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"Jive Turkey's" (aptly named) attention-seeking grandstanding narration notwithstanding, I find this story hard to believe on so many levels and have to throw the BS flag.
First, the boat sank in 8400' of water, which is several times greater than it's crush depth (1.5 x Test Depth.) Five major sections of the hull were found, (that's the entire longitudinal majority of the watertight parts of the boat) and extensively photographed (over a year later) though the debris field was quickly located. The forward escape trunk, (located in the Bow compartment above the diesel, with lots of hull penetrations) and aft escape trunk, (in the Engine room with even more hull penetrations) would be the least likely to survive an implosion. The photos available online don't offer any compelling evidence otherwise. A section of the boat suspended in the water column that the Seawolf "detected" hours later? One must be high to actually believe this.
Right off the bat, "JT" erroneously calls the distress pinger the BQC. (The BQC is a portable underwater telephone. Any veteran (or rookie) sonarman knows this.) The BQN-13 is a distress pinger and transmits a 100 ms pulse @ 3.5 khz @ 10 second intervals.) He goes on to say the "mainframe sonar" used a battery to ping @ 3.5 khz 37 times. Kind of tough to do when your boat has imploded.
As a sonar supervisor aboard the Seawolf, I used the RYCOM (which stands for Railway Communications) to routinely demodulate the underwater telephone audio signal (8.3-11.1 khz) riding on the carrier (8.0875 khz.) The RYCOM was located in the sonar shack since the UQC, (underwater telephone) which used the same frequency range as the BQC, gave the watchstanders the ability to listen to the voice transmissions. The UQC was located on the conn and had a telegraph style keyer for Morse code transmissions. - The BQC (emergency UW telephone) did not xmit @ 3.5 khz; the BQN-13 did. One of each was stored near the escape trunks. I made sure whenever a crew member got a sonar walkthrough or checkout from me that if they remembered anything about sonar, to know how to operate each. The BQN-13 distress pingers had a battery life of 100 hours, but I don't know what year they were introduced. The DSRV used their signal for locating a submarine in distress.
Sonar gangs typically have a complete turnover every four to five years, so this would have been about four gangs ahead of me. If this really happened, it's unlikely it wouldn't have been passed on - even in whispers, despite whatever classification might have been slapped on the episode.
So the RYCOM part while technically correct, contrasts with the BQC info, which is not fully correct. The RYCOM was fed by either the BQR-4 conformal array on the upper bow or BQR-2 cylindrical array housed in the chinmount. When I was on the 575, the BQR-2 had been replaced by the digital BQR-21. The BQR-2 was incapable of listening in any D/E (depression / elevation) and at a slant angle, a low-powered BQC signal would likely have attenuated the signal too much to be detected. On my first boat, (equipped with a BQR-2) we had the 688 matching us for course and speed just a few meters below performing an underhull acoustic survey prior to going on a SPECOP and had no idea it was even there (acoustically). The only way to prove it was using the fathometer, which enraged our CO. D/E capability requires a specialized array and processors optimized for it. The active sonar (SQS-4) carried by the Seawolf at that time was a total POS. It could not "look down" as it was mounted topside, just like it's replacement, the SQS-51, which we used as a space heater. It was useless even against large steel target spheres during the one time we lit it off during post-overhaul sea trials.
Besides the implausibility of ANY part of the people tank making it to the bottom intact, the Seawolf's passive sonar (BQR-4 and BQR-2) at that time were not optimized to "look down." The BQC's while technically able to transmit 3000 yards, were shaky even when testing between the forward and after escape trunks, which all boats performed as routine PMS. The UQC transmitted at a much higher power level.
While miracles happen, in this case I am not convinced anyone survived, much less made contact with the Wolf. Could someone have dragged the 50 pound BQC into a spherical escape trunk? - Only in the movies. In real life, the battery-powered BQC cable connection to the xducer was outside the trunk.
This sounds more like the Seawolf's nukes playing around with the aft BQC more than anything else. . . Now THAT is more believable and certainly could have been kept a secret!
What did the sonar gang really hear fifty years ago? People hear what they want to hear sometimes. If recordings are produced, (The Seawolf had the same UNQ-7 1/4" tape recorder displayed on the Nautilus.) that might add some credibility, but until then I remain highly skeptical of this story.
Highly implausible stories require compelling evidence. Unless incontrovertible evidence comes to light, putting stories like this out to the public is a disservice to the families of those who perished. I contacted the author and challenged him (and Jive Turkey) to do better. A lot better.
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