Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011
THEN Sept. 28, 1994, a car-passenger ferry, the MS Estonia, sinks in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Finland while traveling from Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden. Most of the people on board, 852, are killed with only 137 people surviving the tragedy. The sinking of the Estonia is one of the worst maritime disasters of the century. At the time, a joint Swedish-Finnish-Estonian government committee officially ruled the tragedy an accident. The sinking is attributed to inclement weather that caused high waves to come through an open door in the ship’s bow destabilizing and capsizing it in under an hour. Other people, including some family members of victims, think that the water came through a hole caused by an explosion. NOW Today, years after the official report, questions remain regarding the sinking of the ferry. According to Swedish sources, in addition to being a car-passenger ferry, the Estonia was used to smuggle advanced Soviet military technology, secret space weapons, and other Soviet military contraband. Estonia, a former Soviet republic, gained independence in 1991. Experts and speculators have suggested that the sinking of the Estonia was likely related to the illegal cargo it may have been smuggling. However, that claim has not been officially confirmed by either the Estonian, Finnish, or Swedish governments.
