Missing Titanic tourist submersible

[GDS_Starfury]

Im pretty sure the SOSUS kit is a lot more advanced then WW1-1910s tech.

[al_infierno]

Couldn't it also be the case that since the implosion happened hours *before* anyone from the Titan's mothership called the authorities for help, the recordings of the event were already filed away and only later retrieved after the Navy had diligently sifted through the ungodly amount of sonar data they had collected in the hours before and after the alert went out?

Pretty sure it was already confirmed that they waited for the submersible to be overdue before calling for help, and they imploded on their initial descent, so you're definitely onto something here.

[JasonPratt]

Im pretty sure the SOSUS kit is a lot more advanced then WW1-1910s tech.

The basic principles for making an announcement about a detection consistent with an implosion in the area, would not be more advanced than mid 1910s tech. They don't even have to say which platform(s) detected and triangulated it, although everyone who cares about North Atlantic warfare already knows SOSUS is there.

If there aren't computers already sifting through the ungodly amount of sonar data during the hours bracketing the implosion (allowing for time of sound to travel to various platforms), looking for various signature definitions of interest and flagging them for human investigation (or even further computer investigation), then (as a popular example) Tom Clancy was just making up science-fiction technology in the late 80s -- otherwise that tech already exists and everyone who cares either knows about it or can reasonably expect it to exist.

Which, again: computer sampling and flagging analysis doesn't even need to be mentioned in a public announcement about detection-consistent-with: specific platform capabilities and methodologies are NOT necessary; basic capabilities (not even counting methodologies) are already known, at the bare minimum, by every Navy who cares.

I cannot (yet) understand actual security concerns about announcing the implosion detection a lot sooner than they did. I could grant a default abundance of security caution about mentioning any such detection, but then that same default refusal to do so would count against them ever mentioning any such detection. What security principle would have changed between sooner and later?

Bureaucratic authority lag seems like a more logical explanation (along with other possibilities).

And maybe I've got a faulty notion of the timing: maybe the administration was announcing the consistent-with-fatal-implosion-high-probability within 24 hours, and I've just forgotten that, or never heard it that soon, which is entirely possible. I've been very distracted last week with Mom at the hospital, so I may very well have a non-problem on the timing! -- but I've seen some discussion of the late timing of the announcement elsewhere.

[GDS_Starfury]

hope your moms doing better, we have a date next week.

and your grounded.

[Sir Slash]

You couldn't handle Mother Pratt. She'd make you sit in the corner so long for your Potty Mouth that your nose would grow to a point. 

[GDS_Starfury]

[al_infierno]

The wreckage was just recovered, and the Coast Guard put out a statement saying "presumed human remains" were found in the debris.   

[bobarossa]

Friend of mine said it well.  One second they're alive, next they're pink mist.

[JasonPratt]

Just imagine the walls of texts I can inflict upon you now that I'm grounded!     


Meanwhile, a morbid side of my brain is trying to figure out if 'pink mist' could be an accurate description for the result of a depth-pressure implosion, and I keep having to remind myself it's an evocative metaphor. The important thing from their perspective is that they couldn't have suffered much (maybe not at all once it started) on the way out; their families can have a 'quantum' of solace from that, too. Under the circumstances, things could have been much, much worse.

...and now that morbid side of my brain has gone back to wondering whether some plan I heard of earlier on a TV report, about raising the sub to the surface in 45 minutes to rescue them (using a special ship crane), would have made any practical sense due to decompression problems. That would be a MUCH worse way to go, and especially hellish if inflicted by someone genuinely trying to rescue them from asphyxiation. Imagine having to make that call.

[Sir Slash]

To echo Bobarossa, "One minute you're in a can like Tuna Fish, the next you're Tuna Fish in a can". With my luck, I'd be the guy scheduled for the next trip down and suddenly they have an opening...

[GDS_Starfury]

[ArizonaTank]

Interesting legal analysis of the fallout from the disaster by the Legal Eagle.

Some thoughts on the limit of liability waivers that I was not aware of...