In unlikely place, the human face of 9/11
Here’s a feel-good story about 8/11/01 that I’d never heard before. Rob Gillies, AP:
To hear something nice about 9/11, talk to “the plane people,” the passengers who wound up on the island of Newfoundland that day because U.S. airspace was shut.
…
Of the hundreds of flights blocked that day, more than 200 were diverted to Canada, with no warning, recalls David Collenette, transport minister.
“They shut down U.S. airspace, period, and we had to pick up the pieces. I don’t fault them for that. It was an absolute tragedy,” Collenette told The Associated Press. “There was no request. We were informed that the United States had closed its airspace to all incoming traffic, all planes were grounded in the United States, and that any planes flying into the U.S. airspace would be shot down. Frankly it was as brutal as that.”
…
The Canadians shunted the traffic away from Toronto and Montreal to the eastern seaboard, and obscure, little used Gander got to relive its glory days as a stopover point for trans-Atlantic aviation before long-distance flights became possible. Built in 1938 in anticipation of the coming world war, it had the world’s longest runway, and on 9/11 it was the second busiest, taking in 38 flights to Halifax, Nova Scotia’s 47.
Flight crews quickly filled Gander’s hotels, so passengers were taken to schools, fire stations, church halls. The Canadian military flew in 5,000 cots. Stores donated blankets, coffee machines, barbecue grills. Unable to retrieve their luggage, passengers became dependent on the kindness of strangers, and it came in the shape of clothes, showers, toys, banks of phones to call home free of charge, an arena that became a giant walk-in fridge full of donated food.
Once all the planes had landed or turned back to Europe, Gander’s air traffic controllers switched to cooking meals in the building nonstop for three days.
It’s impossible not to d’awwwww while reading this. I really just wanted to quote the whole damn thing here. I mean, check this out:
One of the Americans coming back is Shirley Brooks-Jones. She was so overwhelmed by the experience of 2001 that as her plane left Gander, she told her fellow passengers over the cabin address system that she wanted to set up a scholarship fund for students in Lewisporte, where they stayed.
The Lewisporte area Flight 15 scholarship fund is now worth close to $1.5 million and has put 134 students through school. Brooks-Jones has been back 20 times, to present the scholarships every June and to attend each anniversary.
Seriously.