Documentary casts doubt on ferry disaster

New documentary evidence is challenging the official explanation of how 852 people died in the 1994 sinking of the MS Estonia ferry in the Baltic Sea, one of Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disasters


MS ESTONIA Length: 155.4m

Passenger capacity: 2,000

Vehicle capacity: 460

Bow visor


VIDEO EVIDENCE
New footage features in Discovery Network documentary. Film crew found hole in ship’s hull while using remotely-controlled underwater robot to explore wreck

Damage: “Most likely cause” was collision with submarine, according to former head of Estonian government’s investigative committee looking into sinking of ferry in 2005-09

Hole below ship’s waterline
4m


MS ESTONIA TIMELINE 

1980: MS Viking Sally ferry built in Germany

1993: Bought by Swedish-Estonian company EstLine and renamed MS Estonia

Sep 28, 1994: Sinks in stormy overnight crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm with 989 passengers and crew on board – 852 people die, most of them Swedish nationals

1995: Estonia, Finland and Sweden sign agreement to protect wreck as final place of rest for victims of disaster. Some 758 bodies remain entombed on ferry, which lies 80m below surface in Finnish waters

1997: Official report concludes that ferry’s bow door visor failed during storm, flooding car deck and causing vessel to roll over and sink

Sep 2020: TV documentary aired to coincide with 26th anniversary of disaster includes video images from wreck site showing damage to starboard side of ferry

Oct: Estonian government agrees to submit proposal to Finland and Sweden to conduct joint investigation into ferry sinking


Site of ferry sinking
100km 60 miles
SWEDEN
Stockholm
BALTIC SEA
FINLAND
Tallinn
ESTONIA
LATVIA 
LITHUANIA


Sources: Associated Press, Estline, New York Times, Reuters 
© GRAPHIC NEWS