 |
| This story has been made into a radio play in Finnish. |
As long as we have dreamed of flight, we have dreamed of doing it like a bird. Early visions, going
back to the Icarus myth, focused on the beats of a bird's wing, until in the
Renaissance, Da Vinci developed a helicopter-like vision resembling a corkscrew. The thoughts didn't
take off until it was realized that birds don't actually fly with their wing
beats: the beats are used to speed up, but flight is based on gliding on the
wing. In the recess of these thoughts, Thomas Edison dreamed of another kind of
bird flight: the hummingbird. It can strike every other blow down and every
other back, which gives it unique abilities: it can hover in place and leap up
or forward with lightning speed.
In a way, the aviation
between the world wars was dominated by the application of both flapping and
corkscrewing, as airplanes were torn into the sky by the power of propellers
turned by piston engines. During this period, the autogyro, the father of the helicopter, was also developed. It was also pulled by the power of the
propeller, but the wing was not fixed; it was rotating. In this way, the pressure
difference between the upper and lower surfaces of the wing was maintained even
at very low speeds, because a practical pressure difference can only occur in flowing
gas. However, the rotation of the rotor was based on autorotation, i.e. the
autogyro had to move forward to release kinetic energy to the rotor.
The second great scorch
of the world was a huge effort, that pushed technology forward many generations.
We went to war with planes assembled from wood and fabric, with rigid landing
gear, sometimes still biplanes with open cockpits, but we came back with
all-metal swept wings powered by jet engines, pressurized cockpits and
retractable landing gears, and in the dark the human eye was replaced by the magical illumination of the radar.
At the beginning of the war, the Atlantic had been crossed very barely with the power of massive flying boats,
but even they dwarfed next to the gargantuan superbombers and cargo
planes.
Air sea rescue as a
concept is almost as old as aviation itself. As the dawn of the century of man
turned into daylight when the world engulfed in flames, it was already
systematic. Flying boats regularly searched for and picked up those trapped in
the sea, but their use was more limited than the systematicity of the search
operations themselves: flying boats could only land in the sea when the waves
were relatively calm and the wind was weak.
The rotary wing was
like a gift from heaven. The magical ability to hang stationary in the air
finally cut the shackles of flying boats, and air sea rescue became possible in
the most dire conditions, where it was most needed.
That too was easier
said than done. Just any jack cannot cope with the heavy and difficult task
of sea rescue. In Finland, it had become clear to the Border Guard, which
established the so-called The Temmes committee in the year of the rat, 1984.
The committee said out loud what sea rescuers had long known: air sea rescue was a
mission that required a proper tool. The Soviet-made Mi-8s were underpowered, clumsy and heavy; for example, they were not capable of hovering with one engine.
The French Army had learned
from their own, and American, experiences in the wars in Indochina, Algeria and
Vietnam, where helicopters had proved to be worth their weight in gold. Their
true potential began to emerge, so Aérospatiale further developed the AS330
Puma helicopter, which had quickly become popular. The rotorcraft of a new era
had received more powerful Turbomeca Makila turbines, and an extended and more
streamlined body, by which means the top speed increased from 212 to 250
kilometers per hour. The amount of cutting-edge technology even in the
overdriven 1980s, was exhausting: HF, VHF and UHF radios for communication,
radio compass, radioaltimeter, VLF Omega, Decca, doppler radar, VOR and ILS as
navigation systems. The autopilot system SFIM 155 could be connected to
navigation systems and computers, and to fly a pre-programmed search pattern
without touching the controls. The four-axis hovering automation also was
able to keep the plane precisely above the target.
The rotors had also
experienced a refinement, and updated to a composite structure. Aérospatiale
even considered using the Fenestron tail rotor, which would be embedded in the
tail, but research showed that it would not be very useful in the further
development of the Puma. Instead, the rotors received anti-icing devices. Aérospatiale
christined Puma's big brother as AS332 Super Puma.
The committee examined five different helicopter types, of which the French Aérospatiale Super Puma was the only one that met all the requirements. And thus the Finnish Border
Guard got the two of their tough warhammers in the year of the dragon, 1988 (the
third aircraft was ordered later and delivered in 1992). No one could guess how
they would earn their reputation.
To the accursed garden
of bones
It was a stormy evening, September 27th in the year of the dog, 1994. The humming wind and the
roar of the sea were covered by the sophisticated growl of the diesel engines, and the loud whistling of the turbochargers. The large eight-cylinder MAN diesels had fired
up on deck 1. The exhaust of the four main engines plunged from the chimneys
into the darkening evening sky of Tallinn’s autumn. The ramps on the car deck
were closed, the bow visor was lowered and the ropes were untied. Both main and bow thrusters began to run, and so the passenger car ferry MV Estonia
left at 19:15, a quarter of an hour late, on her scheduled journey towards
Stockholm.
