Try not to beat up on the Navy too hard over not shooting off their mouth over whatever they heard.
First , they didn’t say, and will never say which system heard the boom. Could have been SOSUS. Could have been a fast attack sub passing thru. Could have been a surface ship.
Bottom line is this is not only a surface shipping lane but a sub lane also. The noise could have been anything, collision, etc.
Those of us who dabble in deep water stuff knew the Titan riders were done as soon as comms stopped. Surface staff, families, Coasties-—everybody knew they were done.
Altho they called it a “rescue” effort they had to call it something, as with earthquakes, volcanos, avalanches , etc.
Main point is they had to find that wreck. On the bottom, hallway down, on the surface, it had to be located to make sure it wasn’t a hazard to other craft. It would have been really stoopid if they left it floating off the bottom and one of our fast attacks smacked it at, oh, say 30 knots or so.
Additionally, the tourist boat crew had to notify the Coasties/Navy that they were going to do a dive. They are quiet, essentially, and are a hazard while they are out there lollygagging around on the surface for a couple days-—it was meant to be an 8-day trip.
In terms of identifying the wreck, the closest deep diving ROV that could take a pic was at least two days away. It took another day to drop the first one deep enough to look at the bottom. And that matches the end result. The Navy had no way of confirming what the boom was. They would have only known it was in the general direction of the Titanic. Further, the US Navy is not charged with keeping dumbass civilians from suicide missions.
For the Media part-—they would have used any excuse to divert from Hunter, etc. They might have even gone back to reporting on the Ukes? Which they got back to today?