Yle is the Finnish public media so I'd say that the site is very reliable in what they report. Having said that the reporters there are hardly experts in EPIRBs so they would probably not be able to question what they hear, nor be able to fact check technical details in their reports.
The author here is hampered by writing 25 years after the events. His principal source (Margus Kurm) is noisy but unreliable, and the author's attempt to fact-check him gets ironically spun into more conspiracy hullabaloo.
JAIC's treatment of the EPIRBs is consistent with all the evidence. The beacons were recovered and tested according to subject-matter expertise. That expertise included the expectation that they would not have been activated by immersion. Koivisto is not mentioned anywhere.
The story implicating Koivisto with the EPIRBs immediately runs into problems. He's not an expert in emergency signaling systems, least of all EPIRBs. That's specialized mechanical, electronic, and system engineering. Why
he should have been charged with preparing a report on them to the JAIC beggars explanation. The expectation that the beacons should have activated automatically seems naïve to the particulars of the product offerings and the specifics of the relevant regulations. In other words, why would anyone who could be considered an expert be asking those questions? Nevertheless a report was
allegedly written to answer them and then "mysteriously" lost.
To me, the notion that this is some bombshell coverup has Kurm written all over it. And yes, our author reached out to Koivisto ostensibly to confirm or deny the claims. Koivisto declined the interview according to an allegedly false pretense (an NDA). Pretend you're Koivisto and some reporter you don't know contacts you about the same conspiracy theory you've heard a dozen times before. What do you do? Do you go along?
This has happened to me and to others. I used to get regularly cold-called by people I didn't know claiming to be reporters or researchers and wanting my comment on some conspiracy question or another. I learned that not all of those questions were being asked in good faith and not all my comments were reported honestly or correctly. Now I've voluntarily decided to wade into conspiracy matters, but many experts really don't want to be dragged into them
in any way, even on the side of truth. We all develop a Spidey sense for whether something feels legit, and there is usually no benefit to a well-known person to be associated in any way with what feels like a conspiracy engagement.
This whole reporting issue becomes a lot easier to explain if you propose that this author simply didn't realize how far down the conspiracy rabbit hole he'd been led before he tried to fact-check Kurm. It's a lot easier to explain if you propose that the story about Koivisto and the EPIRBs is a tale possibly told by Kurm after two and a half decades of embellishment for spooky value—and that no such report ever existed.
