People from 17 countries lost their lives in the disaster. A mangled mayday signal was sent. The passenger ferry MS Estonia in the docks in Tallinn. The best preserved shipwreck ever found from the age of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama has been discovered – at the bottom of the Baltic Sea … A crew member who survived the accident told the BBC at the time that he had seen a loading bay door open and taking in water minutes before the ship sank. The disaster had a major impact on ferry safety, leading to changes in safety regulations as well as in life-raft design, much as the Titanic disaster did in 1912. Sweden said on Friday it would allow an underwater examination of the ferry Estonia, which sank in the Baltic 26 years ago with the loss of 852 lives… 17 Dec 2020 Cargo Ship … Hoping to avoid prosecution, the film-makers chartered a boat flying the flag of Germany – the only Baltic Sea state not to have signed the 1995 treaty – and sent down a camera attached to “a sort of underwater drone”, said Evertsson. Groups representing the victims’ families have long called for a fresh investigation, saying the bang, and the speed with which the ship sank, were consistent with a collision. Of the 852 people killed, 501 were Swedish and 285 were Estonian. The film crew discovered the hole in the ship's hull while using a remote-controlled submarine to explore the wreckage. We wanted to see if there was any evidence of a collision – a hole, for example. It would apparently take a big hit to the side of the ship to cause a hole like that – but that is all we know.”. A report published in 1997 said the cause of the sinking was the breaking of the ship's bow visor. “It was a bang that people felt, not just that they heard. The MS Estonia ferry sank as it was crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm in September 1994, killing 852 people. The official examination finished […] For a quarter of a century, a lack of firm evidence has prevented any real challenge to the official story of how, on a stormy September night, more than 850 people came to die in Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster since the second world war. In underwater fleet of Estonia the new ship has acted. VideoA tourist, in Afghanistan? I mean, a huge hole: 4 metres high, 1.2 metres wide.”. At 1.50am the Estonia sank, stern first, in international waters about 40km south-southeast of the Finnish island of Utö. It has been consistently denied. There were 137 survivors. Resisting calls to raise the wreck and bury the dead, the Swedish government initially proposed covering the whole vessel, lying in about 80 metres of water, in a concrete shell, but eventually backed down in the face of a public outcry. Screenshot from the documentary Candles at a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the MS Estonia maritime disaster, in Tallinn, Estonia. The conditions were rough – force 8 winds and waves up to 6 metres – but not unusual for the Baltic Sea in autumn. MS Estonia, a 16,000-ton cruise ferry that began serving the Tallinn-Stockholm route in 1993 and was operated by the Swedish-Estonian shipping company, Estline, was the largest ship sailing under the Estonian flag at the time. “We are just putting facts on the table. But the claim was rejected by a Paris court, which said the claimants had failed to prove "intentional fault". In 1995, Estonia, Finland and Sweden signed an agreement to protect the shipwreck, which prohibits diving to the wreck. The 1997 report by an accident investigation committee set up jointly by Estonia, Sweden and Finland concluded that the locks on the bow visor failed, allowing it to tear free and expose the doors and ramp, which gave way, flooding the car deck. Sweden said on Friday it would allow an underwater examination of the ferry Estonia, which sank in the Baltic 26 years ago with the loss of 852 lives, after a documentary film showed previously unknown holes in the wreck's hull. Sweden to Allow Underwater Probe of Estonia Wreck Site December 18, 2020 (Photo: Accident Investigation Board Finland) Sweden said on Friday … On board were 803 passengers, most of them Swedish, and 186 crew, most of them Estonian. “We could have just reported the various theories and left it at that,” said Evertsson, who with his colleague Bendik Mondal led the team behind a new five-part Discovery Networks documentary released this week, Estonia: the Find that Changes Everything. 