When a plane and a helicopter collided over the Hudson River Aug. 8, killing all nine people aboard both aircraft, the NYPD harbor unit’s scuba team was on the job again just as they had been in January, when U.S. Airways Captain Chesley Sullenberger flew into aviation history with his now legendary Miracle on the Hudson. Except this time, the intrepid divers were recovering fatal victims instead of rescuing survivors.

Although this was a sad undertaking rather than a triumphant one, the dangers to the divers and the feats they achieved were in many ways the same. Officer Jeffrey Dowling and his partner, Det. Michael Delaney, felt through the wreckage by hand, searching for human remains in close-to-zero visibility in cold water close to 30 feet deep. As Police Commissioner Ray Kelly put it: “It’s such tough, daunting work, in the worst conditions imaginable. Yet, they (the scuba team) were energetic, eager to get back to the grim task at hand. They made you proud.”