. Plus, no way to see from the bridge, is bow is gone. 2 HUGE design mistakes, that make ZERO sense to me
I am swedish, born in 1992, and in 1993 my family vacationed in Estonia traveling with the M/S Estonia. when i see these videos of the sinking I am deeply struck by the blind luck that caused me to be here today. I would have had no chance surviving this event.
I am genuenly able to feel with those people, i was on a crossing a few years ago from denmark to norway where we were told to hold on to something when we went into port. There was a gale force offshore storm, the crossing took seven hours.
I was on my way to help but I then got a call from superman asking for help taking down general zod. He managed without my help and i think about not helping everyday now.
That was my thinking too, 15 knots according to report. Which is 27.78km/h, 27,78 meters per second, and the damage to the hull was found about 2/3rds down the length of the ship? Yeah, I'm calling bull too.
This has been 'sold' as the truth. After the recent divings we know more. A big hole under the water line was discovered. Hopely the new investigations in 2021 and further are leading to the truth. The best should be: lift up the Estonia.
Im just now thinking, I know of all the alternative and official theories but, if it was true that the bottom parts of the ship flooded too due to a hole... Then It would not have turned up side down, it only turned upside down because there was still air in the bottom part holding it up and the bottom part was lighter due to that. Thats why also titanic didnt turn upside down because there was water in the bottom compartments... And this is one story that all survivors have in common, the ship did turn upside down and it was floating like this for a little bit, that would not happen if there was water in there. Or was the hole discovered above the bottom part? Also as some survivors say the ramp was supposedly closed, but it was propably closed because when the ship turned around it fell back into a more closed position due to gravity. Im not sure about some of the alternative theories anymore. It doesnt mean that some shady stuff wasnt going on though.
@@jurgenkoks9142 Sometimes, alternative theories happen because some people “want to believe”™ and that’s the easiest way for them to cope. A mysterious theory with no verifiable starting points is more exciting than a chain of fuckups from top to bottom.
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 I agree, humans usually do not like the boring reality as sometimes things happen without any actual reason or a specific person to blame on which leaves the case in a way unresolved in our brains and our brains hate that :D
@@jurgenkoks9142 ye people want to believe in all sorts of theories because they want to believe whatever fits their own world view. But ye you are exactly right that the quick flip of the ship to its side clearly indicates there was free moving mass of water on car deck. If water had been flooded the lower decks below car deck, the situation would not have been nearly as bad and there would have been time to evacuate everyone, the ship might not have even sunk or atleast not as rapidly. If anything the conspiracy theorists can ask were the car ramp/visor sabotaged, thats the only even remotely sensible question to ask but there is no question whatsoever that the visor fell, it took the car ramp down with it and the ship sunk/turn to its side so quickly because the freely moving water on car deck quickly destabilised the ship
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 That's what intellectually lazy people say when they are ignorant of the full story and wider spectrum of available evidence and thus are basing their naive assessment off the limited information they have been subjected to, resulting in an inability to objectively analyse the real world potential of alternative scenarios.
Honestly, that theory doesn’t hold up as much as the other conspiracies out there. If a submarine has collided with a ferry, then there would be a lost submarine too. Good luck trying to cover that up. Either way, ferry’s like this are vulnerable to rapid sinking if water enters the cargo deck. If the Swedes are trying to cover up anything, its probably their involvement with approving the ships license to sail in the Baltic Sea. Better to downplay responsibility
@@thedesertrat_9514 If submarine collided with ship it would be cut in half or lost some of its parts and sunk nearby. MS Estonia was bigger than destroyer "Statny" that collided with USSR submarine in 1956, wich made submarine sank. And all that happened because submarine commander was replacing someone else and really had no experience with that type of submarines and even when destroyer tryed to maneuver it still didnt help. I cant understand why people think that some underwater "dildo" can hit a big ship and just swim further without any damages? Some idiots even claim that it was Russian submarine which is even more absurd, why would Sweden&Britain&Finland try to cover up Russia? Like seriously, man? hahaah Especially when Sweden wanted to put concrete over ms Estonia remains, even when there are still bodies there and ship is like 75metres under the water, which is not really that deep.
I was as the same sea when this happened but a different ship and I remember I had a hard time sleeping thx to waves it was realy bad weather. But what I remember the most was waking up and prepare to leave the ship I was on and watching the TV monitors during breakfast and they showed swedish tv4 channel all about Estonia and I remember the feeling. The same thing when we drive of the ship and started to se the newspaperstands every single newspaper said the same thing.