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But in 1995, the governments of Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the UK signed a treaty declaring the site a marine grave and prohibiting any further exploration of the wreckage, on penalty of two years in prison – further stoking fears that they may have something to hide. He insisted Sweden “has not lied” about the ship’s fate, and would “rule nothing out”, including new dives, of any new probe. At about 1am, a heavy metallic bang was heard – caused, the accident report said, by a large wave. “We did not disturb the grave,” he said, “and what we discovered is clearly information that should be in the public domain.”, The reaction from victims’ relatives has been overwhelming. Final report on the MV ESTONIA disaster of 28 September 1994. “We scanned the port side, from bow to stern, just the outside. For 20 years, he said, “we have been demanding another investigation, citing experts who say the ship could not have sunk that fast unless it was holed below the waterline. Margus Kurm, former state prosecutor and head of the government's investigative committee looking into the sinking of ferry MS Estonia in 2005-2009, said in an interview with ETV's "Pealtnägija" that new scenes of the shipwreck show the ship most likely sank after a collision with a submarine. .css-14iz86j-BoldText{font-weight:bold;}Estonia, Sweden and Finland will examine new evidence that may shed light on the cause of one of Europe's worst peacetime shipping disasters. .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}Estonia ferry disaster: French court rejects compensation claim, Women first rule 'ignored in ship disasters' - study, Democrat 'set to win' Georgia Senate run-off race. “But the surviving witnesses – whose testimony really didn’t feature in the report – were clear that it all started with that bang,” Evertsson said. FILE - In this Nov. 19, 1994 file photo, the bow door of the sunken passenger ferry M/S Estonia is lifted up from the bottom of the sea, off Uto Island, in the Baltic Sea. "I believe the truth is something other than what people have been told until now," survivor Carl Eric Reintamm said in the documentary. At 6.30pm on 27 September 1994, the ferry MS Estonia – the largest ship then flying the flag of the young Baltic republic, and a symbol of recently regained independence – set sail from Tallinn on a routine overnight crossing to Stockholm. The sinking of the ferry vessel MS Estonia in the Baltic Sea is an accident that will haunt the maritime domain for long years and even beyond. 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The MS Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea off Finland on September 28, 1994, after the ship’s bow door locks failed during a storm, prompting the vessel to capsize within moments as hundreds of its passengers were left trapped. The documentary team made a shocking discovery when they surveyed the Estonia wreck with an underwater drone Credit: Discovery “We found … "What has emerged today adds to the question marks - why was the hole not included in the official investigation?". At 6.30pm on 27 September 1994, the ferry MS Estonia– the largest ship then flying the flag of the young Baltic republic, and a symbol of recently regained independence – … Two of the filmmakers have since been charged with disturbing the final resting place and face up to two years in prison, but the revelations sparked calls for a reopening of the investigation. Video, Why the unique ‘drumming’ bird is in peril, Covid-trapped Brit cleaning up Taiwan's rivers. The vessel was sailing from Estonia to Sweden on 28 September 1994 when it sank in the Baltic Sea off Finland. But new underwater footage appears to show a previously unrecorded four metre (13ft) hole in the ship's hull. Margus Kurm is a former state prosecutor and the head of a 2007 Estonian investigation that expressed doubts about the 1997 report’s conclusion that the water had entered through the bow doors. MS Estonia disappeared from the radar screens of other ships at around 01:50 EEST in international waters, about 22 nautical miles (41 kilometres) from the Finnish island of Utö. Shocked to be Europe's vaccination stragglers, playWhy the unique ‘drumming’ bird is in peril. New evidence emerges in Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster - the sinking of MS Estonia in 1994, Last modified on Mon 5 Oct 2020 07.22 BST. December 15, 2006 at 2:47 pm . Caused by myriad reasons, this Baltic Sea accident was an event so unprecedented that the extent of the damages caused, both to life and to property, is still shocking even after almost 15 years since the disaster occurred. It was the worst peacetime disaster at sea in European waters. "A new technical investigation into the circumstances of Estonia's sinking must be carried out," Estonia's Prime Minister Juri Ratas said, according to local media. He is surprised by the charge, which he denies. The three countries said they would "assess new information" which could contradict the official explanation. Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, said the footage appeared to be genuine, adding: “It wasn’t caused by an explosion. Reply. At about 1.15am the ship’s bow visor lifted, wrenching its doors open. The film-makers’ findings, made public for the first time last week, have prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity. 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