According to PBS many attendees were said to have "viewed Tailhook as a means of celebrating US [sic!] victory over Iraqi forces".
The careers of fourteen admirals and almost 300 naval aviators were scuttled or damaged by Tailhook. For example Secretary of the Navy H. Lawrence Garrett III and CNO Admiral Frank Kelso were both at Tailhook '91. Garrett ultimately resigned and Kelso retired early two years after the convention.
A Navy-wide policy was implemented in which any officer who came up for promotion had to sign a paper asking if he or anyone in his command had been at Tailhook '91. If the answer was 'yes' the candidate's promotion was set aside for special evaluation.
Then within 5 years was the VF-213 F-14 accident in Nashville and the Navy's sudden interest in safety culture - bringing in trick cyclists to weed out poor leaders