The Cruel Sea

By James O. Jackson/Stockholm

Nautical engineers never say a ship is unsinkable -- not since the Titanic hit an iceberg and went down in 1912. But the disaster of the passenger-and- car ferry Estonia last week was surely one that should never have happened. The 14-year-old German-built vessel was well designed, carefully maintained and as safe as modern technology could make it. It carried the required number of lifeboats and life jackets. Its engines and equipment were deemed in order: it had been thoroughly inspected Sept. 9 and again last Tuesday.

Yet hours later, the Estonia rolled over and sank in the stormy Baltic Sea. It went down at 12:34 a.m. Wednesday, so quickly that only 139 of the 1,051 passengers on board were pulled from the water alive. The few who did not drown trapped in the dark cabins of the stricken ship died of shock and hypothermia in the 50 degrees F water.

It was an especially shocking blow to Estonia and Sweden; nearly all of the victims came from these two countries. Their families' grief provoked an ugly outpouring of questions about why the ship sank so rapidly. Inquiries are also being made about the Estonia's basic design, so similar to the scores of other roll-on, roll-off vessels with vast, open vehicle decks vulnerable to flooding from large loading doors fore and aft. Some analysts were suggesting the loss of the Estonia -- like that of the British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge in 1987 -- means these kinds of vessels may be too dangerous for passenger service. There had been little reason to fear for the Estonia when it steamed out of Tallinn on Tuesday, bound for Stockholm on its thrice-weekly run. Two Swedish inspectors noted wear on the rubber seals of the large, watertight bow doors but concluded it was not serious enough to require immediate repair. The weather on Tuesday was bad -- winds gusting to 62 m.p.h., raising seas as high as 32 ft. -- but no worse than usual for this time of year. The ride was bumpy enough, however, to force the nightclub band to stop playing around 8:30 p.m. and to send many passengers to their cabins.

The first sign of trouble appeared shortly after midnight on a closed- circuit television monitor in the engine room. One of the engineers on , watch saw that water was entering the ship near the bow doors. Believing it was only rain, the crewmen activated the bilge pumps. But within minutes the sea was pouring into the lower car deck near the waterline, and the ship began rolling heavily onto its left side.

Neeme Kaik, an Estonian passenger, reached a lifeboat station as the list increased. "There was no activity among the crew, and I did not hear any messages," he said. "I grabbed a life jacket, and then the boat fell on its left side completely. I managed to jump into a rubber boat with three other people." Moments later, the 15,566-ton Estonia turned nearly upside down and sank, stern first, in 260 ft. of chilly water. Survivors estimated that it had gone down in little more than 15 minutes.

In the water, passengers remember hearing only the roar of the storm and faintly, above it, the human cries. "You really heard the screams of the women out in the sea," said Hannu Seppanen, a Finn. Only those lucky or strong enough to reach the rafts had a chance to live.

"When we arrived in the middle of the night," said Jan Thure Tornroos, captain of the Finnish ferry Mariella, which was the first vessel on the scene, "we could see people floating about in the water and hear them screaming for help." The Mariella managed to rescue 17. "There were hundreds of bodies bobbing up and down," said Hemming Eriksson, a passenger on a second ferry that responded to the postmidnight mayday message. "Many were dressed only in underwear and life jackets. Some of them moved, so you could see they were living, but we could not get them up in the heavy sea." Between 4 a.m. and 3 p.m., 21 rescue helicopters pulled people from heaving life rafts. Briton Paul Barney climbed into one of the rafts with 11 others and held on for seven hours. "I just kept myself going because I wanted to live," Barney recalled. "But six of those with us died."

Worse by far was the terror and panic inside the ship, as passengers fled their cabins and jammed into corridors and stairways. "A woman had broken her legs and begged others to give her a life jacket," said Kent Harstedt, a Swedish passenger, "but it was the law of the jungle." Andrus Maidre, a 19- year-old Estonian passenger, said the old and the very young had little chance. "Some old people had already given up hope and were just sitting there crying," he said. "I stepped over children who were wailing and holding onto the railing." Very few of the survivors were women, children or - the elderly. "There is no law that says women and children first," said Roger Kohen, spokesman for the International Maritime Organization, based in London. "That is something from the age of chivalry." Perhaps there was no time for chivalry aboard the Estonia. Many children, mothers and elderly people were asleep in cabins deep within the ship. Patrons in the upper-deck bars were mainly males. "In the circumstances, it is clear who will survive," said Dr. Steffan Torngren, of Stockholm's Soder Hospital, where 31 victims were treated. "It would be those who are most fit, those who are young, those experienced with the sea and the ship."

Maritime officials suspect that some flaw in the Estonia's forward loading door -- or human error -- led to the flooding of the car deck. Information indicates that the outer bow door had jarred loose and may even have ripped off completely. "There are several eyewitnesses who say the bow door was missing when the ferry went down," said Bengt Erik Stenmark, Sweden's maritime safety director. Investigations into the disaster could result in demands for changes to the roughly 4,500 similar ships in operation worldwide. Some specialists advocate installing dividers in the car decks to check the force of water flowing inside. But operators resist such baffles because they would interfere with the efficient movement of vehicles.

The Estonia is now lying in water shallow enough to be reached by divers and perhaps by salvaging equipment. Maritime experts and the ferry's owners agree that raising it would be technically difficult. And they acknowledge that it would be dangerous work for the divers to bring bodies to the surface. For the hundreds who perished inside it, the Estonia has become a tomb.

With reporting by Ulla Plon/Copenhagen and Bruce van Voorst/Bonn