[lesuorac]

Sticking with the article, it took them <4h to find it after the >1h to dive to the Titanic.

How much credit do you want to give the USN? As far as I'm concerned, the Titan was found at a expectable rate with a blind search given its proximity to the Titanic. The Titan was found 1600ft from the Titanic so a 1600^2 area (at 100 sq/ft s; The Odysseus has a 4k camera after all) would take 7 hours so finding it within 4 hours seems entirely plausible even if you just did a blind search starting from the Titanic. But also if you knew the exact location it wouldn't take you 4 hours to find it.

But my original point is really we already have estimates of MH370's location even without using secretive methods. It's just going to be a lot harder because knowing where on the surface it crashed doesn't tell you where it'll be below the surface.

[thomashabets2]

Checking near the Titanic seems like the obvious choice. Whether or not USN microphones helped much, I of course don't know.

But my point is that it was not the case that even with USN help it took them days to find it, implying USN could not locate it in less. It's simply not information one way or the other, on its own. This data is consistent with both them instantly knowing exactly when and where, and taking days.

I'd believe it can take hours to check a small area, taking care to not drift into anything, and aiming powerful narrow spotlights. Oh, and avoiding getting currents to smack you into something of a historic landmark.

Especially since the implosion had the power of some hundreds of kg of TNT, and parts can move around in the streams too, over the past days.