1994 Baltic ferry disaster: new dive finds no evidence to back alternative theories
A new research expedition to the wreck of a ferry that sank in the Baltic Sea 27 years ago has not provided fresh evidence contradicting the official accident investigation report, the Estonian and Swedish accident investigation boards said on Tuesday.
In one of Europe’s deadliest peacetime maritime disasters, the MS Estonia, en route from Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, to Stockholm in Sweden, sank in heavy seas on 28 September 1994, killing 852 people, most of them Swedes and Estonians.
Only 137 people on board survived. The fate of the vessel has sparked several conspiracy theories, including that it collided with a submarine or that it was carrying sensitive military cargo that played a part in the sinking.
The 1997 official joint investigation by Estonia, Finland and Sweden concluded that the ferry sank when its bow door locks failed in a storm. That separated the bow door from the vessel, opening up the ramp to the car deck and causing extensive flooding of the decks, sinking the vessel in just 30 minutes from the initial distress call.
However, others questioned this amid increasing evidence that there was a large hole in the ferry.
Presenting the preliminary results of a dive by underwater robots in July, Rene Arikas, head of the Estonian safety investigation bureau, said the dive showed that the wreck did have a hole, about 22 metres long and four metres high. The wreck was resting on a slope on the seabed, and its original position had changed over the years because of changes in the seabed, making the hole and other damage more visible, he said.
Despite this, he emphasised, researchers have no evidence proving the official report on the sinking to be incorrect.
New underwater surveys are scheduled in March-April, when visibility is considered the best, Arikas said.
Jonas Backstrand, deputy director general of Sweden’s accident investigation board, said researchers were surprised to find the seabed wass substantially rocky, and this could well have been the reason for the hole. “We don’t know how this damage [to the vessel] occurred,” Backstrand said, but it was likely it happened when the ferry fell on to the rocky seabed. More investigation was needed, he said.
A separate, privately funded expe
dition commissioned by relatives of the victims of the MS Estonia conducted a dive in September. Initial results are expected to be published early next year.
The wreck lies on the seabed about 80 metres (265ft) below the surface in international waters off a Finnish island, and is considered a graveyard, which gives the area protection under the law.
• This headline has been updated to more accurately reflect the story