Everyone of a ship would have known if missiles were fired that night. You don’t have to be on deck to know that. A typical destroyer has a crew of 300+. If there were a flotilla of ships involved in the exercise we’re talking close to a thousand. Word would have spread through out the ships what had happened. Since we the movie has not been released we have no way of knowing who these people are that are talking. We’re they key players? And what exactly they said.
Sailors on an aircraft carrier know when the jets takeoff from the deck. BUT, they don’t know where the Jets are going.
The target was not withing VISIBLE range. The crews on the ships would not know WHAT the missiles hit. Those who would know, were sworn to secrecy before this even happened. You can be sure that the top execs were on the hotline to the White House asking what to do the instant they knew what happened.
The ships in this ‘exercise’ were firing various missiles for several days. Who among the ‘crew’ would even notice another one being fired and make the association to the airliner crash ? They wouldn’t even know about the crash until much, much later as communications to the ‘outside world’ during these ‘exercises’ is very limited and mostly prohibited under the strictest of penalties.