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Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

wsj.com

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Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#11

Post by bnt »

kneebonian wrote: post #10
yborg wrote: post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

For starters the USCG != USN. They are 2 completely seperate branches of the military, even if the Navy likes to pretend the USCG doesn't exist and the USCG likes to pretend it's just as important as the Navy. With that being the case it could be operational inertia. Sonar tech hears something weird, reports it to his boss. His boss puts in a morning update the next day, he sees about the sub on the news, but he can'…

Would be easier if they had shared Slack channels

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#12

Post by happytoexplain »

yborg wrote: post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

You don't think they should have looked for it regardless...?

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#13

Post by kneebonian »

m_0x wrote: post #5

Does this mean the passengers had an instantaneous death?

Theres an avid discussion on the other thread about this, but the short answer is likely yes. They were probably crushed, incinerated and then bludgeoned to death in less than 3ms, and probably unconscious before they were aware of any of the rest of it.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#15

Post by EA-3167 »

yborg wrote: post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

Remember we now KNOW for sure that the sub imploded, given the debris field, which means a sound loud enough to be picked up was generated. The Navy staying schtum on this does no one any good. It's also possible that someone in the political leadership overrode the preferences of people concerned about intelligence, but in this case I suspect that it's just pointless to deny it, so why not leak it now when it's going to be swamped by the news cycle.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#16

Post by stochtastic »

yborg wrote: post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

I don't think they were pretending to look, they were just (rightly) remaining open to it being either rescue or recovery. From the article:

> “While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”

So:

* They knew about it and quickly aided in the search.

* They did not broadcast the details of the collection to the public.

That seems like the right call to me.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#17

Post by andrewstuart2 »

bnt wrote: post #11
kneebonian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters the USCG != USN. They are 2 completely seperate branches of the military, even if the Navy likes to pretend the USCG doesn't exist and the USCG likes to pretend it's just as important as the Navy. With that being the case it could be operational inertia. Sonar tech hears something weird, reports it to his boss. His boss puts in a morning update the next day, he sees about the sub on the news, but he can'…

Would be easier if they had shared Slack channels

Best I can do is a flat file message transfer that runs weekly (with 18% success rate) between branch mainframes.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#19

Post by EA-3167 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #12
yborg wrote: post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

You don't think they should have looked for it regardless...?

If they heard an implosion at the time the sub lost contact? No. There would be a search and recovery operation, not search and rescue.

I'd liken it to a space shuttle blowing up, the incident isn't compatible with life.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#20

Post by kevin_nisbet »

While I'm sure the details are top secret, I think the existence of the monitoring has be known for quite some time. As I recall, a submarine disappeared much further away than the titanic wreck, much closer to Spain, and the recordings were eventually used to prove it was a collision of submarines or something like that. And rule out that the submarine was attacked by a torpedo.

So I haven't been following this story all that closely, but I would've been somewhat more surprised had there been an implosion or similar it wasn't sitting on a recording somewhere. How quick it is to extract, triangulate, etc are another story.

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