We all have the "dark and stormy night" stories, or we will one day. The course of events that puts you there happens fast and without regard to your wants and desires. When the event is over, all you can do is learn from it, don't do it again, and tell others. So, we write Approach articles and hope others don't follow in our footsteps. It can be hard to relive the event and reveal your mistakes to the entire aviation community, but by sharing, we all can learn. My story began on a very dark night. It was the final week of a noneventful C2X. Fragged for the 1200 to 0500 ASW alert 30, it was a tossup whether we would launch or not. I thought of reasons for us not to launch. We were only hours to the next phase, and I hoped the powers-that-be would realize the timing was bad. Also, the sub was very covert, and the P-3 most likely would not get any sniffs. Nonetheless, the 2300 brief time arrived, and I grabbed my crew to brief in CIC; I still doubted we'd launch.
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