If the wave is formed by energy flowing through water of higher density at some depth it is possible that it could not be visible or even existent on the surface. Except for underwater landslides or earthquakes I can’t imagine where that energy comes from though. It is not like the wind created surface waves we normally see. There are layers of different density water caused by temperature (thermoclines) and salinity along with maybe a combination due to higher density at depth - water does compress to a degree.
When we were diving very deep, beyond 1000m, we would reach a point where the higher density of water would actually slow or even stop our descent even with no change in temperature and we had to flood hard ballast to continue deeper but certainly never experienced anything like a standing wave.
Also, tubes, tunnels, or rivers of different density water form channels that can run for hundreds or thousands of miles across the oceans, whales use them for communication and military subs use them to hunt or hide.
Lombok Strait connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean is relatively narrow and shallow in parts:
As it says in the article posted by Lee Shore:
The NASA article linked to has the following explenation:
I have never experienced anything like this, but then I have stayed on the surface and this is supposedly happening below surface only.
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I did have a strange experience a fair bit further east in Indonesia many years ago,
In the evening the sea was suddenly covered in floating pimpstone from a subsea volcano. No tsunami wave that was noticeable on the ship, but a strong smell of sulphur in the air. It was like moving in ice though.
That is interesting. Surely the Navy knew about this, I wonder why they could see no tidal flow effects on the surface? It sounds like a Straits of Messina type thing and we know how visible that is. The sub would almost certainly have an inertial navigation system that would give them some indication of movement different than they would experience in more normal water mass conditions like tidal currents. How can an “exceptionally strong tidal flow” go unnoticed by the sub or the surface ships that accompanied it?
Down currents of 3 knots could be possible. With that speed it only takes 5.4 minutes to reach a crush depth of 500 meter. For 300 m it takes 3.24 minutes. I don’t know whether a sub can counteract that by blowing ballast tanks and how long it takes to empty them. And what about climbing with engines full head?
Modern submarines seem to have a VDR or a black box. For an oldie like the 402 the next nearest thing is probably the sonar’s work tape and perhaps a tape recorder running continuously to register audio.
The phenomenon, long considered sailor’s yarns, was first described for science by Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian Arctic explorer. Nansen wrote the following from his ship Fram in August 1893 in the Nordenskiöld Archipelago near the Taymyr Peninsula:
“When caught in dead water Fram appeared to be held back, as if by some mysterious force, and she did not always answer the helm. In calm weather, with a light cargo, Fram was capable of 6 to 7 knots.[4] When in dead water she was unable to make 1.5 knots.[5] We made loops in our course, turned sometimes right around, tried all sorts of antics to get clear of it, but to very little purpose.”[6]
My reading of this whole situation is an educated guess that the TNI is desperately seeking any excuse for public consumption that exonerates them of either sending a defective submarine to sea or facing the realisation that some crewing or training deficiency was the most probable cause.
Dredging up this latest wave theory smacks of such an attempt. I don’t actually know but can smell a rat. Maintaining depth is such a basic thing for any submarine and any deviation is instantly obvious to those controlling it and just as instantly corrected. I just don’t see a fully serviceable boat catastrophically losing control and plunging to crush depth because of an external wave.
I believe they blame it on internal wave(s) not external wave.
I have never heard of this phenomena before, but that is probably because it does not affect surface ships, or is detectable on the surface.
I can see that if that a sub at the margin between buoyant and non-buoyant condition, which floats in a water column that move vertically will move with it.
Whether this happens at a speed that is uncontrollable and of a range enough to bring it below crush depth is way beyond my comprehension.
Since the difference in displacement required to raise or sink must be small it stand to reason that not much ballast water need to be removed to get a positive buoyancy, But how much is needed to overcome the downward force and speed of an internal wave???
I does seem farfetched. It may have been a combination of a sinking current and lack of timely response or incorrect response by a crew in training on an old boat but it’s more convenient to blame it all on a freak of nature. As it’s been mentioned a couple of times here, if they knew of this danger, why did they go there for training? Like the USCG practicing bar crossings in the worse condition in Oregon? I doubt we’ll ever know.