The wind was from the
south, about 8-10 m/s. Visibility was good in the early evening, disturbed only by a few showers of rain. The significant wave height was 3-4 meters, which is typical for
the Baltic Sea and nothing for a 16,000 gross registered ton ship or her 23,000
horsepower (17,000 kW) diesel engines.
The journey was not
without minor difficulties. On the ship's car deck, the heavy trucks were
mostly loaded on the right side of the deck's middle island, which caused the ship's
center of gravity to shift to the right. The crew rectified this by pumping all
the ballast water into the port side tanks, but since the wind was blowing from
the left of MV Estonia's direction against its large side area, the vessel had
about one degree of heel to starboard when she arrived in the open sea.
The journey continued
into the darkening autumn night, and the wind became more and more severe,
especially as the ship moved from the shelter of the Estonian coast to the open
Baltic Sea. At midnight, the wind was 15-20 m/s from the southwest, and the
ship's heeling started to become strong - which was not unusual in such severe
weather. To stabilize the ship, the fin stabilizers were activated at around
00:25. They gentled the rocking of the ship a little, and the partying in the ship's
deck 5 nightclub could continue, although apparently rather tired, as the
majority of the passengers were at least in the upper middle age range. A
little over a quarter (26%) of the passengers were young adults, and the
largest age percentile was 45-54-year-olds (19%), and Tuesday was just turning
into Wednesday, but on the other hand, there was nothing else to do on the ship
at night, especially in the rough seas, so the nightclub was a way to kill time for
those who couldn't sleep in the heavy weather.
It was around 00:55, 28th of September in the year of the dog 1994, Estonia was running at
full cruising speed, with the same throttle command as when leaving port, which
in this weather meant an average speed of about 14 knots. Watchman Silver Linde
was on his round at the bow of the ship when he felt the ship hit a big wave,
and at the same time heard a loud, metallic bang. He immediately reported this
to the second mate, who told Linde to find out the cause of the sound. Linde
stayed in place to listen for possible new sounds, and checked
the lights of the bow visor and ramp locks. They were green.
Meyer Werft had
designed in the year of the ape 1980 bow visor with load components of 5.3
meganewtons on the vertical axis and 3.7 meganewtons on the horizontal axis.
The effective reaction force was calculated through a point that was
longitudinally halfway between the side locks and the hinge point, but still at
the height of the hinges. This makes no sense, as such a point is arbitrary and
does not actually transmit a moment - which, however, was used to calculate the
force of 1.5 meganewtons at this point. From this horizontal force and the lifting
force reduced by the mass of the 60 tons of the visor, the resultant was
calculated, which was divided equally among the five locks of the bow visor to
100 tons, or 1 meganewton. The forces encountered by the locks of the bow visor
were originally calculated on questionable grounds.
As the significant
wave height increased to 4.5 meters and acting at an angle of 45 degrees from
the side, the peak values of the vertical forces jumped to 7.4 meganewtons
and the longitudinal forces to 7.7 MN, in addition to the transverse to 2.7 MN.
According to the standard calculation criteria, the cross-sectional areas of
the bow visor's locking lugs should have been 8300 mm2, when in reality it was
made with small welds, and was about 4600 mm2. The forces would have
reduced by about a third with reducing the
speed from about 15 knots to 10. MV Mariella and MV Silja Europa, which
were moving in the same area, both did so, Mariella to about 12 knots already
at about 23:00 and Silja Europa likewise at about 00:55, although Silja Europa
instead of a visor, had a two-part bow gate that opened to the side, which the
waves only slammed shut harder. However, Estonia continued at a speed of
14...14,5 knots. Nobody knows why. The weather was already quite exceptional for
Estonia: she had experienced a similar wave during its sailing history, which
started in 1980, for a total of about 20 hours, together with such a wind once,
maybe twice.
It started around
01:05. Several passengers and crew members on leave heard very unusual noises
from the bow of the ship. The second mate's shift had ended at 01:00, so Linde returned
from his tour to the bridge, where Arvo Andersson, the captain of the ship who
had just arrived, ordered him to go to the car deck to find out the origin of the
strange sounds which he had already reported. Linde went to the work as
ordered, but he never got there.
