Despite official disapproval and in breach of Scandinavian legislation, a US businessman, Mr Gregg Bemis, has carried out an investigation of the wreck of the MV Estonia in the Baltic Sea.
It was the first private dive to the liner on which 852 people died, the majority of them Swedish, on September 28th, 1994.
Last-minute appeals to Mr Bemis from Swedish and Finnish coastguards failed to halt the expedition. His ship, the One Eagle, spent over a week at the site.
A seminar in Stockholm last May prompted Mr Bemis, best known as the owner of the Lusitania wreck off the coast of Cork, to lead his own diving team to examine the sunken ship.
Hundreds of bodies remain in the Estonia. An international agreement by seven countries declared the site a grave. However, efforts by the Swedish government to stop the dive on this basis failed because the wreck lies in international waters where no jurisdiction applies.
The investigation by the Joint International Accident Commission blamed the sinking on a combination of speed and bad weather. The car deck was forced open and the vessel was flooded.
Some survivors and bereaved relatives dispute these findings, alleging sabotage and a subsequent cover-up. A survey carried out by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter found that 73 per cent of survivors and relatives approved of Mr Bemis's expedition.
An expert in naval architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Mr Olle Rutgersson, dismisses the conspiracy theories but says there are still some unanswered questions.
"What is not explained is how so much water entered the hull, who was on the bridge and if ventilation drums in the car deck might have collapsed," he said.
Reports so far indicate that Mr Bemis and his team, hampered by bad weather, have been able to examine only the outside of the vessel.
Reuters adds: The Swedish coastguard said yesterday that Mr Bemis's dive appeared to be finished.