Captain Chet Ekstrand, Boeing's ETOPS guru is, not surprisingly, a big fan of twin-operations over water. So much so, in fact, he points to a picture of Alcock and Brown's crumpled Vickers Vimy nose down in an Irish peat bog and says: "I told you so. It is notable that a twin-engined aircraft was the first to cross the Atlantic when a four-engined aircraft could not. Lindbergh chose a single-engined aircraft because he felt his odds were better. Less to go wrong you see!" Luckily no-one is asking for ESOPS clearance just yet.
Source: Flight International