EAGLE S

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Course/Position

Latest news

Shipping company instructed captain to destroy evidence

Captain Davit Vadatchkoria of the Russia-linked 'Eagle S' was instructed by his shipping company to destroy evidence after the ship was seized by Finnish authorities. The instruction to conceal evidence is among a range of investigative material publicized by the Finnish Central Criminal Police (KRP) as part of the prosecution in the Helsinki Criminal Court. The captain and two senior officers were charged with aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications. The transcript of a wiretap released as part of the prosecution of the three men revealed that just days after the ship was detained, the captain was warned by the shipping company’s technical department to hide a list of subsea infrastructure that the ship had crossed over: “So don't share this list with anyone, please. Destroy it. Because they will come back and demand compensation from you for all the damages,” The captain verbally agreed to destroy the list. Other material made public by Finnish police included the revelation that the VDR of the 'Eagle S' was not functioning at the moment the ship severed the Estlink 2 power cable,. After police ruled out intentional manipulation, the malfunction was attributed to the older vessel’s systems being dependent on receiving a GPS signal, something the ship could not find due to Russian GPS interference in the region. The prosecutors argued that the senior crew members were recklessly negligent while the defendants contend that the incident was an unfortunate but typical maritime accident. They were also challenging Finland’s jurisdiction.

VDR was not working during critical period of cable damage

The voyage data recorder (VDR), of the 'Eagle S' was not functioning during the critical period in which the vessel damaged several undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland. According to materials from the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP), made public as part of an ongoing criminal trial, the data recorder failed to capture the moment when the vessel's anchor severed the Estlink 2 electricity cable on Dec 25, 2024. The investigators found that the VDR had only begun recording data at 12:59 that day. By that time, the tanker had already entered Finland’s exclusive economic zone at 12:23 and crossed over Estlink 2, where the cable was damaged. KRP officials seized the VDR and conducted technical examinations, including efforts to recover overwritten or deleted data. No usable recordings were found between Dec 18 and 12:59 on Dec 25, a period during which the vessel had mostly remained in Russian territorial waters. The investigators considered both equipment failure and intentional interference. The KRP found no signs of tampering. A technical explanation emerged during forensic analysis: the VDR system relied on a GPS time signal, which had been lost intermittently during the voyage. According to police findings, the GPS receiver onboard had reverted to an incorrect time, sometimes displaying the year 2005, when it failed to acquire a satellite signal. As a result, the recorder deleted existing files to manage disk space. Investigators described the GPS unit as outdated, dating back to the early 2000s. The captain Davit Vadatchkoria told investigators that the ship had lost its GPS signal approximately an hour after entering Russian waters. Signal reception remained unstable until it resumed at 12:59 onAug 25. At that point, the VDR resumed normal recording, including bridge communications. At 1:05 p.m., just minutes after the system reactivated, the ship’s second mate informed the captain of low engine revolutions. The fifth and final cable break occurred later that evening at 6:43 p.m. The 'Eagle S' had been first anchoring in St Petersburg on Dec 21, and departid from Ust-Luga with a fuel cargo on Dec 24.

Doubts that defendants did not notice that the anchor was dragging on the seabed

In the trial against the master of the 'Eagle S', Captain Stig Sundberg, chairman of the Helsinki Shipmasters' Association, doubted that the defendants did not notice that the anchor was dragging on the seabed. He believes that an anchor dragging on the seabed makes so much noise that it is difficult not to register it. According to Sundberg it is very strange that none of the crew noticed that the anchor had been dragged along the seabed for almost a hundred kilometers. According to Sundberg, the anchor falling on the port side would also have caused the ship to pull to one side.The ship's captain Davit Vadatchkoria and two of the mates face two and a half years in prison on suspicion of cutting five submarine cables in the Gulf of Finland. The captain denies all charges, and his defense attorney Tommi Heinonen believes that natural forces caused the anchor to fall into the sea. The defense explained that the anchor may have come loose without anyone on the crew being involved by the fact that the anchor windlass was worn out. The prosecutors believe that the three defendants knew about the deficiencies, and assessed that the captain is the one responsible for ensuring that the anchor should have been in a seaworthy condition. It is highly unusual for a person in charge not to conduct a thorough examination of the condition of the ship before setting out on the water. The trial regarding the 'Eagle S' continues on Aug 27.