… in the context of trying to locate Malaysian Airlines Flight 370: See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/science/earth/us-navy-strategists-have-a-long-history-of-finding-the-lost.html

Here is a PowerPoint presentation from 2005 from Walter Stromquist giving some of the technical details about under water searches: Stromquist–BayesianSearch2005

LCDR Kyle Caudle of the U.S. Naval Academy wrote the latest definitive public paper on Bayesian updating for search (paywall), although any of the modern Bayesian algorithms, such as Rauch-Tung-Striebel  Bayesian particle smoothers could be adapted. The problem had a rich literature, even in 1981.

USNA has an active Mathematics Department as well: 2006MathematicsDepartment–USNA

Naturally, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (“WHOI”) was involved at Palomares and for AF 447.