Lock design flaws and slow response by the crew were instrumental in the deaths of 852 people when the Estonia sank in a Baltic Sea storm, an international commission probing the 1994 ferry disaster said Wednesday.
The much-delayed final report on Europe's worst postwar maritime disaster said that improperly designed locks allowed storm waves to tear the ship's bow door off. The report also said that faster reaction by the crew could have increased the Estonia's odds of survival.But the Swedish-Finnish-Estonian commission is widely distrusted because of repeated delays in releasing the report and the resignation of its former chairman. The German company that built the huge ferry, the Meyer shipyard, formed its own commission, often at odds with the international group.
The Estonia sank on Sept. 28, 1994, en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, when towering Baltic waves ripped off its visor-style bow door and water poured into the vehicle deck. Many who made it off the ship quickly died in the thrashing, frigid waters; 137 people survived.
The ship sank in about 45 minutes off Finland in the middle of the night.
The report released Wednesday upheld many of the conclusions in a 1995 preliminary report that said the bow door's locks failed due to poor construction.
"The (bow door) visor attachments were not designed according to the realistic design assumptions," said the 230-page report released in Tallinn. It said the door locks should have been five times stronger.
The Estonia had been plowing through waves up to 13 feet high and "the failure occurred in what were most likely the worst wave load conditions she ever encountered," said the report.
The report said that while the Estonia was basically seaworthy and properly manned, its officers were slow to respond to signs of trouble, such as reports of strange sounds from the bow.
"A rapid decrease in speed at this time would have significantly increased the chances of survival," said the report.
It also said that ship's alarms had not been sounded until five minutes after the Estonia began listing heavily. By then, it was difficult for passengers to escape.
A separate report by experts commissioned by the Meyer shipyard, made public on Monday, said the bow door failure apparently was due to poor maintenance of the ship and sailing too fast.
That report said the locks had been repositioned and that the new welds were significantly weaker than the originals. It also said the vehicle ramp, which folded up inside the hull to make a watertight barrier, apparently was out of alignment.
The international commission's chairman, Uno Laur, said in March that the commission had found no evidence of repairs or alterations to the visor.
But trust in the international commission's work has been undermined by the resignation last year of chairman Andi Meister, who had said Sweden was withholding information.
In a book published in September, Meister said there is evidence that the shipwreck has been visited and perhaps plundered by unauthorized divers. The ship's navigational computer has never been found, raising suspicion that it was stolen, he said.
Olof Forssberg, head of the Swedish part of the commission, resigned this year after admitting he had lied about having received a letter connected to the case. A Swedish consulting expert also left, saying he no longer trusted the commission's work.