It was about 01:15,
September 28th in the year of the dog of 1994. The bow visor locks had struggled for
a few minutes, but finally gave way. The right and center mounting lugs of the
bottom lock tore off. The bow visor with a mass of 60 tons now moved in the bow
of the ship like a swinging tooth. These impacts, which lasted a few minutes,
were transmitted to the bow of the ship as a heavy metal thunder, but the
wild movement of the bow visor could not be seen from the bridge, because the
angular front edge of deck 8 always covered the visibility to the bow. Through
the waves, the bow visor beat the metal plates of the bow weather deck, until
its trailing edge came into contact with the driving ramp. At this point, water
got onto the car deck from the side of the ramp, which the third engineer also
saw on the surveillance camera at 01:10. This water flowed under the car deck
onto deck 1, where the budget cabins were located, which did not even have
their own toilet. A few of their passengers saw the water to drain to this deck, and so the nightmare began.
 |
Estonia's life raft in the Baltic Sea. Photo:: Wikipedia
|
The ramp's locks
broke, and the ramp tumbled into its only direction of travel, forward into the
visor. The lug on the left side of the visor held until the end - the locking
pin bent 30 degrees before slipping off at around 01:15. The bow visor fell off
the bow of the Estonia, ramming out its last sound as it hit the ship's bow
bulb, and so the car deck was completely open to the waves. The vessel changed
her motion from rolling up and down to lying down and tilting to the right when
the huge car deck filled with water during a few waves. The engines were ordered
to idle and the ship was turned to port, against the wind. The tilt was about
15 degrees at the start of the turn, and increased to 20-30 degrees during it.
At around 01:20 - five minutes after the tilt - a faint female voice announced on the
ship's loudspeaker system "häire, häire, laeval on häire "
("alarm, alarm, the ship has an alarm"). The announcement was
possibly intended to be made in English next, but it was interrupted in the
beginning chaos. Instead, the second mate announced "Mr Skylight to
number one and two" - a coded fire alarm whose purpose was to activate the
crew but not to unnerve the passengers. The alarm fit the situation like a flower as a screwdriver, but it was a clear, official announcement of an emergency
throughout the ship, and also a muster signal for the management team and the
rescue team. According to the safety manual, this announcement is intended to
organize the crew to evacuate the ship, before a large mass of people would be rushing
for the lifeboats, but about two minutes later a general lifeboat alarm was
given.
The flow of water to
the ship slowed down when the waves no longer hit the car deck against the
direction of travel, and MV Estonia remained in this position for a few
minutes. By 01:20, all the main engines stopped due to a drop in engine oil
pressure, when the oil spilled onto the edge of the engine blocks and the pumps
were no longer able to pump it with sufficient pressure into the oil circuit.
Estonia was already
drifting 40 degrees to the right, right side against the waves that beat against the windows of deck 4, which started to give way, and this - at the least - is how the
water was able to flow into Estonia's living quarters.
At this point, almost
everyone able to climb had already ran, or tried to run, to deck 7, the weather
deck, out of the ship's depths and into the open air. There were
hundreds of people who wanted to get out, 989 in all. Many just woke up to the
sound of the noise or the tilting of the ship, and their lifeline was already
fluttering with a very thin flame.
Outside, the world showed
it’s horrible anger. An autumn storm was blowing, 15-20 m/s or 54-72 km/h. The
significant wave height was about 4 meters, i.e. about every hundredth wave was
over 6 m high. In practice, the maximum wave height has about twice the effect
of a significant wave height. The storm rocked the ship, and made the landing of the
lifeboats impossible, together with the ship's steep tilt. Even putting on a
life jacket required great effort in these conditions.
The tilt reached 80
degrees a little after 01:30 (the hands of the wall clock in the chart room
stopped at 23:35 UTC) At this point, evacuation to Estonia's weather deck was
next to impossible: the ship was almost on her side, and half of it under water
in rough seas. The lights had gone out, so the ship's hull had turned into a
large sarcophagus.
It was 01:22 when VHF
radio channel 16 (156.8 MHz) alarmed. The beginning of the broadcast was
recorded by MRCC Turku, but the rest by MV Silja Symphony. The broadcast began
with the eerie words: Mayday, mayday.
Silja Europa's radio
operator heard the words, and in his astonishment asked that that did Estonia
really call Mayday, an emergency call. Estonia did, and the situation was bad: a
20...30 degree tilt and a blackout - they had no electicity.
Silja Europa asked the ship's location, to which Estonia answered five
minutes later. After the message, the radio operator added the words
"really bad, it looks really bad here." Those were the last words heard
from Estonia.
First responding to
Estonia's emergency call, Silja Europa became the lead station for emergency
radio traffic. VHF channel 16 was filled with reports and inquiries, and
several vessels such as Mariella, Finnmerchant, Isabella and the oil tanker
Mastera announced their location and were moving to help.
The sound quality of
the VHF radio is good due to the high frequency (it is higher than the
frequency of the commercial FM radio), but on the other hand, its range is
reduced - the short wavelength is attenuated faster in the medium. This is why
the Helsinki Maritime Rescue Center did not hear the conversation, but Mariella
reported it there with the emergency call by NMT connection at 01:42.
The Turku Maritime
Rescue Center, i.e. MRCC Turku, started reviewing the major accident rescue
plan at 01:26.
