 Before we start I should probably say that this video is based off the joint accident investigation commission's report into the incident. There has been subsequent theories into the cause of the disaster stemming from more recent discovery of a hole in the ship's starboard side of its hull and more modern 3D scanning of the vessel's resting place. The theories have surmised that the cause could have been an explosion or even a collision with a submarine. Right without disclaimer out the way here's the video. Ships are truly impressive pieces of engineering, defiantly navigating the immeasurable power of the sea. When you are near one on land the vast size of such machines gives the impression that such a large structure of steel would be unsinkable. But as history has proven this is most certainly not the case. An accrual merciless sea can swallow such vessels and hundreds of lives aboard. The sinking of the Estonia would be the third worst loss of life at sea on board an European ship during peacetime, only being beaten by the RMS Titanic and RMS Empress of Ireland. There is one major difference that sets the Estonia aside however and that is that she didn't collide with another ship or iceberg but instead the power of the waves themselves caused a major failure of one of her components that allowed her to operate as a car ferry. On the 28th of September 1994 within an hour over 15,000 tons and 852 lives would be lost beneath the waves of the Baltic Sea. Today I am going to rate this disaster here five on my patented essentially now arbitrary plainly difficult disaster scale. Our story may end in 1994 but it began all the way back in 1979 and the need for a new vessel for the rapidly expanding ferry industry in the Baltic Sea. A contract was signed for a new ferry on the 11th of September 1979 and was set to be built by Mayer Werft in Papenburg, Germany. The ship which had her kill laid in October 1979 was to be built to similar specifications of the Diana II in order to speed up construction by using a similar design. Her story was turbulent from the start after the original customer a Norwegian shipping company led by Pali Augusten pulled out of the contract. Luckily Radaeri AB Sally one of the partners in the Viking line consortium was more than happy to take over the project. The new ship was to be called the Viking Sally. The name Stonia came along later on in our operating life. As part of the new owner's specifications the length of the ship was extended from 137 meters to 155 meters and along with this came a new superstructure design. One such design feature from the Diana II that was retained was a hinged bow visor that opened upwards enabling vehicle access to the car deck. Various parts of the ship were built by different contractors however the vital bow visor was installed by Mayer. Von Tell AB was the supplier of the visor parts used to lock and operate the machinery. The machinery was actually manufactured by another company Grimoire's Verkstad AB and all details communication and changes were made through Von Tell as the middleman. The bureau veritas rules gave no detailed guidance for calculations for the visor from vertical and longitudinal sea loads and as such Von Tell and Mayer used their own estimations and it is unknown if the two companies compared notes. The visor including attachment devices was built of grade A mild carbon steel and was set up in a way that meant the visor couldn't be operated unless the ramp was fully closed. The visor pivoted around two hinges on the upper deck and was locked in place by three hydraulically operated devices which were two side mounted and one bottom mounted and it also had two manual locking devices. She had a passenger capacity of around 2,000 people, maximum service speed of 21 knots, maximum dead weight draft of 3,006 dead weight tons and four man engines creating a combined power of around 23,000 horsepower. The ship was built to the rules and regulations of the Finnish Maritime Administration. The Viking Sally was pressed into service between Turku and Marinham in Finland and Stockholm. Like most ships the Sally had its share of screw-ups including a couple of murders, propeller issues and the grounding. Her owners, Raderi AB Sally were experiencing financial difficulties towards the end of the 80s and were sold to the Finnish Swedish group F-John but still operated under the Viking line under her original name. She did fully come under the control of her new owners in 1990 when she was painted in Silja Lines colours, renamed the Silja Star but remained on the same route. The new name would only last a year or so until she was transferred to the Vasa line another subsidiary of the F-John group and was placed in the Vasa line operation in the Gulf of Bothnia. For the new operations she was now called the Vasa King in 1991. That was until the 14th of January 1993 when she would change flags from Finland which she was originally delivered to the flag of Estonia. This coincided with a new owner, the Estline Marine Company Limited and a new name the MS Estonia. She was pressed into service on the Tallinn Stockholm route. At the time she was the largest ship in the Estonian national fleet and became a symbol somewhat of the country's independence after the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc. Right that leads us to 1994 and the Estonia departing from Tallinn on the 27th of September 1994 at 7.15pm for a scheduled voyage to Stockholm and her estimated time arrival was 9am on the 28th of September. She carried 989 people, 803 of whom were passengers leading to remaining 186 being crew. Upon clearing the harbour all four engines were powered up for full speed and she began her journey. Sea conditions along the Estonian coast were moderate but became worse when she joined the open waters. The weather continued to worsen with winds increasing to 15 to 20 meters a second causing two to four meter high waves which crashed across the Estonia's bow. As the ship got thrashed around some passengers became seasick. At around 25 past 12 in the morning and at a speed of about 14 knots the vessel encountered the crashing on her port bow. At around one o'clock in the morning a metallic bang from the bow area as the vessel hit a heavy wave was heard from the car deck by a member of the crew. The crew member informed the bridge of the strange noise after inspecting the