Page 48: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2011)

48 MTR January/February 2011

A number of US Navy dive teams are putting underwater metal detec- tors to work in their search and recov- ery operations. These teams include

Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1,

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile

Units 4 & 11, Underwater

Construction Team 2, and the SEAL

Delivery Vehicle team (SDV-1) in

Pearl City, Hawaii. They use detec- tors for a variety of tasks such as locating explosive devices and weapons, finding anchors and chains, tracking pipelines and cables, and searching for tools that are dropped from ships and piers.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is also using underwater detec- tors in their search operations. The

Bureau’s divers are often called to assist state and local law enforcement agencies in their search for a weapon thrown in a waterway. Criminals mistakenly believe if they dispose of a gun or knife in the water, it will be lost forever. FBI dive teams prove them wrong time and again by recov- ering the weapons, even when they’re buried deep in mud. In one case the team managed to find all the pieces of a hand gun that was completely disas- sembled before being tossed into a river.

ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and

Firearms) is another bureau using these high tech tools. Their Explosive

Training Branch (ETB) recently added a detector to their arsenal.

ETB conducts programs for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to teach identification and location of explosives, and how to properly handle and dispose of them.

With the threat of a terrorist attack on any front, officers need to know how to search for, and locate, explo- sive devices that are attached to ships,

Case Study

Feds, Military Use Underwater Metal Detectors

Military divers increasingly use

Underwater Metal Detectors.