3 decades after TWA Flight 800 disaster, families gather on Long Island to commemorate victims

A grandmother’s recipes. A son’s love of cars. A sister’s final trip to Disneyland.

These were the memories more than 100 family members from across the globe shared Friday at Smith Point County Park during a calm, sunny summer evening, not unlike the one 30 years ago when TWA Flight 800, carrying their loved ones, burst into a fireball high above the ocean waters of the South Shore.

Murielle Gasq Coste’s father, Francis Gaston Gasq, was bringing her grandmother, Claire Chambardon Gasq, back home to France for cataract surgery when the Boeing 747 jet went down minutes after taking off from Kennedy Airport.

After rubbing her hand across her loved ones’ names on the massive black granite wall that bears the names of all 230 victims of the crash, Coste, with her self-professed sweet tooth, recalled her grandmother’s “frugality” and home cooking, like soaking biscuits in leftover coffee as a base for a creamy, “delicious” cake. She also recalled her father’s patriotic spirit and work ethic, climbing the ladder at TWA from mechanic to flight attendant and flight service manager.

”We try to come out here every 10 years,” Coste, 60, of Tucson, Arizona, said. “I’m very happy that the memorial has withstood the climate. It’s beautiful, and I hope a quiet reflection for people to feel peace.

"It’s mind-boggling to think it’s been 30 years and it still feels raw,” Coste said. “There’s a big hole. Because I had two kids, I had to go on living, but every once in a while it circles back and hits me that I lost my dad and my grandmother. It still hurts.”

For some family members, the decades passed quelled the pain and freed up space to remember the good times.

“I think about the people they were and how much fun we had together as a family,” Joan Holts Reinertsen, of St. James, told Newsday as she sat near the memorial overlooking the beach. Her son, Eric Holts, and his wife, Virginia Holts, who lived in Manorville, were among the victims.

“I don't think so much about the crash and the turbulence afterwards,” Holts said. “It’s just wonderful to get together and think of them, and we did that tonight.”

Joining the family members Friday evening at the TWA Flight 800 International Memorial were local community members, former TWA employees, first responders involved in the recovery efforts and elected officials, among them Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, Legis. Jim Mazzarella and Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico.

David Fischler, the former Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services commissioner, recalled the gathering of first responders and elected officials at the Coast Guard station in East Moriches, the incident command center.

“Our emergency services people came together for not a day, not two days, but for months, close to a year, to support the rescue and recovery operations and to support the families,” Fischler said. “We’re very proud of what we accomplished at that time period. In remembrance of all those who were lost that night, I would like to conclude with, to all the families, to all the TWA colleagues, to the emergency services, first responders, to the local community, just remember the loss of their loved ones. May their memory be a blessing.”

Flight 800 exploded mid-flight 12 minutes after takeoff en route to Paris and Rome. The National Transportation Safety Board said the likely cause of the explosion was an electrical short that ignited vapors in an empty fuel tank.

Family members of those who died took turns reading the names of all 230 victims as the sun began to set. A few minutes later, they walked across the boardwalk and down to the shoreline, the closest point on land they can get to where the wreckage of the Boeing 747 landed.

Leading them were lifeguards carrying a lit-up wreath of cream and lavender flowers, with the phrase “Forever in our Hearts” in gold on a white ribbon. Instead of having families cast flowers into the waves, as they did during past commemorations, a pair of lifeguards boarded a rowboat and placed the wreath atop the Atlantic waves.

“I’m glad that over the years they started some new traditions,” Reinertsen said. “The time we spend thinking about them is important, but times have changed too. Life changes.”