Oscar Hotel Hotel
Victor Golf
It was 01:35 on Thursday
night, September 28th in the year of the dog in 1994. The beepers were buzzing
all over Turku, one at helicopter pilot Veikka Miettinen´s bedside table in Naantali. He quickly calls
MRCC Turku with his telephone line, where the message is confirmed: the car
ferry Estonia has sent an emergency call, and there are probably people in the
sea. This is going to be heavy. Miettinen quickly pulls on his pants and drives in his
car to the Turku Coast Guard Station. So do the other men of the standby
helicopter crew, whose beepers have sounded the alarm. Five cars drive towards the
exclusive airport: in addition to chief Miettinen, the mechanics Jorma Nolvi
and Ari Rautiainen, the rescue swimmer Juho Ala-Lahti and the co-pilot Matti Rytkönen.
It was 02:30 on that
stormy night on the northern shore of the Baltic Sea, September 28th in the
year of the dog in 1994. The wind howled with its constant, overwhelming hum,
but the screaming turbine was louder. The electric motor started the
three-phase axial and the single-phase centrifugal compression stages. The flame
holders ignited in the annular combustion chamber, and the two-stage turbine
began to drive with the boost pressure itself, and transfer power to the two-stage
free turbine. The Turbomeca Makila pushed herself into motion at the Turku Coast
Guard Station, and 1,800 horsepower plunged into the Aerospatiale Super Puma's
rotor assembly. The night was filled with another scream, because the Super
Puma is twin-engined, and the sky was filled with the mighty roar of the
turbines’ 3600 horsepower. The standby helicopter ofTurku Coast Guard
Squadron, OH-HVG (in the ICAO alphabet used in radio traffic: Oscar Hotel Hotel
Victor Golf) took off into the dark, stormy night.
The crew had the assumption that there were people in the sea and trying to escape to the rafts. Because of this, they planned during the flight that those on the water would be rescued first,
and only then would they move to the life rafts.
It was 03:05 when
Hotel Victor Golf arrived at the accident site. The conditions were terrifying:
the pitch-black water roared with ten-meter waves and literally absorbed the
light emitted by the helicopter's searchlights. The same air that tore the sea
into big waves also tore the helicopter at about 20 m/s or about 80 km/h. In
this sea, even the tough professionals were at the limits of their abilities.
The survivors could do nothing
but hope for the arrival of a helicopter. The crew of Hotel Victor Golf start the search, first trying to save those floating in the sea with vests (those
who got into the sea without vests are at this stage, an hour and a half later, are mostly dead). A creepy sight is revealed in the searchlights: hundreds of empty
life jackets and dozens of life rafts. Rytkönen reports the situation to Silja
Europa, which has become the local command center for the rescue operation.
None of the officers on Silja Europa, or any other ship, know anything about
air sea rescue and even less about air traffic control, but they try their
best. So do the men of Hotel Victor Golf.
In the dark and stormy
night, those who got out of the ship were in nightmareus conditions. Nothing
illuminates the endless gloom, but the roar of the wind and the high waves in
the cold sea beat people mercilessly and without pause. If the darkness isn't
enough, the night is also sprinkled with continuous, even ice-shmushy showers or rain. Only those
on lifeboats have a chance to survive, the Baltic Sea mercilessly sucks the
life out of souls floating loose in the sea, despite their life jackets, which
only keep them afloat. The rafts sway manically in the waves, and the
discolored, freezing human rags inside them lose their last strength to nausea
and vomiting. The merciless roar of the sea is so cruel that the faint voice of
the half-frozen people cannot be heard. The sea roars for hours, until an even harsher roar is
carried over it: the loud thump of the rotors and the thundering growl of the
turbines, and the flickering of the flight lights and the blinding brightness
of the searchlights that cut through the darkness of the night. It's the last
line of life, the Super Puma, Oscar Hotel Hotel Victor Golf.
The Super Puma finds the
first life raft, likely with people inside, at 03:05. Lifeguard Juho Ala-Lahti
is lowered into the sea, which rushes over him in 5-10 meter high waves. The
professional takes the blows because there is no option, and
approaches those to be rescued: there are two men on the raft. Normally, the
rescuer attaches the rescuee to the rescue collar hanging from the cable of the
helicopter, takes the person in his arms and, giving a signal, lifts them to
safety. Now the situation was terrible, so Ala-Lahti made a package of both men
in his lap, presses the tangent of his hand-held radio through his vest, and
gives the lift signal.
Nolvi, who has been
giving signals to the captain all the time to keep the helicopter in line with
the raft (which is not an easy task: in addition to the storm screaming at a
speed of 20 meters per second, the rafts were weighed down by the helicopter's
3600 horsepower engine power, which spread under them), pulls them up to the
Super Puma with a winch. It's not easy, because the sea has ripped off half of
the men's clothes, and they're slippery wet and half-naked. It's hard to get a
firm grip on them, but Rautiainen gets them pulled in and wrapped in blankets.
