In bad weather, it is impassable.One of the few strokes of luck on the night that TWA 800 went down was that the weather was almost perfect: a four- to five-inch swell, winds 10 to 12mph out of the south-west, a steady barometer. Few fishing boats pass through the Moriches Inlet these days In recent decades it has become choked with sand On aerial photographs this shows up as a milky swirl. To reach the open sea you have to pass through one of two channels. The closest is the Moriches Inlet, a gash in the barrier beach 23 miles to the east.

Great South Bay, where the Marine Bureau is situated, is separated from the Atlantic by the Fire Island barrier beach: a narrow strip of sand that stretches down the coast for almost 40 miles. On board, they had a fold-up stretcher, basic medical equipment, a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit and the few body bags they routinely carry. They would need many, many more.Over Millennia, the sea has sculpted the coastline of this part of Long Island into a jigsaw of bays, salt ponds and brackish inlets. After picking up two other Marine Bureau officers, Glen Wanerker and Keith Magliola, Vincent and Jack headed for the open ocean. Its position at the time of the explosion was 40 degrees, 38.5 minutes north, and 72 degrees, 36.5 minutes west Police and emergency medical technicians were arriving Phones were ringing off the hook.

It was already in a state of high alert as information, and personnel, began to pour in. The explosion had apparently taken place seconds after a controller at JFK had cleared the plane to climb from 13,000ft to 15,000ft. It was ordered to put in to the coastguard station at East Moriches, the largest of the five coastguard stations along the south shore of Long Island. And we would need all the help we could possibly, possibly muster."Romeo didn't head straight for the crash site. "How many people are on board? What shape are they going to be in? I realise a 747 is going to be further out to sea than a small plane would Now, the operation becomes much bigger and more difficult I knew we had a really tough night ahead of us. Over the silver letters SCPD (Suffolk County Police Department) was the blue-black outline of a scuba diver with yellow flippers. And the events of last July were as fresh in Vincent's mind as if they had happened yesterday."Everything starts running through your mind," he said, picking up the narrative.

Vincent still sported the black baseball cap that the Marine Bureau had had made during the TWA recovery operation to help distinguish their unit from the many others who came in to help. She told him that a 747 had exploded."That Just hit me like a sledgehammer," Vincent remembered. "I never thought it would be anything on that scale."We were sitting in the steering cabin of the Boston Whaler on a bright May day 10 months after that terrible night. In the summer, the skies above Long Island are full of light aircraft Then his mobile phone rang It was the desk officer at the Marine Bureau. As they raced across Great South Bay, Vincent pondered what he had seen He was pretty sure that it had been a plane crash But he assumed it was a small plane, like a Cessna.