[jhanschoo]

> The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official. Shortly after its disappearance, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.

I think the journalist may have assumed the wrong sequence of events. This makes it look as though the Navy wasn't recording until after the sub lost comms. That would mean that the implosion actually occurred some time after loss of contact.

>> The U.S. Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,

If this is the statement issued (that the journalist then "dumbed down" wrongly), then after comms was lost they started analyzing recorded data that was being recorded circa when contact was lost, which would make more sense.

[WastingMyTime89]

The Navy is listening at all time but sounds travel weirdly in sea water due to temperature and salinity gradients and submarines tend to travel through zones where their own sound isn't carried very well. They might have been ordered to move to a point where they would have been more likely to hear the Titan.

[mozman]

Ocean acidity also impacts acoustic transmission, one of the leading causes of noise pollution for fish.

[chakintosh]

> an implosion or explosion

Don't they have different sound signatures and so they're able to determine whether it's the former or the latter?