Sub sonar detected fishing boat before crash

Some 71 minutes before a US submarine surfaced underneath a Japanese fishing boat, sonar crew on the USS Greeneville detected the Ehime Maru, which sank shortly after the collision, the Navy has told the US National Transportation Safety Board.

The board will conduct its own analysis of the Navy’s data to confirm that the vessel was indeed detected, and determine why the submarine’s crew later believed the area was clear when the submarine conducted an emergency rapid-ascent manoeuvre, board member John Hammerschmidt said yesterday.