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A group of 16 survivors of the Estonian disaster in 1994 sent a letter to the Accident Investigation Board. The group accuses the leader of the investigation Jörgen Zachau of inconsistency, reports Swedish radio Ekot.
The background is that Jörgen Zachau worked in the Swedish Maritime Administration at the same time as Johan Fransson, former General Counsel and responsible for handling the Estonian disaster.
– It doesn’t feel very safe to sit and be interviewed by a person who has sat down and worked with almost all of these people who were part of JAIC (editor’s note: Swedish, Estonian and Finnish Accident Investigation Board), says Anders Eriksson, survivor and signatory of the claim, to Ekot.
The group demands that someone else be found who has no connection with disaster management.
Reject criticism
Jonas Bäckstrand, the current head of the Accident Investigation Board, denies the allegations and says that Zachau is not unfair as Zachau did not work with the Estonian investigation nor did he have a job in the Swedish Maritime Administration when it was happening.
Interior Minister Mikael Damberg (S) tells Swedish radio that he sees no reason to question the investigation.
– I will not comment on how this investigation is carried out, but the authorities must do it on their own. Otherwise, I will politicize it, he tells Ekot.
The Accident Investigation Board launched a new investigation after the television documentary “Estonia – The discovery that changes everything”. Researchers have announced that they want to make new dives in Estonia, after a documentary could show that there were two holes in the ship’s hull. Estonia sank on September 28, 1994. 852 people lost their lives in the disaster.
