A few weeks ago there was a lot of talk about the accident of the Titan submersible that was analyzing the remains of the Titanic, but what not many people knew is that this accident was detected in the first place by the US Navy, through the sensors that it has distributed under water.
On June 19, 2023, the US Navy detected a sound anomaly in the North Atlantic Ocean that was consistent with an implosion. The sound was detected by a top-secret acoustic detection system used to monitor underwater activity around the world.
The sound anomaly was detected in the same area where the Titan submersible had been making a dive towards the wreckage of the Titanic. The Titan had five people on board and had lost contact with the surface shortly before the sound anomaly was detected.
The Navy's acoustic detection system can't pinpoint the exact location of a sound anomaly, but it can narrow the search area to a few square miles. Based on the location of the sound anomaly, the Navy believes that the Titan imploded at a depth of approximately 12,000 feet.
At the time of the Cold War, the US Navy deployed a highly sensitive acoustic sensor system to detect Russian submarines at great distances (thousands of miles) and track their position underwater.
The system is called IUSS (Integrated Undersea Surveillance System), and it is capable of detecting, classifying and reporting the location of submarines throughout the world. It is a very complex system and of course unknown to most people.
In addition to various fixed sensors, the US Navy also has a number of small ships that move around the world dragging underwater sensors (sonars and hydrophones) to capture all kinds of sound information about what is happening underwater.
All the underwater information that is obtained is grouped in a control center, and thus the USA finds out about almost everything that happens under the waters of the world.
So that we have an idea of the enormous sensitivity of these devices, in 2018 these sensors detected the destruction of the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan (S-42) more than 8,000 kilometers away.
And as I said at the beginning, the US Navy was the first to detect the sound of the "implosion" of the Titan submersible and informed the authorities. And a little later, the accident tracking vessels detected a series of remains of the submersible in the sea.
Some remains of the Titan were later found in pieces, but it was clear that the submersible had imploded. The implosion was probably caused by a rapid decompression of the submersible's internal atmosphere. This could have been caused by a number of factors, such as a hull breach, fire, or mechanical failure.
The loss of the Titan is a reminder of the dangers of underwater exploration, but it is also a testament to the bravery of the people doing this work. And for these reasons, more and more drones (without crew) are used to carry out underwater work of all kinds.
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