[Publius6961]

Conspicuously absent from even this latest report is the answer to the obvious question: ignoring all the charts in the universe, accurate or not, prior to being damaged why wasn't the sonar and all the other gee-whiz gadgetry not in use simply to identify any unexpected mountains in the path of high speed travel?

That's not a "rocket science" question.

[Nita Nupress]

I've been wondering myself why they were not using active sonar.
Is that common practice during peacetime? If so, why? Who are we hiding from?

/stupid questions

[fooman]

I had read that he was ordered not use sonar.
(active)

[brooklin]

This boat was doing about 35 mph when it hit the mountain. At speeds like that you are deaf. You couldn't hear your own sonar.
There were several very good threads on this accident recently, and there were some respondents that actually have served on subs commenting on this very same issue.

[RaceBannon]

You cant ping active sonar all the time, the idea is to travel undetected.

[brooklin]

Please pardon my rant, I've just seen this same question asked so many times.

[WHBates]

"The mast concluded that Mooney's crew had access to charts that showed there might have been an underwater obstruction in the area, and that a sounding taken just minutes before the accident did not correlate with the charts that were in use at the time, which should have prompted him to be more cautious"

They didn't need any gee-whiz gadgetry. From the sounds of it they must have stopped or slowed (probably to get radio traffic) and took a sounding (not hi-tech stuff) and the sounding didn't agree with the charts they were using. This should have made them question the charts and take precautionary steps in moving forward.

[Fred Hayek]

Due to surface turbulance sonar is useless at higher speeds. Don't ask me where the cutoff is, I don't know (I don't have a need to know, but there is a cutoff. For the sake of argument, the Harpoon naval simulation uses a figure of 19 knots.).