On the night of September 27–28, 1994, the roll-on/roll-off ferry Estonia was on her scheduled voyage from Tallinn to Stockholm with 989 people aboard when she ran into a Baltic storm, with winds of 18 to 20 metres per second and waves about four metres high. Shortly after 1 a.m. her bow visor tore away in the heavy seas, pulling the loading ramp fully open. Water poured onto the car deck, the ship capsized, and she sank in less than an hour. Of the 989 people aboard, 852 died and only 137 survived — one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters of the twentieth century.
The failure began at about 12:55 a.m., when the seaman of the watch heard a sharp metallic bang at the bow and reported it; the visor and ramp indicator lamps all showed normal. For the next ten minutes repeated metallic noises were heard as the visor, its locks failing under wave impact loads, worked loose. At about 1:15 a.m. the visor separated completely and fell into the sea, forcing the ramp open as it went. Large volumes of water flooded the full-width, undivided car deck, and a heavy starboard list developed within minutes, passing 40 degrees. The engines stopped, a Mayday was transmitted at 1:22 a.m., and at about 1:50 a.m. the ship sank stern first.
Rescue ships and helicopters reached the scene from 2:12 a.m., but the evacuation window had been only ten to twenty minutes: no organised evacuation took place and no lifeboats could be lowered because of the list. In all, 138 people were rescued alive, one of whom later died in hospital. Only 95 bodies were recovered from the sea; 757 of the dead were never found.
The Joint Accident Investigation Commission of Estonia, Finland and Sweden, in its final report of December 1997, concluded that the visor’s locking devices failed under wave loads that exceeded their strength. The attachments, the commission found, had not been designed to realistic assumptions and should have been several times stronger; no detailed classification rules for bow visors existed when the ship was built in 1980, and neither Bureau Veritas nor the Finnish Maritime Administration had ever examined the locking devices for approval. The coupling between visor and ramp, which forced the ramp open as the visor left, was of “crucial consequence,” and the flooded open car deck destroyed the ship’s stability. The visor could not be seen from the bridge, the warning lamps gave no alarm, and speed was never reduced despite the noises reported from the bow.
The disaster forced worldwide changes to ro-ro ferry safety: stronger locking, securing and monitoring requirements for bow visors and ramps under SOLAS, stricter subdivision and damage-stability standards, and, for north European ferries, the 1996 Stockholm Agreement’s tougher rules for surviving water on the car deck.
Download the JAIC Final Report — Part 1 (11 MB file)
The Complete JAIC Report and Supplements — Swedish Accident Investigation Authority