21.2.6
Further Evidence

This and the following pages were left empty for possible new evidence and are thus used for additional testimony received from survivors during the November 1999 hearings and which shall be quoted as follows:

Carl-Erik Reintamm - cabin 1094 - 1st deck:

- He couldn't sleep well and suddenly he heard a sound like the vessel was proceeding through ice, it was "a scraping noise", after he had realised that it couldn't be ice during that time of the year, he finally thought that the vessel ran over something, ca. half a minute later the vessel heeled to starboard.
- he ran out into the alleyway, but he didn't look at his watch, in the alleyway he saw water in the angle between the wall and the floor streaming along the wall with considerable speed,
- it was a considerable quantity of water, about 40 centimetres high, which was not running down the stairs from the above car deck, but was rushing very quickly through the centre alleyway in the angle between wall and floor, which made him run even faster into the stairway and up;
- he did not note any water coming through the car deck doors but heard an alarm signal which sounded like an old fashioned alarm clock which was ringing all the time without interruption,
- when he came up to Deck 7 he saw two officers from the crew wearing white shirts with epaulettes, but he doesn't recall the number of stripes, at least one of them had a walkie-talkie in his hand,
- he informed them that the vessel was taking water into deck 1, where upon one officer instructed the other one to go down and check the situation when quite suddenly the ship heeled over again; and the two officers fell to the deck, where after both got back on their feet and went down, probably to investigate;
- he went out on deck through the left door on Deck 7 (that was the door on the part which was down) and saw two ferries far away from the "Estonia";
- the lamps went off and on and the vessel heeled more and more,
- probably when he tried o release a life boat, he saw a huge thing floating along the vessel, but he cannot exactly say when he saw it, the thing looked square and at first he thought that is was a part of the vessel the waves were washing over it and it was then on one level with the sea surface, he says it was so "quite some time" and others should have also seen it,
- in the official protocol he was wrongly quoted since it was stated there that he had seen "many items", but he underlines that it was only one item, several metres long each side, like a steel plate it was white and/or light and it was big and still very close and that moment he thought that this item was "the reason for everything",
- it floated away with small waves coming over it and then it disappeared.

Pierre Thiger - Admiral's Pub - 5th deck, starboard aft :

- when he was on the port side of the hull and looked forward, he saw something looking like a stabiliser fin, it was a least 5 metres long and standing completely in the air, but it could not have been a stabiliser fin which was much further aft, the object moved transverse and it was 50 % higher than wide
- he was sitting above the stabiliser fin, but the thing he saw was far forward of the vessel
- he was subsequently washed into the water by a wave, and when he finally had time to look from in the water, he saw that the visor was no more there.
Note: The "thing" Pierre Thiger saw far forward must have been the port aft part of the visor bulwark sticking up and extending the port hull side of the ferry. See page 1091.