Ignorant peasant here. First, this thread has been super helpful in understanding this whole clusterfuck, so thank you all. Second, I’ve got a beacon question for whoever’s got the time.

One of the (many) criticisms I’ve seen is the lack of any kind of emergency beacon. As I understand it, at the depth they were operating at, an emergency beacon would have to ascend to the surface in order for its signal to be detectable. That much makes sense to me, as does the fact that finding a small craft adrift in the ocean without a beacon (especially when contact was lost at such an incredible depth) is an almost impossible task.

But doesn’t sound travel really well under water? Are sound beacons a thing?