They now get to stay against the back wall of the Super Puma cabin; there are
certainly others in the sea. Now the surface rescuer Ala-Lahti has to be raised
from the sea.
At least one string of
the winch cable breaks. Nolvi feels it in his hand when lowering the cable.
Ala-Lahti guides it to him with a guide line hanging from the end of the cable,
but the breaker pin in it breaks when a huge wave hits it. He loses his
physical connection to Super Puma. However, the radio connection still works,
and Nolvi directs the hook of the wire to Ala-Lahti. In seafaring, a hook hits
him on the head, but now they have no time for that. There are still people in
the sea. The men at Hotel Victor Golf don't know how many, but they suspect
something bad. They don't know this, but there had been 989 souls in Estonia,
of which at least 270 had gotten out. There are two of them in the Super Puma now.
Hotel Victor Golf
continues her enchanted mission. On the next life raft, surface rescuer
Ala-Lahti finds one survivor. The sea is still merciless, and the great wave
hits the rescuer and the rescuee with such force that it knocks the air out of
the lungs. They swing on the wire in a severe pendulum motion, but the
professional rescuer's grip does not give in, and neither does Super Puma's winch. The
men of Hotel Victor Golf get the victim into the Super Puma.
The work must
continue. Hotel Victor Golf finds yet another life raft. Ala-Lahti raises the
fourth vitim to the winch. A huge wave hits again in the dark night. The impact
opens the tensioning strap of the lifting collar, and the strap remains only in
the compression of Ala-Lahti's left armpit. He doesn't reach the radio to abort the lift, and the rescuee is tight against him. Now there
is no other choice but to bite the bullet and hold on, losing grip would be
fatal: plunge from a height of ten meters into the raging, cold sea. Ala-Lahti
can make it to the end, but he is completely ran dry. The fourth unfortunate
has been raised from the merciless clutches of the Baltic Sea to Super Puma.
Chief Miettinen has to
make an assessment of the situation. It is 04:15, the helicopter has been there
for an hour, and four souls have been lifted from the sea. It is quite
obvious that the work is too much for one lifeguard, and it is heavy and
dangerous. He hears on the radio that the Swedish sea rescue helicopter Qvintus
97, another Super Puma, has arrived to the area. Hotel Victor Golf drops the
rescued onto the MV Silja Symphony and sets off on the return trip to Turku, to
refuel and pick up another surface rescuer. Hotel Victor Golf arrives at Turku
at 04:40.
As jet fuel rushes
into Super Puma's tanks with the power of electric pumps, the crew also has
time to eat something to maintain their blood sugar, strength and awareness. Risto Leino comes aboard as the
second surface rescuer, and Hotel Victor Golf rises again into the dark night
at 05:15.
Hotel Victor Golf is
in the accident area again at 05:50. On her way, Hotel Victor Golf delivers Matti Jokinen, an air traffic controller, to MV Silja Europa, a necessity as more helicopters are now arriving for the rescue effort. The winching of survivors then starts
immediately, and the operation is much more efficient. The two rescue swimmers can
take turns and thus rest between rescues. They find out, that the most efficient way is to lower the rescuer downwind from the life raft, and to swim onboard. The darkness of the night also begins
to break away little by little as the night begins to dawn into a new morning.
Super Puma's mighty turbines roar mercilessly for three hours. Hotel Victor Golf pulls
40 souls from the sea. They are delivered to the car ferries that rushed to Estonia's
aid, because the flight to the mainland would take far too long. Now every
moment is precious, but on the other hand, Super Puma has to dispatch its human
cargo every now and then. Also, the fuel load is not endless.
Captain Miettinen has
never experienced such a difficult task. The decks of the ships rise and fall
several meters at a time as the waves slide under the ships. He has a full job
of getting the helicopter to land quickly as the ship sinks to the bottom of
the waves, but to soften the landing with engine power before the deck plunges up
again. The mass of the Super Puma is about eight tons, and still it is not
enough to press her into the net rigged on the deck, so the helicopter slides
back and forth in rough seas. The engines scream at full power in case of a
possible emergency departure, as the rescued are being evacuated, first to the deck
of the MV Silja Symphony and later the MV Mariella. Only Hotel Victor Golf and
later Hotel Victor Delta succeed in this difficult task. Fuel is now running out, so the last 13 rescued
are delivered to Nauvo by Hotel Victor
Golf, where she is refueled. Now the time is already 09:30, and nobody is anymore alive in the sea. The Hotel Victor Golf takes off on her third rescue
flight, but only the dead could be found. Hotel Victor Golf had lifted nearly as many people from the sea as all the other helicopters combined, 44 alive and
11 dead.
