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“Someone must have been there after us”
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Heavy diver Stewart Rumbles punched holes in M / S Estonia on behalf of the Swedish Maritime Administration.
The new documentary reveals that the holes are wide open, despite divers sealing off the wreck when they finished the investigation.
– I can guarantee I closed the hole. Someone must have been there after us, Stewart Rumbles tells Aftonbladet.
Just over two months after the sinking of the M / S Estonia, the Swedish Maritime Administration sent divers from the Norwegian company Rockwater. The task was to investigate the conditions to rescue the bodies and the ferry in its entirety.
The task included closing the holes so that the bodies and objects did not leave the ferry.
However, the new documentary on the ferry disaster airing on Dplay reveals that the two holes are wide open.
Photo: DPLAY
After the sinking, the Estonian wreckage was examined by divers from Rockwater Company, on behalf of the Swedish Maritime Administration.
Photo: DPLAY
Divers made holes to get into the wreck. Later, the holes were sealed with iron grates.
Photo: DPLAY
The new documentary reveals that the holes are wide open.
The great diver Steward Rumbles from Great Britain cut one of the holes and then got into the boat. He tells Aftonbladet how the dives were monitored in detail by the Swedish Maritime Administration and police personnel that he followed in real time via the diver’s helmet camera.
– It was not the case that we simply wandered around the ship. This was a very serious incident where each dive was followed by two police officers who saw what we were doing, who told us where to move and what to do.
“One hundred per cent sure”
He says the sealing of the cut holes was one of the items on a checklist that divers and dive guides followed on every dive. In addition, all actions were recorded.
– I sealed the first hole and the second was made by a team after me, of that I am one hundred percent sure.
Can you guarantee that?
– Yes, definitely.
Photo: DPLAY
“Someone must have been there after us,” says diver Steward Rumbles.
Stewart Rumbles explains that he closed the hole with an iron lattice that was hooked to the hull with half a dozen strong cable ties that were of a type that heavy divers also used when working on oil rigs. The second hole was closed with the iron piece cut from the hull in the same way.
– Those cable ties last without problems for 26 years. These are powerful things and we used at least half a dozen to set up this grid, he says.
“It sounds incredible”
He concludes that the divers must have gone after them and released the cable ties and left the grid and the piece of iron on the hull, which can also be seen in the documentary.
– In my world, it seems like someone cut the cable ties and got into the hole and then left the grill next to it, says Stewart Rumbles.
Photo: DPLAY
Animation showing the Rockwater Holes.
He speculates that a fishing net could have ripped off the iron grate.
– But it sounds incredible that a fishing net has miraculously left both the grate and this piece of metal next to the holes.
Stewart Rumbles tells in the documentary how within days he and his colleagues could have rescued the bodies from Estonia so that the survivors could bury their relatives.
– As divers in these contexts, we always said that we are there to do a job. True, it was a horrible job at times, but there was definitely body saving on our spectrum of tasks. In this case, we did not succeed even though it would have been entirely possible to bring them to the surface in a respectful way.
Not relevant to the investigation
What has stopped all attempts to rescue bodies is the law on the peace of burial in the wreck of M / S Estonia which has been adopted by all the Baltic Sea states except Germany, as well as Great Britain.
Currently, the Swedish part of the production team behind the latest diving operation is accused of having filmed the wreck from the outside with a diving robot.
Photo: DPLAY
Stewart Rumbles in a diving suit. During the 1994 investigation, he worked for the Rockwater diving company, which was hired to investigate the wreck after the sinking.
But trying to investigate who may have broken into Estonia through the so-called Rockwater holes is not relevant, according to prosecutor Helene Gestrin, who is leading the process against journalist Henrik Evertsson and underwater expert Linus Andersson.
– If there is visible damage to the boat that was not there when the accident investigation was carried out, you may well suspect that someone has been there unauthorized and has taken action and it may be interesting from a criminal investigation perspective. But then the question is whether there is anyone who can be suspected. There are also questions about when this happened, either before or after the prescription period, says Helene Gestrin.
The statute of limitations for violations of Estonian Law, now being used for the first time, against the team behind the new documentary, is, by law, five years.
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