They were halfway to America when the pilot made an announcement.
“We’ll be landing in Gander, Newfoundland.”
What? Why? Where’s Gander? Newfoundland?
They were on their way home from family trips or military deployments. Others were heading to fashion shows, make-a-wish trips, or business meetings, some to new lives in America.
6,700 people from 95 countries.
The Plane People.
Imagine that moment over the Atlantic.
You don’t have a smartphone or in-flight WiFi. When you land in Gander, information trickles in.
U.S. airspace closed. Planes hijacked.
New York City. The Pentagon. Pennsylvania.
What next? Where next?
You look around. Who next?
Officials didn’t know if more danger was lurking on the 38 flights diverted to Gander. Planes and passengers had to be checked thoroughly.
Some of the passengers waited more than 24 hours before disembarking and entering this airport.
What world awaited them inside?
“Have a sandwich, my love."
The people of Gander, a town of less than 10,000, and nearby communities stayed up through the night preparing meals for their unexpected guests.
There was so much food they had to use this hockey rink as a walk-in refrigerator.
They placed beds in schools and churches. Bus drivers walked off picket lines to ferry people around town.
They hosted strangers in their homes, offered showers, the use of phones and computers. They offered their clothes.
On those first days after 9/11, they offered kindness.
Ganderites offered their own vehicles for the Plane People to use during their stay.
Hundreds went to see a statue that faces Kentucky.
From the Knights of Columbus, Brigadier-General Barbara Fast tried to stay in touch with her team at U.S. European Command.
When Lieutenant-Colonel Peter McKeage brought her to CFB Gander, she said the town was treating her like family.
"We're all Americans tonight," he said.
The people in Gander still say it was no big deal and remind you of those who ran toward danger that day.
They talk about Hannah and Dennis O’Rourke’s firefighter son as if he was their own.
Hours after he ran into the North Tower, they were waiting by a phone in Newfoundland.
There was a sign at Brooklyn’s Rescue Company 2.
“Kevin’s Bike Shop"
Neighborhood kids knew to bring their broken bicycles to the station where he’d fix them up for free. He always wanted to lend a hand, to show people they mattered.
Kevin O'Rourke was 44.
They watched the news and cried together.
Facing the uncertainty that follows such horror, they held each other. They countered fear with compassion.
“It’s going to be okay. We’ve got you.”
By now, many of you have read the books and articles, seen the musical. So you know it's not about Gander or the many other places that welcomed strangers that day.
It’s about our best parts confronting our worst.
Come in. Sit. Eat.
You are here. We're with you.
People shared everything they had with strangers.
Read about the Plane People and their hosts. Read Jim DeFede’s book.
With his Jewish mother weeping after hearing her brothers and sisters were murdered by the Nazis, Alex Polowin wondered what he could do. He wanted to try to help her remaining relatives.
“I felt I owed it to them try to save their lives.”
Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, his parents brought him to Canada when he was three years old.
14 years later, in the middle of the Second World War, he lied about his age to enlist in the Navy.
As he and his shipmates protected the supply routes from U-Boats, he stared down antisemitism.
Fighting the Nazis on the Atlantic crossing, the Murmansk Run, off Normandy on D-Day. Fighting the intolerance of his own shipmates.
When his father took him to the train to head off to the war, he looked him in the eye and said words Vince Speranza never forgot. As he was about to jump for the first time, those words came rushing back.
"Son, don't do anything to shame the family."
When they were surrounded by the Nazis in Bastogne, his wounded friend asked him for a drink. He scoured the bombed out local taverns until he found the fruitful tap.
Vince filled his helmet with beer and brought it back to Joe Willis.
Frank Slade was helping his Aunt Ethel run her gas station in Goldsboro, North Carolina, when there was a knock on the door.
Two men told him he had a choice between joining the U.S. Army for the Korean War or returning to Canada.
What did he do?
He returned to Canada. But at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, he bumped into a buddy from Newfoundland.
Don Penney was in a Canadian Army uniform and about to head to Korea. He told Frank to join him.
The next day, Frank Slade signed up.
Frank and Don were from fishing villages in Newfoundland, their childhood far removed from the conflicts they read about in the newspapers and heard on the radio.
Frank's first job was carrying messages to people in town who didn't yet have telephones. His pay?