Qvintus 97
MRCC Turku forwarded
the emergency message to Sweden as well. The Qvintus 97 of the Flygvapnet, the Swedish Air Force, was on standby on September 28, 1994. The crew was alerted by phone
at their homes at 02:05, and the helicopter took off from Visby at 02:50. Like
Hotel Victor Golf, it was also a Super Puma, but its journey would take an hour
from Gotland to the northern edge of the Baltic Sea. It arrived in the area at
03:50, and took the place of Hotel Victor Golf when she left for Turku to refuel
and pick up another lifeguard. Qvintus 97 found and rescued six people from the
keels of two overturned lifeboats. The long flight had consumed the Super
Puma's fuel, and the conditions were harsh, so Qvintus 97 received
instructions from the field director OSC to deliver the rescued to Utö fortress
island, where the plane could be refueled. There was limited fuel on the
island, as the oil spill response exercise that had ended the previous day had
taxed the already scarce tank, and there would be no replenishment until the
next morning. However, the stop gave the Qvintus 97 crew the opportunity to
telephone ARCC Arlanda, with a request to dispatch as many helicopters as
possible. The extent of the accident began to emerge. Qvintus 97 rose again
into the dark sky, and continued its golden work in terrible conditions. The Super
Puma pulled five more souls from the life rafts, and four from the sea. Qvintus
97 landed with them at the Hanko sports field at 07:35, as the Coast Guard Station was not within their visual range in the severe conditions. Local residents quickly
called ambulances with their telephone lines, and guided Qvintus 97 to the
helicopter platform of the Hanko Coast Guard Station, where jet fuel was available.
Qvintus 97 took off again after receiving fuel at 08:10, but the job was
already done. She found nothing but dead in the sea.
Olle 95
It was 02:45,
September 28th in the dog year 1994, when Captain Lage Bäckström's phone rang
in Söderhamn, Sweden. The car ferry Estonia had disappeared, probably sunk, and
it was feared that there were people in the sea. Bäckström immediately rushes
to his workplace, and half an hour later the crew is ready and the standby helicopter Olle 95, also a Super Puma, is ready to go. ARCC Arlanda orders the
helicopter to fly from Söderhamn to the Berga base south of Stockholm, where it
will be removed from the medical equipment and replaced with 4 20-person and 3
6-person life rafts. The commanding officer is apparently afraid that people are
hanging on to life jackets in the sea. However, for some reason, Olle 95 does
not start its journey towards Berga until 04:10. It is possibly due to changing
the equipment at the beginning of the operation. Captain Bäckström is
frustrated: if the helicopter had been allowed to fly directly from Söderhamn
to the accident site, it would have arrived there an hour and a half earlier.
Now it arrived there at 06:45. Olle 95 saw several life rafts in the sea, and
started her work. Its surface rescuers, conscripts, picked up six living souls
from two rafts, and Super Puma flew them to Utö's fortress. From there, it flew
to Turku to refuel, and returned to its mission at 08:50, but in vain: it found
no more life in the sea.
Yngve 65
In Sweden, sea rescue
in 1994 was mainly carried out by the Navy, the Air Force's task was to assist,
and the Air Force's rescue service was actually developed to rescue pilots who
jumped with the ejection seat, to act as backup, etc. Sea rescue was the Navy's
area of expertise, and the Yngve 65 rescue helicopter on duty received the
alarm at 02:10. It was a Boeing Kawasaki Vertol 107, a tandem-rotor maritime
helicopter. Y65 took off from the Berga base at 03:20 and arrived at the
accident site around 04:00. The sea was full of life rafts, and Y65 began to
examine them. The first two were empty, but a red light rocket took off from in
front of the helicopter. A life raft emerged from the sea, from which people
made hand signals and flashed lights. Y 65 lowered its rescue swimmer, who saved one life from the raft. When the other two started to be lifted, a wire
strand broke first, and finally the motor of the winch did the Windows 95, i.e.
stopped working. The poor people had to be left on the raft, and the rescue swimmer to be hung on a 30-meter cable to the deck of Silja Europa, where the
men from Y65 cut the wire with an explosive. Y 65 had to return to Berga to
replace the winch and cable, and on the way dropped off the only person rescued
to a hospital in Stockholm. It was only able to leave for the return flight at
08:15, with a TV reporter and cameraman, and found nothing but the dead.
Qvintus 99
September 28th in the
year of the dog in 1994 was not kind to anyone. The Swedish Air Force's
emergency helicopter Qvitus 99 was in the air while receiving the alarm,
rescuing two fishermen after their boat sank at the southern tip of Öland.
Qvintus 99, also a Super Puma, rescued them and was released from this task at 02:38.
