Swedish news media misinterpret the press conference about the sinking of the Estonia on purpose

The falsification of what really was said during the press conference

The news media in Sweden and the public Service TV [SVT  misinterprets its own broadcasting on  what was said during the Press Conference on Estonias sinking on purpose. As we soon shall see a  script from the broadcast shows this very clearly.

 In news media outlets all over the country messages was propagated : No signs of collision  No explosions  Estonia sank because the bow visor and all the damages to the hull was caused by rocks on the sea bed. Some outlets even printed : Now we know. Carl Bildt tweeted about putting an end to the conspiracy theories  and some outlets  went to the extremes to propagate for  leaving all of the question marks on the Estonia sinking behind .  In reality no answers at all were given at the Press Conference which all the people that actually listened to it noticed. The transcript below does not include the questions from Swedish TV 4. The reporter asked about explosions: How can you exclude explosions when you have not been on the inside? Do you not have to be on the inside  to exclude explosions? This article concentrates on the interesting and for Swedish authorities almost comical dialogue with  the Harry  Lambert of the Financial Times  and the commission on the other side .

-Mr Jacobsen thank you for that presentation, Harry Lambert from the Financial Times : I just wondering whether your work also involved making any determination given your analysis of where Estonia is resting, of the cause of the damage, or are you just making a determination of where it rests and you leaving your implications of your findings to other parts of the investigation.

-I definitely do the latter. My part of the investigation is to show how the seabed looks like…

[Harry Lambert from the Financial Times]  – I have two questions they are quite detailed so please bear with me cause I think they  are important . In the past year scholars from the Norwegian university of Science and Technology examined the possible causes of this damage. They found that the starboard crack “may” as you have detailed today have been caused by impact by the seafloor but they also modelled a collision with…I quote ”a moving floating object” and their models found that a collision and I quote ”produces damage with a considerable similarity  to the damage seen in the documentary” . what I like to know is what work have you done to assess the possibility of a collision between the Estonia and an object on the sea surface and if you have not assessed this possibility, why not? What reasons do you have to exclude a the possibility of a collission?

[Jonas Bäckstrand] –  When it comes to the impact there is  calculations on going … we are not done yet but we are currently doing calculations but so far we … it looks to us that it is likely that the damages  is caused by the sea floor. But we are not done yet…

[Harry Lambert from  FT]    -Thank you Jonas,  – Mr Arikas you talk about the importance of the testimonies from survivals and further to that to my first question : In almost all of the people who have been able to escape from deck 1, and I talked to one of them yesterday, have talked in some detail about the impact that they felt shortly after one a clock Estonian Time… there are reports of people being thrown out of bed…and many people talked about the sense that the boat was scraping  against something , a lot of people were terrified enough to run out of their bunks with barely anything on because they were convinced that the boat had hit something, so I just want to understand how you reconcile that testimony  and again whether that make you think a collision have happened or not, given that testimony of the survivals

[Mr Arikas]  – We are currently in process of conducting the interviews so it´s too early to make any conclusions but for us those statements are like statements of facts and we are planning to put them on a  time line in order to compare different sounds , movements and understand what has caused what, what is correct and what is perhaps misinterpretation so what´s concerning people on deck 1 or 2,  we have not completed interviews.  It´s to early to make any conclusions at all so I think we have to be a little more patient to wait to the end of the interviews in order to make some conclusions.  Today it´s just to early to make any, even preliminary ones …I also try to answer to your previous question of the deformation of  to the starboard side…As Jonas mentioned  there is ongoing modelling …but for sure it will give answer to the question off the holes and damages whether they are caused by some other objects,  so it´s to early to say, or make any final conclusions.

[ Harry Lambert FT]  – Sorry can I just ask one more question? Harry Lambert the Financial Times ,  I just want to understand: is it the position of your group that Estonia sank with an intact hole? Because that was the initial conclusion well,  the final conclusion form JAIC in 1997 and from the preliminary conclusions I read  here, given you don´t think it´s a collision,  is it the position that Estonia sank with an intact hull because that would as far as I  know be   the first boat , passenger ferry,  to ever sink  under in one  hour . There are 11 other ferries that have sunk under one  hour  and two of them sunk because of torpedoes , one sunk because of an explosion and eight sunk because of an collision so the Estonia is historically remarkable for sinking with an intact hull in under one  hour so I love to understand  if   it continues to be the position,  and finally going back to those scraping sounds,  that we heard from the deck 1,   if that wasn´t  caused by a collision, what counts for those sounds ?

[Jonas Bäckstrand]  – Well so far we have not found any damage to the hull  before the sinking , so far we do know that when she sank , she didn´t have a bow visor , she didn´t have a ramp that actually means that the hull wasn´t intact because you had a large opening in the bow area so you cannot say the hull was intact but so far we haven’t find any damage than other that in the bow area  [long silence since Bäckstarnd does not answering  the question. Arika’s takes over]

–

[Arikas]  – I will  add ,  as already mentioned several  times we are making preliminary  conclusions  lot of,  several surveys and modelling are still in process when all surveys or modelling are finished  we can make conclusions  about if  the hull was intact or not.  We are still on the half way so I am not ready  to make any statements. It´s too early to make any statements .

[Harry Lambert,  FT]  –   R. S.  the survivor  as talked about the fact,   if you flood the car deck , the hull below it,  remains water tight,  if not the water for instance runs from the central chasing for instance,  so we need still account for how water got below the car deck and in to the hull, is that fair?

[Jonas Bäckstrand] –  There are still questions to answer but we are not done yet

 [Harry Lambert  Financial Times ]  – Brilliant !

[ Mr Arikas ] – There are a lot of question marks still and we are not ready to give answers   

[Her the press confrenece stops and SVT public service anchor takes over] :

-Yes, that’s where we leave the press conference from Tallinn.

Oskar Jönsson reporter here at SVT and you have been following the recent tours around Estonia’s sinking, what do we know now that we didn’t know before?

– Well actually you can say that this investigation so far shows that there is nothing [emphasis added] to show that the damage shown in the documentary would have been caused by anything other than the hard bedrock that exists on the location  where Estonia has sunk

Ja där lämnar vi presskonferensen från Tallinn [ SVT -speaker]

Oskar Jönsson reporter här på SVT och du har följt de senaste turerna kring Estonias förlisning  Ja vad vet vi nu som vi inte visste innan?

-Ja egentligen kan man säga att den här utredningen hittills visar på att det finns ingenting [med eftertryck] som visar på att de skadorna som visades upp i dokumentären skulle ha orsakats av något annat än den hårda berggrund som finns på  platsen  där Estonia har sjunkit

The Press conference is here for all to take part of:

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-sander-presskonferens-om-nya-estoniautredningen