Ferry 'veered sharply' to miss submarines
A passenger ferry had to veer sharply to avoid colliding with two submarines, media reports in Finland claimed today.
The Finnish government launched an inquiry of possible territorial violations.
The incident happened last Thursday near Aland, a Finnish island halfway between Finland and Sweden.
A Swedish ferry captain told newspaper Alandstidningen that his ship’s radar made contact with a large, submerged object less than 1.2 miles in front of the ferry. Shortly after, deck personnel spotted two masts sticking up from the water.
“We slowed down and veered forcefully,” said Johan Bertell, captain of the ferry M/S Roslagen. “Suddenly they disappeared from the radar.”
He said there were two submarines as close as 300 yards from the ferry before they vanished.
He said he was sure they were submarines, but could not tell from which country.
Finland, which does not have any submarines, launched an investigation. A military spokesman told Alandstidningen that Sweden denied having any submarines in the area, which fuelled speculation that they were Russian.
“We take this very seriously,” military spokesman Hanno Strang told the paper. “Now we’re trying to find out if the crew on Roslagen really saw correctly.”
No foreign military vessels had requested permission to enter Finnish waters that day, Strang added.
A Finnish border patrol ship searched the area with a sonar but did not find anything, the paper said.