It flew to Visby, Gotland, where it landed at 03:25, where it was refueled and
equipment changed and overhauled. It took off again at 03:55, but as Gotland is
relatively far from the Archipelago Sea, south of which Estonia had sunk, it
took Qvintus 99 three quarters of an hour to fly there. It arrived at 04:40. Q99 dropped two of its life rafts into the sea, but the survivors were
lifted to the Super Puma from Estonia's own rafts. Qvintus 99 pulled three
people from the first and two from the second raft they found, but the work had
to be stopped when the rescue swimmer became exhausted from the heavy and
dangerous work. Qvintus 99 headed to Utö, where it received the last drops from the
fort's fuel storage. Super Puma, which is on the second rescue mission of the
night, took off for its second Estonian rescue flight at 06:51. Qvintus 99
finds a life raft in the sea with four people on it, who are hoisted onto the
Super Puma. It happened at the very last minute. When winching the first one, a
wave about 12 meters high was close to overturning the raft. The rescued are in
such poor condition that the captain decides to take them immediately to the
hospital in Hanko. The Super Puma had arrived quite literally at the last possible
moment. Qvintus 99 took off from Hanko again at 08:31, but no survivors were
found.
Oscar Hotel Hotel
Victor Delta
The helicopter on duty
in Helsinki was Hotel Victor Delta. The crew was alerted from their homes at
02:25 and were at the base at 02:55. They reported to MRCC Helsinki, which
announced that MRCC Turku was in charge of the situation. In the initial
situation, MRCC Turku was relying on one man, and after he had alerted his
superiors, there were three men handling the biggest civil disaster in the
Baltic Sea, who were bound by strict official protocol. In addition, there was great
confusion and disbelief. These factors explain why the departure order for
Hotel Victor Delta took until 03:20, but do not explain why it did not arrive
until 05:32.
The Hotel Victor Delta
was an Agusta-Bell 412, a four-blade, twin-engine Huey built under license in
Italy. It found many life rafts in the sea, but only the third one had people
alive. They were picked up by Hotel Victor Delta and taken to MV Silja Europa. Agusta-Bell 412 continued its work, and soon found one seriously injured person on one
of the rafts. He was also taken to Silja Europa. The cargo ship Finnmerchant
saw a life raft nearby, and relayed the information to Silja Europa, where air traffic controller Matti Jokinen, acting as field director, had previously been delivered by
the Hotel Victor Golf. Hiscalm and systematic communication lead Hotel
Victor Delta to the location, and two people were lifted up from the raft to
Agusta Bell. They were delivered to Hanko when Hotel Victor Delta desperately
needed more fuel.
Qvintus 91
The Swedish Air
Force's Super Puma left Rönneby at 03:45 and arrived at the accident site at
05:50. Qvintus 91 searched the sea for souls further west than the other
helicopters, and found a raft with five people on it. They were lifted into the
Super Puma by a conscript assigned and trained as a surface rescuer. He also
managed to get one person picked up from the next raft he found, but the rescue
of the other person failed. This was so panicked that the conscript
assigned was almost drowned, and the rescue had to be stopped.
Qvintus 91 first left for Utö, but the radio said that the fuel had run out
there, so the Super Puma changed its course to Mariehamn (and as a military
helicopter of the Swedish Air Force, technically speaking, violated the
demilitarization of the province; although it is allowed in emergencies, and
air sea rescue is an emergency if any). On the way, Super Puma's chip detectors
sounded the alarm: the steel plates in the helicopter's hydraulic circuit had
collected enough debris from the wear of the moving parts between them that an
electrical connection was created between the plates. This warns of a very dangerous
failure, as the helicopter's rotor system must both carry and transmit large
loads, but also be very precisely controllable. Otherwise, its own engine power
will knock it into the sea. Risks cannot be taken.
Qvintus 91 has no choice but to stay in Mariehamn until the Air Force can
inspect the helicopter.
 |
Qvintus 91. Photo: Wikipedia
Yngve 64, Yngve 69 and Yngve 74 |
Swedish Navy's Boeing
Vertol 107 Y 64 arrived in the area at 05:52, having picked up a doctor and a
nurse along the way. Upon arrival, it found that the life rafts were inspected
more than once, so it suggested that the lifeguard use a knife to cut open the
roof of the raft to indicate that it had already been inspected. Y 64 was able
to rescue one person from one raft, but already at this stage it was found that
the cable of the winch was damaged. Next, Vertol tried to lift the man on the
raft. He fell into the water shortly before entering the helicopter, and a
lifeguard jumped in after him. He managed to get hold of the rescuer, but the Y
64's winch motor caught fire, and was now inoperable. Y 64 called
another similar Vertol, Y 74, to rescue both. At that point, when Y 74 got to
the scene the victim was already dead but still in the grip of the rescuer. They were lifted to Y 74 with the help of its own rescuer, who
when returning down fell down about a meter and received a strong blow from the
harness. At this point, the captain of Y 74 stated that the lifting of the dead
would be postponed, because there was still some work left. The rescue swimmer of Y 64 was lifted up, and he had to continue working, because the rescuer of Y 74 had received such serious injuries from the collision of the
harness that he was unable to continue his heavy and dangerous work.
