GTA 5 submarine pieces: where to find all 30 and how Abigail’s quest ends

First you need Sonar Collections Dock in Paleto Cove. It goes on sale for $250,000 after The Merryweather Heist, and any of the three protagonists can buy it. After the story mission Blitz Play, a blue «?» appears at the dock: Michael meets Abigail Mathers there, and the mission Death at Sea begins.

Abigail explains that her husband Frank Mathers drowned while testing a submarine. Michael mentions rumours that someone tampered with the airlock, but Abigail denies it. She asks him to find all 30 pieces of wreckage so she can prove her husband is dead and collect the insurance.

The pieces only appear after Death at Sea starts. From then on Michael, Franklin and Trevor can all collect them. The rest of this strand is on the Strangers and Freaks page.

The numbers on the maps match the tables below. The dots are placed by in-game coordinates, so the distances between them are true to the game. The first map covers Los Santos and the south, the second Blaine County and the north. Where the table puts several numbers in one row (for example, 1-3), the individual numbers on the map come from the GTA Fandom interactive map.

Numbering follows GTA Fandom. IGN and GTABoss use their own numbers, so go by wrecks and areas. Most pieces lie in groups next to one wreck, so such groups share one row.

That is 18 pieces, and the biggest group is in the water around the port between the airport, Elysian Island and Terminal. Check the areas on the GTA 5 map.

• Abigail’s boat. After you talk to her, a Dinghy with scuba gear appears at the dock. When you leave the boat at sea, the scuba gear goes on automatically.
• Sonar on the radar. When you are close to a piece, a sonar ping shows on the radar. Stop above it and dive.
• Clear each wreck in one dive. The plane wrecks off Paleto Bay and Fort Zancudo hold 3-5 pieces each, the freighter by NOOSE holds 4.
• Sharks. IGN and GTABoss warn about sharks, especially at the wreck north of Mount Gordo.
• There is a sub too. Once you own the dock, a Submersible spawns there, but for the pieces the Dinghy and diving are more convenient.

Some wrecks also hide briefcases with cash: see the GTA 5 collectibles section.

Most pieces lie next to seven wrecks, so you dive far fewer than 30 times. Abigail’s Dinghy is all you need: GTABoss says the sub is not required for the pieces, and GTA Fandom notes that the Dinghy is much faster than it. A convenient loop from the dock looks like this (distances are straight lines between group centres on our map):

The port is the only place where pieces lie one by one: 11 of them are spread over about 2 km, from the water by the airport to the canal in Cypress Flats. Here the sonar on the radar is more useful than the map: follow the piers and stop at every ping.

Both sets are unlocked by the Sonar Collections Dock, and in five places they almost overlap. Distances come from the in-game coordinates on our map and on the nuclear waste map.

Barrels appear as soon as you buy the dock, while pieces only appear after Death at Sea. So if Blitz Play is still ahead, you can collect the barrels earlier with the sub. If both sets are open, one dive from the Dinghy is enough at these spots: according to GTA Fandom, a barrel can also be collected by swimming.

Spoiler warning.

As soon as all 30 pieces are found, Abigail calls Michael back to the dock. The mission What Lies Beneath starts. Abigail thanks him but gets nervous when Michael asks about possible sabotage. She pays $10, hands over a signed photo of Frank Mathers and leaves.

After the cutscene you decide: kill Abigail or let her go. It has no effect on the rest of the game. According to GTA Fandom, if you follow her, she drives to the airport, complains that she is being harassed, and you get a three-star wanted level.

Individual pieces pay nothing, only the $10 at the end. There is no achievement for this collection. Death at Sea and What Lies Beneath do not count toward GTA 5 100% completion, like the rest of Michael’s Strangers and Freaks.

If you are hunting trophies, the same dock also unlocks the nuclear waste barrels: they pay $940,000 and the Waste Management achievement. All rewards are on the GTA 5 achievements page.