indicator lamps all seemed well. The ship did not slow down after the report and the crew on deck didn't make use of a CCTV link to the car deck to investigate the area of the loud bang. Roughly about the same time a shift change over happened on the bridge and soon after another report of a loud metallic bang from the bow came in at around 105. The seaman of the watch was sent down again to inspect the visor but just 10 minutes later the visor separated from the bow and tilted over the stern. The ramp was pulled open allowing water to surge into the car deck. The water caused a heavy starboard list and at the same time dramatically slowing the ship down. Estonia's distress beacons had to be activated manually which the crew failed to release. Throughout the ship panic set in amongst the passengers with many attempting to rush up the staircases although many were still trapped inside their cabins. Life jackets were distributed to passengers who managed to reach the boat deck. Some jumped or were swept into the sea and a few made it onto life rafts that had been launched. Due to the list of the ship lifeboats can be deployed and at around 1.20 in the morning a fake PA announcement saying Alarm alarm there is alarm on the ship was broadcast. At 1.22 the first mayday call from Estonia was sent and a general alarm to crew for lifeboats was announced. By 1.24 multiple radio stations on both ship and land received the calls. Around the same time the four engines stopped running causing a backup generator to power up but this left much of the ship unlit further adding to the panic. Flooding of the accommodation happened at an alarming speed and the starboard side of the ship was submerged at around 1.30. As the ship continued to flood the list increased to 90 degrees as she sank beneath the waves the stern went first disappearing from radar in the area at around 1.50. The location was about 22 nautical miles from Uto Island, Finland. Within the hour four passenger ferries had arrived on the scene of the accident and started to search out and rescue survivors. It wouldn't be for over an hour before vital helicopter support would arrive. Nomanting efforts rescued 138 people from the waters throughout the night and early morning of the 28th of September. After the living the remaining search efforts found 94 bodies over the next few days. With such a tragic loss of life and the sinking of a thought to be reliable and safe vessel investigators were faced with the question how did the Estonia sink? Most of the victims went down on the ship to the seabed. She was found in international waters on the 30th of September within Finland's search and rescue region resting on the seabed at a water depth of around 80 meters. It was vital that the cause of the sinking be found as the Estonia was one of many similar ships operating in the region. With reports of noise from the bow visor hinting at a failure point a remotely operated vehicle survey was decided on to ascertain the ship's general condition and whether the bow visor had become detached. During early October the ROV made several videotapes of the wreck and the results were shocking. During investigation into the sinking it was found that the bow visor and ramp had been torn off as it failed to resist the power of the waves hitting against it. The first metallic bang heard around one o'clock in the morning was thought to have been the sound of the visor's lower locking mechanism failing and other reported noises were the visor flapping against the hull as the other locks failed. As a cruel twist to fate an mounting bracket for the locking bolt position sensors appeared to be undamaged. This meant that even after failure there was no warning to the bridge of the now open visor. This was even more compounded by the design of the bridge which was too low to have a line of sight to the visor meaning there was no way of seeing the state of the visor even after the catastrophic failure. During investigation another incident a year before was highlighted which would have been a vital warning sign. In 1993 the Diana II Estonia's kind of sister ship had experienced a visor locking failure as the starboard locking device lug was lost. The bottom lock was bent with its welds cracked and the port side locking device lug was bent with its weld also cracked. She was repaired and the incident was not considered serious enough to need a general notice via the Bureau Veritas regional office in Gothenburg. The investigation concluded that the visor was insufficiently designed to withstand realistic load levels. This was due to limited experience of the industry to hydrodynamic loads on balevisors. Because of this both the shipyards and the equipment suppliers used their own and flawed calculations. The full width open car deck contributed to the rapid increase in list when flooded which resulted in the Estonia's capsizing and sinking. The action of the crew speeded up the ship's demise. If they had used the CCTV link to the car deck they would have been able to see the water rapidly flooding in. This coupled with the slowing down of the speed of the ship after reports of strange sounds could have slowed or even prevented the sinking. Soundingly alarm aboard the ship and the seemingly lack of direction of the crew was highlighted by the investigators and was thought to be a contributing factor of the panic by the passengers. The loss of the Estonia held a mirror up to the shipping industry in the region necessitating new vessels from 2010 to be able to withstand their car deck being flooded up to 50 centimetres. All ships post accident had to be modified to release their emergency beacons automatically and life raft regulations for rescue from listing ships in rough water were introduced. But that is little consolation to the 852 that lost their lives that September night. Thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed the video. This video is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share like licensed. Plain difficult videos are produced by me John in the sunny south eastern corner of London UK. Help the channel grow by liking commenting and subscribing. Check out my Twitter for all sorts of photos and odds and sods as well as hints on future videos. I've got Patreon and YouTube membership as well if you fancy supporting the channel financially. All that's left to say is thank you for watching.