A third Boeing
Kawasaki Vertol, Y 69, soon reported a serious problem. It was rescuing three
people who had landed on the keel of an overturned lifeboat. As the rescue swimmer descended on the rope to save them, a big wave arrived and sucked him
in with it. He hit his head on the lifeboat and was incapacitated. When Y 69
tried to winch him back up, this winch also malfunctioned. Y 69 called Y 74
to the spot, which picked up Y 69's lifeguard, and the survivors lying on the
boat's keel. There were now three injured lifeguards in Y 74. When the fuel was also low, it didn't really have any options. It flew to Stockholm,
Huddinge Hospital.
 |
|
In the end, more than
20 helicopters and airplanes participated in the rescue work of MV Estonia. In
addition to them, the ships tried their best to pick up people from the sea,
but it was very difficult in the rough seas. MV Mariella saw people in the sea
and 150 life jackets and four life rafts were thrown from the ship, but they
were of little help. After that, four opened life rafts were lowered from the
ship with a winch so that people could move into them. The winches were
hand-operated, but the crew found a couple of large electric drills to speed up
the work. In this way, Mariella was able to pick up 13 souls from the sea.
By around 05:00 the survivors began to be in such bad shape that they could no longer move on their own. Two brave volunteers dressed in rescue suits were lowered down, and they managed to pull two people onto Mariella's raft, from where they were winched up.
 |
| Boeing Kawasaki Vertol in a sea rescue exercise 2002. The Y 76 in the picture did not participate in the rescue work of Estonia. Photo: Anton Pettersson / Airliners.net |
Oscar Hotel Hotel Victor Foxtrot
On September 28, there was another Super Puma at the Turku base, the Oscar Hotel Hotel Victor Foxtrot, but she had been taken down due to scheduled maintenance. The chief of the Turku guard squadron arrived on the scene at 03:45,and he ordered the Hotel Victor Foxtrot to be put into operational condition immediately. Gear and parts were feverishly bolted back into place, and the Super Puma was provisionally airworthy at 05:40 by the inspection manager. Hotel Victor Foxtrot's Turbomeca Makila finally roared at 06:15 and it arrived at the accident area at 06:45 and the rescue swimmer searched several rafts, but to no avail. Hotel Victor Foxtrot found only the dead. In the morning, the cable of the winch was found to be dangerously worn, so Hotel Victor Foxtrot flew to Utö to replace the cable. The Super Puma was also supposed to be refueled, but all the fuel had already been used.
MV Silja Europa, on
the other hand, was able to lift only one man from the sea with a rope ladder. His
strength was enough to climb to the sixth deck, from where the crew was able to
pull him inside.
Like Mariella, MV
Isabella lowered its own life raft into the sea, but already at this point
there were two volunteer sailors wrapped in rescue suits. They were able to pull
one survivor who was floating on a life jacket onto the raft, who was lifted up
with the help of the raft at around 04:45. The next time Isabella saw survivors
was at 05:30, a full life raft with about 20 people on board. The sailors
transferred them to Isabella's own raft, and tried to winch the whole bunch up, but the mass of people and the water that flooded the raft was too much.
The raft tore open, and some of the rescuees and three rescuers fell into the
sea. Isabella alerted a helicopter to the scene, which was able to pick up one
survivor and all three rescuers from the sea. 16 people were able to hold on to
the slats of the raft, and they were pulled in using the ship's inflatable
rescue slide, a rope, and brave men.
It was all over around
09:30. At this time, the last survivor was lifted from the
sea. The Baltic Sea had cathced 852 souls into her dark embrace. They had boarded
the largest of the ships, whose captain is the wisest of all, and they would
never feel cold or hunger again.
138 survivors had been
lifted from the hands of the sea, 104 of them by helicopters. The Super Pumas
rescued 80 of them, and had now made their mark among the most successful
helicopters in history, as well as the importance of air sea rescue.
And of these 80 souls lifted by the Super Pumas from the cruel Baltic Sea, 44, more than half, were torn from the sea by a single helicopter and her professional crew, Oscar Hotel Hotel Victor Golf. They had made the right choice, and had the skill to, deliver the rescued to the ships directly at the scene, and thus saving crucial time.
The Hotel Victor Golf was upgraded in 2020-21 to the version H215 at the factory of the company that has now become Airbus Helicopters in Mariagne, France, and she is still the standby helicopter of the Turku Coast Guard Squadron. Her fate was not the light metal alloy sarcophagus of museum hangars. . 34 years since she rolled off the assembly line, she still is devoted to the heavy and dangerous of of air sea rescue.
_in_flight_with_full_bomb_load_060901-F-1234S-013.jpg)
