A Rare Happy 9/11 Story of Survival, Love and Newfound Hope

When Nick Marson set off from London on Continental Airlines Flight 5 bound for Houston, Texas, on September 11, 2001, he believed he was heading into another routine business trip. Within hours, however, the journey would take an extraordinary turn and reshape his life in ways he could never have imagined.

His aircraft became one of 38 planes unexpectedly rerouted to Gander, Newfoundland, after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC, forced US airspace to close. Almost overnight, about 6,700 stranded travelers arrived in the small Canadian community, nearly doubling the local population.

For much of the flight, passengers were given only vague updates about “problems” affecting American airspace. It was not until shortly before landing that the pilot revealed the devastating truth: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked. After touching down safely, Nick felt overwhelming relief. He was later taken to Gambo, roughly 30 minutes north of Gander, where he and other passengers were housed in the town’s largest building, The Society of United Fisherman.

Standing in line for an old army blanket to use on his cot that night, romance was the furthest thing from Nick’s thoughts. Then he found himself beside Diane, a woman from Texas whose easy smile and sharp sense of humor immediately stood out. The two began joking about the blankets’ unmistakable mothball smell, and a connection sparked in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Their conversation flowed so naturally that they chose cots beside one another. The following day, needing a break from the constant stream of news coverage about the attacks, Nick and Diane decided to go for a walk together.

As they chatted, they realized that they had been on the same flight, with Diane traveling back home to Houston after visiting her son, an Air Force service member who was stationed in England.

Though they hailed from different countries and cultures, what really struck them was how much they had in common. Both were divorcees with grown children from previous relationships and both prioritized family.

Little did they know, as they walked and chatted that day, that within the year they would be married. More than that, their love story, born on such a dark day, would inspire the award-winning Broadway musical, Come From Away.

‘We spent a lot of time talking about our lives, because we came from two different backgrounds, so we had a lot of things to discuss,’ Nick, now 77, told the Daily Mail.

‘We both had similar values,’ Diane, 85, added. ‘Our families mean so much to us and we both try to be helpful and respectful to other people, whether they agree with you or not.’

Diane was intrigued by her British companion. When it was lunchtime and they stopped at a convenience store, she paid for their snacks in a bid to spend more time with him.

Later that evening they went to a screech-in event, a Newfoundland tradition where visitors take shots of alcohol and kiss fish to become honorary Newfoundlanders. Their easy chemistry was so clear to others that Nick and Diane were mistaken for a married couple.

When they laughingly explained that they weren’t, the master of ceremonies, who was also a justice of the peace, offered to marry them – to which Diane responded, ‘Why not?’

‘Neither one of us got on that plane looking for a romantic character our age,’ Diane said, explaining that in that moment, she was just looking to be ‘silly’ and ‘lighten the mood.’ But she couldn’t deny that she was starting to feel very fond of Nick.

She got a clear indicator of how Nick felt about her the next day when they took a trip to the Dover Fault, the geological rift in the Earth’s crust that marks where North America and Europe were once welded together. Nick wanted to take a picture to remember their day and when Diane tried to get out of the shot to allow him an unimpeded image of the scenery, he stopped her.

Nick said: ‘I wanted a picture of this day and what turned out to be five wonderful days [together]. I needed to ensure that it really happened and it wasn’t something I dreamt up or embellished in my mind.

‘I wanted to make sure that I remembered what she looked like… I didn’t want to forget. And at that point, I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.’

For Diane, that was all the confirmation she needed.

‘That’s when I knew he was interested in me and not the scenery,’ she said.

Five days after Nick and Diane arrived on the island, air travel was cleared for the diverted planes. They boarded a school bus together to travel to the plane that would take them to Texas.

On the bus, Diane began to cry, overcome with the emotions of the past week and the thought of never again seeing the people in Newfoundland to whom she had become so close. Though it had just been five days, the stranded passengers had spent hours getting to know the residents of Gambo, who had treated them like family.

To soothe her, Nick put his arm around her and kissed her forehead gently.

In response, Diane recalled: ‘I just grabbed him and kissed him because I thought if I don’t, I’ll never have another chance.

‘He lived 5,000 miles away – the chances of us ever meeting were about zero.’

‘That changed the airplane ride home,’ Nick said, noting that the couple ‘canoodled’ the entire flight, so much so that a flight attendant jokingly offered them cold towels, instead of hot ones.

Once Nick returned to London, they began corresponding over email – communications which they supplemented with long telephone calls on the weekends.

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Within a month, