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.

Super Puma. Photo: Air International

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.

MV Estonia. Photo: Estonian World

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.

Photo: ESTONIA-loppuraportti, s .102

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

OH-HVG in her current livery, rehauled and upgraded to H225 standard. Photo: Alexandre Dubath / Airliners.net

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.

Qvintus 97. Photo: Andreas Eriksson / VStPic

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.

Yngve 68. Photo: Jan Mogren / Airliners.net

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.

The helicopters involved in rescue operations of Estonia. Photo:: ESTONIA-loppuraportti, s. 109

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.

Photo: ESTONIA-loppuraportti, s .212

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.