[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Catfish

If SOSUS picked up the implosion on the tenth a survival would be unlikely. Did they record an implosion at that date, and if. is it sure it was the T.?

I'll let someone more knowledgeable than me answer that:

I am the only person living or now dead who ever analyzed the SOSUS detections
of the loss of THRESHER. I provided the results of that analysis to the Naval Court
of Inquiry on 18 April 1963.

The THRESHER pressure-hull imploded at 09:18:24 ROMEO Time Zone on
10 April 1963 at a depth of 2400-feet with an energy released equal to the
explosion of 22,500 pounds of TNT at that depth. The crew died in less than
47 milliseconds. Minimum time required for human recognition of an event is
80-100 milliseconds.

Bruce Rule


**
(On what the Seawolf heard)

It appears to have been a case of early-after-the-event-confusion with both surface
ships, the USS SEAWOLF, a nuclear submarine and the SEA OW, a diesel submarine
operating in the immediate area of the THRESHER event.

What was indisputable then and remains so now is the Sound Surveillance System
acoustic data which confirmed the THRESHER pressure-hull collapsed in less than
0.047 seconds at 09:18:24R or local time at the loss site, at a depth of 2400-feet,
almost twice THRESHER's "test depth" of 1300-feet. None of the crew survived
that event. Death was instantaneous; they never knew collapse was occurring

That acoustic signal was detected by 13 Sound Surveillance System hydrophone
arrays at ranges as great as 1300 nautical miles. Many of those hydrophone arrays
also detected reflections (echoes) of the collapse from the mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Nothing other than implosive collapse - the total destruction of the THRESHER
pressure-hull - could have produced an acoustic signal of that magnitude.

Bottom line: the acoustic data makes it indisputable that THRESHER was lost at
09:18:24R on 10 April 1963. Any assertion that the THRESHER crew survived beyond
that time has no basis in fact and amounts to an unfortunate and irresponsible
fiction.

Bruce Rule