Well, that's sort of the point of the article -- they knew they'd heard something, they didn't know for sure what that noise meant, though. So they (probably, we infer from how quickly the wreckage was found) directed the rescue team to the right place to see what happened, rather than speculating.
It would have been a lot worse if they'd announced that they heard noises that were consistent with an implosion but it turned out that wasn't what had happened.
It would have been a lot worse if they'd announced that they heard noises that were consistent with an implosion but it turned out that wasn't what had happened.