You mean to say that Naval Brass (whether Indonesian or any other nationality) is trying to avoid blame for an accident??
How can you say such a thing, being a navy man yourself??
Yes, but. I’m not a submariner but have done seatime in them for familiarisation. I’ve operated the planes on my first day at sea and it wasn’t hard but there’s a skill. But if I did something badly wrong, I’d have been booted out and an experienced hand would be controlling in less than five seconds. Submariners don’t let mistakes on depth-keeping last for the minutes it would take to crush the boat. There’s drastic action in seconds and more than enough eyes in the control room to raise the alarm in no time at all.
Boats can be old, but I’m talking about a serviceable boat ie it’s all working and the ordered depth is within the latest restrictions imposed by technical authorities.
Diving a submarine and firing torpedoes are basic bread and butter stuff. If such waves were capable of sinking submarines, how come we haven’t heard of near misses? How come, if such things are known to happen in this area, there wasn’t a standard operating procedure for recognising and countering it? Just like a man overboard or fire?
I’ve heard of many submarine near misses, but never caused by a sinking wave. One of our subs was nearly lost at depth when a flexible hose burst under pressure at depth, flailed around the space totally out of control and admitting sinking-levels of water in seconds. The boat was saved by a master button in the control room (probably a nice big red one) which immediately shut off all pressure hull fittings at once.
That’s an example of equipment failure and an instant response which saved the boat. I don’t rule out equipment failure. I rule out waves.
Years ago, I was reading about these deep internal waves. Interesting, not more…
Now, I read some open source scholarly texts. As it is very difficult and very expensive to measure the real waves, they develop mainly theoretical models, with mathematics far above my level; however, their conclusions are helpful…
Generally, they see the origin of these waves where a general courant of well stratified water masses passes over a sill (hundreds of meters below); the lower layer runs into the sill and sends internal waves back against the direction of the current. They write even of breaking internal waves… but I could not understand this.
The satellite images cannot show the waves. With the sun and the satellite at the ideal angles, in a completely flat sea, the sunlight is mirrored back to the satellite, while the surface ripples from small turbulences above the internal waves disperse the sunlight and are darker on the image.
The geometry and propagation of the internal waves are largely different from the surface ones.
Both are on the limit of different layer densities.
On the surface, 1000 kg/m3 for the water, against 1.3 kg/m3 for the air (hence, against nearly nothing).
Below the surface, density differences are in the per mille range between layers.
In the South China Sea, they measured the internal waves with heavy, anchored buoys, and instruments at different depths.
They registered wave amplitudes up to 150 meters, wavelengths in the single-digit kilometer range and wave speeds around one knot. Others write about amplitudes of up to 500 meters…
With these enormous waves, the circles of the water molecules are enormous too. On the sides of these circles, there could be up or down currents over long vertical distances.
It is all but inconceivable that an uncontrolled loss of depth control that headed the boat to the bottom, especially from the very shallow depth where torpedo firing is performed would not be easily countered by the emergency blow system.
The test depth for that boat was originally 500m, it may have been downrated over the years but if the mission was torpedo firing the working depth for that operation would been only a few meters below the surface where emergency blow would be very effective or a strong current phenomenon would be very visible on the surface ala Messina.
If it was not, the reason for not being retrofitted could only be a cost saving measure. That may be part of the reason this wave theory is being pushed by Indonesia.
As a former diesel boat sailor and commercial deep submergence vehicle pilot I call bullshit on the wave thing. There was no way that boat could have been “pulled” from near the surface to crush depth without sending messages over the underwater telephone. It is normal practice to maintain communications with the surface support vessels about depth, heading, and intentions, especially when firing torpedoes was the purpose of the exercise.
People throw flowers bearing the names of the sunken KRI Nanggala-402 submarine crew, near Labuhan Lalang, Bali. The Indonesian navy vessel was found split into three pieces on the sea bed, with all 53 crew confirmed dead.
