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http://www.aftenbladet.no/lokalt/Ber-re ... 42475.html

Asking the government to clarify timing faster

NOAS leader Ann-Magrit Austenå believes it is important for relatives to clarify as soon as possible how the police handled the AUF young people's dramatic cry for help after Anders Behring Breivik appeared on Utøya.

Wednesday it was announced that the Government appoint a special 22 July-commission, which was first expected to come with a full review in a year.

Secretary General of the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) believe that the interests of relatives' grief work are good reasons to expedite a review of what exists of conflicting information about the times people have called 112 (Norway's 911) and timing of the recorded warning.

There are clearly many unanswered questions and conflicting information has emerged from police, government, youth and families suggest that there is a discrepancy in the information about when the police were first notified about the shooting on Utøya and how quickly the police came to the island. I think it would be very wise of the government to accelerate this part of the Commission's work, says Ann-Magrit Austenå. ...

No one wants a search for scapegoats, but the time aspect is particularly important for parents, siblings and others to come to terms with the children and young people who were killed and mutilated in cold blood. It is of great importance to reveal all the facts about whether their desperate warnings were actually registered with the police and how quickly the work groups were alerted. Many question whether lives could have been saved if police had managed to stop the perpetrator earlier. For the grief work of those who are hardest hit, it will be important to find out what really happened. Relatives need to get the most accurate information from these dramatic hours. I believe this constitutes a separate dimension in relation to our need for a large, comprehensive review of the entire drama, from the rented van being incorrectly parked to the identification of all of the victims.

Two time points are essential, says Austenå. At first police said that the first news of the attack on Utøya was received by the operations center in northern Buskerud at 17.02. But later the police "corrected" their information as to when they were notified by almost 25 minutes. According to chief of staff John Fredriksen in Oslo Police, audit logs show that the first alert first came at 17.25.

According to a timeline Dagbladet presents on its website, came Anders Behring Breivik to Utøya at 17.07. He should have started shooting just a minute later.

There were perhaps 600 young people with mobile phones present on the island and AUF leader and a handful of others came quickly over to the mainland. They say that they immediately started transmitting warnings. In addition, we have heard of young people who experienced unbelievable horrors and parents who were rejected when they called 112. Taken together, this information makes it appear strange that more than 20 minutes passed before any notice was registered with the police. We know that the perpetrator shot until he was arrested, and that he was committing murder toward the end of the incident as well. Therefore, the time difference is important. Was there a technical or human error, so it is something that could happen in other situations? But there are many who claim to know what really happened, said Austenå.

Maybe I should take some diplomacy lessons from this women, but this has been my major beef with the police all along.

As I have said many times, I have been going by the police's own timeline:

One hour from the message to the arrest

Police spokesperson in Oslo Sveinung Sponheim said the time frame under the action of Utøya still not clear, but according to North Buskerud Police District, it took an hour from the police got the message about the shooting on Utøya to 32-year-old was arrested.

The police came to Utøya as quickly as we could, said Sissel Hammer of the Northern Buskerud police.

"When we received the message about the shooting on Utøya, we immediately pulled out with our own crews. In addition, we asked for assistance from the emergency squad in Oslo, who is specially trained to deal with armed missions, says Hammer.

It was previously reported that the police received the first message at 17.02. This is not right, says Hammer.

According to Hammer followed the police action on Utøya following timeline.

17.27: Notification of shooting at Utøya to Northern Buskerud Police District.
17.30: Operations Centre in Oslo police received the message about the shooting on Utøya
17.38: Oslo police received an aid request from Nordre Buskerud Police District
17.52: The first police patrol arrives in the area - must wait for a suitable boat
18.03: Notification that the boat was on its way
18.09: Emergency Squad present on the mainland
18.25: Emergency squad landed on Utøya
18.27: The offender arrested.

Hammer adds that she understands that those who saw the shooting and their families think it took some time before police arrived.

"I thought that something more would happen."

Aas says they quickly realized that something more would happen after the bomb attack in central Oslo.

"We thought fast idea that we can get more tasks after the explosion in the government quarter, and it happened. We were therefore quite early ready to handle the situation Utøya," he said.

Thank you for the links. I would think the investigation should be able to quickly sort out the exact times of the first phone calls from the island based on phone records. They'll have a hard time whitewashing it with all those cell phones.

Now, the police officers were travelling in two boats, both of them faster than the launch they had abandoned. According to one senior police officer, this meant that they got to the island "perhaps 10 minutes" earlier than they would otherwise have done.

Perhaps the unnamed senior police officer meant that it would have taken 10 minutes to restart the swamped boats engine, no?
So they got there 10 minutes faster by requisitioning the private boats.

Also, I dont see how a ferry boat makes the round trip in 5 minutes. That cant possibly include docking and un/loading.
Not even a 100 meter roundtrip.

Plus , the island may be 600 meters from shore, not neccessarily from where the boats enter the water.(and I am not re-reading the entire thread to find out).

None of this means I am happy with the timeline, nor a police apologist.

Burnt Hill wrote:

Now, the police officers were travelling in two boats, both of them faster than the launch they had abandoned. According to one senior police officer, this meant that they got to the island "perhaps 10 minutes" earlier than they would otherwise have done.

Perhaps the unnamed senior police officer meant that it would have taken 10 minutes to restart the swamped boats engine, no?
So they got there 10 minutes faster by requisitioning the private boats.

