'Hard To Believe It's 30 Years': An Uncle Remembers The Night TWA Flight 800 Went Down Off Long Island

SHIRLEY, NY — It was 30 years ago, but John Seaman can remember exactly where he was when he learned TWA Flight 800 went down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island on July 17, 1996.

Seaman was sitting on his couch in upstate Saratoga, watching television, when his son, who was watching television in another room, came in to him.

"He said, 'Dad, switch the channel; There's been a terrible plane crash,'" Seaman said in interview Friday on the crash's anniversary, recounting that it was near bedtime and he was unsure about watching the footage.

He didn't want to learn about a plane crash just before going to sleep.

"So I turned off the TV," he recalled. "A half hour later, my phone rang, and then I found out what happened."

It was his sister and brother-in-law who told him that his niece, Michele Becker, was on the plane.

"It's hard to believe that 30 years have gone by, but it went fast, and you know I was a young man when this happened, and now I'm an old man," he said. "When I return to the memorial, and I meet some of the families from around the world and the country, everything comes back. Everything comes back vividly."

"It's like a time machine warps back, and we're right where we started, standing on the beach, looking out to the ocean, wondering, wondering, wondering if we're going to find our children," he added.

Becker was a 19-year-old student from Georgia who was traveling to Paris, France, for a wedding with her best friend, Becky.

The pair perished along with 228 other people from 14 different countries when the plane went down just after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens.

The plane exploded about 10 minutes after takeoff.

The rescue effort was something that Long Island had never experienced before. It was on a massive scale with the response of scores of police and local firefighters, as well as multiple state and agencies.

There have been different theories over the years as to how the plane exploded, including that a missile targeted the flight. That was ruled out by investigators and National Transportation Safety Board investigators later determined the explosion originated in a fuel tank.

When asked to talk about what Becker was like as a person, Seaman declines.

"It's too painful to recount that," he said. "I'll just say this, to me, she was like a beautiful rosebud that never got a chance to bloom."

"It's a terrible loss," he added.

Tragedy Bound The Families Together

In the aftermath of the crash, there was a lot of confusion, and at first, Seaman’s family was told Becker was not killed, then it was confirmed she was. He and other family members of those lost banded together during their time waiting for answers at a hotel in Queens.

The families would take turns driving to the staging area for the recovery efforts at Smith Point County Park in Shirley.

Along the journey, they were comforted by Father Mychal Judge, a Fire Department of New York chaplain who later died from being hit by falling debris in the recovery effort at Ground Zero.

Standing on the beach, which is the closest patch of land to where the plane went down, Seaman met his best friend, who had lost his only son.

Seaman later formed the Families of Flight 800, Inc., an organization that enables loved ones to stay in touch with each other, but also oversees a memorial at Smith Point.

A section of the beach's pavilion was dedicated to the victims, featuring a black granite sundial-like structure, with the largest piece inscribed with the names of those lost on one side and seagulls flying out of the waves on the other side.

It is surrounded by individual memorial benches, vegetation, and the flags of the countries of those who died.

Many of the families meet there yearly for a memorial service on the anniversary. Others can be seen visiting at other points of the year, laying down flowers by the memorial or throwing white roses into the sea.

Coming together is good for them.

"The families need to come together once in a while," he said. "It's very healing, and the memorial provides the perfect vehicle for that."

For them, the memorial is a peaceful space.

"It allows people to contemplate, and it's good," he said, noting that from where he lives up "way up north," it's "always an experience to return and spend some time there."

"I'm happy to be here," said Seaman, who makes the journey every year. "I hope I live long enough to be here a few more times."

A Sea of Fire

This year's memorial service will also recognize the first responders who served in the various agencies that were on scene, first as part of the rescue, then later as the recovery effort to reunite the crash victims with their family members.

First responders to the scene included local fire and police agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Navy divers, to name a few.

"It's going to be a way for us to express our appreciation and our heartfelt gratitude for all the sacrifices they endured for us," Seaman said. "And we were total strangers, almost everybody was."

Seaman says it made no difference to the men or women who responded.

"They dashed into the ocean when it was still burning, and worked in a very difficult time," he said. "And, they realized there were no survivors."

After the recovery was complete, it would take a long time for confirmation of the identities. For Seaman's friend, it was almost a year before he was able to have confirmation of his son.

"That was a very painful year; very painful for everyone, because all the families banded together, and if one person didn't have their loved one return, everyone suffered," he said. "Everyone suffered for him."

"It was a terrible experience," he added.

After the ceremony Friday night, lifeguards will go out in a boat with a memorial wreath, and it will be laid on the ocean "to recognize that so many people lost their lives," Seaman said.

A Place of Comfort For All

If there is anything that should be known about the TWA Flight 800 memorial at Smith Point, it should be that it is "a place that provides quiet and comfort for people."

"If you live long enough, everyone in life suffers," he said. "And for those who suffer, we invite them to come to the memorial, rest here, and find comfort."

The memorial is not just for the victims of the plane crash.

"It is for everyone, and at the very beginning of the memorial, when you first come in, we have a written dedication carved into stone that says, 'Let all who suffer life's travails rest and find comfort here,'" he explained.

It's for everyone in the community, Seaman says.

The families only realized that when they began building the memorial and spent time with the residents of Mastic-Shirley.

"We began to realize how much the people in this community were impacted, and we began to meet people," he said. "They came to us while we were here working on the construction, and they told us the stories, and that's when we decided that the memorial would not be enough if it just remembered the people that were lost."

The memorial needed to provide something beautiful and comforting to the surrounding community.

"And the feedback I've had over the years says that we were able to accomplish that," he said.