Rescue Mission
When I was in the coastguard, there was an incident when a vessel called in what they thought was another vessel in distress, but they couldn’t be sure. The watch commander kept refusing to launch the rescue boat until he had more details. We were in the Far North.
The life expectancy of a person in the water without a survival suit was measured in single-digit minutes. We could always get more details when the boat was en route. The exact position of a bunch of floating corpses was of limited value. After three or four minutes, I just said “forget it” and launched the boat.
It turned out the suspected casualty’s radio was banjaxed, but they were otherwise fine. Their boat had a very low freeboard and looked a bit “sinky”. I fully expected to be canned for it, but I was not.
The old man had a long conversation with the guy about how nobody will ever find fault with sending an asset to a possible false alarm, but failing to send an asset to a real emergency is not good.
Before I had joined, the same dude had shrugged off a red flare report as a hoax. Two people lost their lives in that one.