> “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.
This is just reasoning after the fact. It doesn't make sense to conceal evidence. If this used some secret technology, okay, why say it publicly now? If it's okay to be public, why not a few days ago?
I think they were just holding out hope that it wasn’t an implosion noise.
Agreed.
We seem, as a culture, to feel we're owed, or entitled, to everything nowaways.
By releasing this information, there would have possible been a massive outcry by the (unconcerned) public and the families involved that the parties involved weren't doing enough. Everyone would have hopped on the "you're too slow to act" bandwagon. This despite not having any knowledge or expertise in the area.
They may have created some headaches at this point, but saved themselves a lot of undeserved headaches and media criticism by not releasing info earlier.
Are you referring to the actual "government" ? because in that case, it definitely seems like they owe their own citizens something?
That is not true. The federal government does not charge for search and rescue.
Why do you believe otherwise?
Do you have NO empathy? Why would they tell the family they think everyone is dead without verifiable proof and within the window in which they could still be alive? (4 days of oxygen). What is the benefit beyond a bunch of virtual gawkers getting slightly more information slightly quicker?
You don't have to tell the family you're certain they are dead, if you aren't, but you should tell the family "We heard a sound consistent with implosion at the same time we simultaneously lost communications and telemetry from the sub. The most rational explanation is that they are all dead." Once you've told the family, you should tell the public.
What people are engaging in here, you included, is some kind of baffling Just World bias. That is, this unusual circumstance has happened - the sub imploded, the government knew, the government waited days to tell the public, and now you and others are defending the government's actions - as if, because it happened this way it must be justified in happening this way. In reality, of course, it's completely irrational - that's why you don't even bother to defend the course of events rather than imply I lack empathy (which, again, backwards because you are defending lying to the bereaved for no gain, in order to deceive them into believing their loved ones are huddled in the cold and dark and slowly suffocating when you know they are not).
There is absolutely no reason to temporarily conceal the deaths. The government should have notified the families with their information, and then the public.
The US government did reject the OceanGate’s and Explorer’s Group request for military airlifts, so it’s possible the Navy intel played a part in saving those resources from being pointlessly expended
https://twitter.com/NewsNation/status/1670998331663994882?s=...
edit: added “not” to the tiktokers doing a search
As for what the point of informing the public is - the government serves the public and the public was interested. Without a compelling reason to keep information secret the government should share.
As
Find yourself saner hobbies.
The government shouldn't conceal information to mislead the public without some compelling reason. Since no reason exists here, the government shouldn't have done that.
I think it's likely the news articles are making it sound more definitive than the Navy was thinking, or maybe the person leaking it to the press was trying to make themselves seem more important or make the Navy seem more omniscient.
It does sound like the Navy reviewed their data they had already collected and discovered the implosion and informed people on site that they likely had a termination event.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shtum
(English, from Yiddish)
Actually, they probably do like announcing to the world “we heard it”, to hype up their capabilities and spook their adversaries. That’s why you wait, you don’t want to say you heard it and be wrong.
Maybe they would have continued to make the attempt. But unless it got snagged, the ballasts were designed to break off after 24 hours and rise to the surface.
Even a hopeless situation, people still want to see, and possibly recover, the surviving wreckage. The whole point of the original exploration was to view the Titanic wreckage. Various military spent enormous resources looking for MH370 for months/years.
And nobody with any shred of PR training would make a "heard a big boom, they're probably fucked" statement with all the world's media and the families listening. Nobody wants to tell the families that its over until they've got hard proof.
Don't quite know what was so great about this story. It was a textbook example of the catastrophic consequences of hubris meeting ignorance, and that was about it. The rest was just milking the drama as timed passed by with decreasing theoretical oxygen reserves.
> catastrophic consequences of hubris meeting ignorance
Icarus calling. People have been telling this story for thousands of years.
I'd liken it to a space shuttle blowing up, the incident isn't compatible with life.
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't just go sending this info off, he runs it up the chain, eventually a person with authority hands it off to the USCG who then passes it back down, and eventually someone in media gets ahold of it, or someone in an official capacity makes an announcement.
OOPS! nevermind.
I remember reading a series of newspapers articles about the Somalia battle that was later the subject of the "Black Hawk Down" movie. I haven't seen the movie so don't know if it covered the communication issue I'm about to mention.
The army had a convoy on the ground trying to reach the crashed Black Hawk helicopter. The navy had a surveillance plane watching. The plane would see that the convoy was heading toward and ambush but they could not talk directly to the convoy (I don't remember if it was because they didn't have radios with the frequency the convoy was on or if there was a rule against it) so had to relay the warning and recommended alternate routes back to their own base.
There that would go up through the chain of command until reaching someone who was able to talk to a counterpart in the army, then down the chain of command in the army and finally to the convoy. By then the alternate routes the plane had found were no longer applicable, and the convoy might have even already reached the ambush.
When they got past that it would just happen again farther along with another ambush.
This counts as a maritime accident so the NTSB will likely be investigating. They'd want the Coast Guard to locate and try to recover any pieces it could for the investigation anyway.
Besides, the vast majority of that money is already spent. The variable cost is actually quite low - largely just overtime and fuel cost. Often the fuel comes out of reserves that have to be rotated out anyway.
The US military, Coast Guard included, is an exercise in readiness. Responding to something happening is probably as good an exercise as any.
hmmm
The media probably chose not to report it for the same reason the Coastguard didn't say "They're dead, let's go home" until they found confirmation.
Obviously, an Orca rave.
If I am ever in a situation like this or under a fallen building or whatever I hope the rescue team will continue until death is 100% sure like starving or what and not because of some events happened.
My other thought was that if they showed up alive then it almost definitely was was a cover but I suppose I was on wrong on that front. Still think the story gave them the opportunity to drop a lot more sonar buoys and increase patrols and ‘look’ for something.