Also, I dont see how a ferry boat makes the round trip in 5 minutes. That cant possibly include docking and un/loading.
Not even a 100 meter roundtrip.

Plus , the island may be 600 meters from shore, not neccessarily from where the boats enter the water.(and I am not re-reading the entire thread to find out).

None of this means I am happy with the timeline, nor a police apologist.

No one wants a search for scapegoats, but the time aspect is particularly important for parents, siblings and others to come to terms with the children and young people who were killed and mutilated in cold blood. It is of great importance to reveal all the facts about whether their desperate warnings actually got through to the police,exactly how quickly the police were alerted, and exactly how efficiently the police responded. Many question whether lives could have been saved if police had managed to stop the perpetrator(s) earlier. For the grief work of those who were hardest hit, it is important to find out what really happened. Relatives need to get the most accurate information about these dramatic hours.

A little question for you: where were the Readiness Troop based?

Nordic wrote:Does the poster of an OP ......?

It would perhaps be polite to at least take their views into account.

MacCruiskeen wrote:[It's seven. And even seven is considerably more than one. Especially one that was allegedly too far away to use, and allegedly had no available crew anyway, because they were allegedly all away on holiday.

Also, Dradin, you are forgetting that the entire country was on high alert after a huge bomb had exploded in the government quarter of the capital Oslo nearly two hours before the massacre even started. Military and police resources, and stand-by emergency services, will surely have been directed towards the major population centres, of which there are few in Norway, and of which Oslo (24 driving-miles from the shoreline facing Utoeya) is the main one.

Seven helicopters, of which the Sea King is a dedicated maritime search and rescue vehicle. Six Bells earmarked, as it seems, to Delta.

But what does it mean when we are told by Wikipedia that "For air transport Beredskapstroppen uses military Bell 412 SP from the RNoAF"? What kind of a deal does Delta/Oslo police command have with the military? Are there helicopters on stand-by on an ordinary day? Did the declared "high alert" place one or more automatically on stand-by? Or does the erstwhile Delta commander or higher Oslo command have to specifically request one or more helicopters to be made available on a case-by-case basis?

This is what we don't know. So the variables are not just with logistics (as per barracuda's post) but also with how the organisation works/is supposed to work/is planned to work.

MacCruiskeen wrote:Flight-time to the massacre-island how many minutes (for any one of those seven helicopters, or for all of them)? I guess about one minute, or certainly less than five, but maybe someone (not you) will tell me that Norwegian Air Force /Beredskapstropp helicopters also move at a snail's pace, so I will check it.

Again according to Wikipedia, the Bell 412 has a maximum speed of 259 km/h. If one was sitting fueled up, with a pilot and engines running in Rygge when it was requested, it could theoretically make central Oslo in something like 14 minutes. If not unhindered with having to wait for a permission to take off, etc. After making a stop to pick up "elite troops" in Oslo it could then fly to Utoya, again theoretically, in about 7 minutes.

That's 21 minutes of flight time in total, at maximum speed, not taking into account the time getting prepared, time needed to load Deltas (with weapons and equipment) and the effect of this heavier load for the speed on the second leg from Oslo to Utoya.

A couple of clips showing the RNoAF Bell 412s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G65XHIpoUmQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIQ5wD8hCzc

Wikipedia says Bell 412 has a capacity of "up to 13 passengers", but looking at the videos I'm tempted to say that these helicopters could only accommodate about 6-8 heavily armed Deltas. To bring the same number of men the "elite troops" used in the assault on Utoya (as can be gleaned from various news sources), two helicopters might be needed.

Their lift capacity for something like 2000 kg for external load might not be enough to carry Delta's RIBs. Even if RIBs are generally lighter than "conventional" fibre-glass boats, these are rather big and equipped with three outboards each, bringing up the weight. If the Bells can carry the RIBs, though, bringing one along would definitely slow the helicopter down.

The Sea King is bigger and the one in Rygge is in fact a "readiness" unit, this from Wikipedia:

"The 330 Squadron operates 12 Sea King helicopters on behalf of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police and performed approximately 1,500 SAR and ambulance missions in 2008. At any given time 330 Squadron has one helicopter at each base on standby, on immediate readiness (15 minutes reaction time)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._330_Squadron_RNoAF

But the Sea King is slower, with a maximum speed of 208 km/h. That would give total airtime of 25 minutes from Rygge to Utoya, with the same qualifications as above. It could definitely carry a RIB, being that much more powerful.

barracuda wrote:Thank you for the links. I would think the investigation should be able to quickly sort out the exact times of the first phone calls from the island based on phone records. They'll have a hard time whitewashing it with all those cell phones.

A couple of links more, to Norwegian sites. First a piece put out by the emergency centre in Drammen, the administrative capital of the Buskerud province, in which the people in charge of the centre seem to confirm that the first call from Utoya was received at 17.24.

http://www.vestreviken.no/aktuelt/nyheter/Sider/--dere-har-reddet-liv.aspx

"Vestre Viken HF" is the province's central hospital, it seems to house the emergency centre as well.


And the newspaper Verdens Gang has interviewed the same people:

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/oslobomben/artikkel.php?artid=10081010

An interesting point is that when the emergency centre alerted the Nordre Buskerud police district (Drammen is Sondre Buskerud), the local police told they had already received word about what was happening. It is not said how much earlier, though.

The Sea King is also used by the RAF and RN, or was as it's now rather old and obsolete, and is also usable for transport or anti-submarine roles.