Less than half an hour after Marchioness was hit, a major incident was declared with an incident room at New Scotland Yard. The police's body recovery team were also deployed, and the first body arrived at Wapping Police Station—where the Thames Division were based—at 6:50 am. The station acted as a holding area for bodies before they were taken to the mortuary in Westminster. 7:00 am – 0:00 am Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, returned home early from her holiday in Austria to be briefed by Michael Portillo, the Minister of State for Transport. His senior in the department, the Secretary of State for Transport Cecil Parkinson, also returned home early in response. Portillo announced that an investigation would be made by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), but that no decision had yet been made as to whether to hold a public inquiry. Within 24 hours of the collision, the decision was made that there would be no public inquiry, and that the MAIB investigation would be sufficient. A Port of London (PLA) hydrographic surveyor located the wreckage of Marchioness and, during the late afternoon of 20 August, work began on lifting the vessel. The bodies of 24 party-goers were found on board, 12 of them in the lower saloon. The wreckage was moored against the north bank of the Thames. While the lifting operation was progressing, police arrested and interviewed Henderson and Kenneth Noble, Bowbelles second mate who was at the wheel for the collision. Both men were breathalysed; the police announced soon afterwards that alcohol was not a cause of the collision. Inquests and inquiries 1989 to 1997 On the day following the collision Paul Knapman, the coroner for the City of Westminster, opened and adjourned the inquest into the deaths. In the days after the collision, bodies were still being found and recovered from the water. To help with the identification process, Knapman opted to use several methods, including dental records, identification of personal items and clothing descriptions from descriptions provided by the families, and fingerprints. As part of their approach, Knapman decided that: With those bodies which were not recovered from the Marchioness and which would be likely to surface only when putrification and bloating meant that they would float, the following would apply: During the post-mortem examinations, 25 pairs of hands were removed; no written records were kept of the removal. No guidelines were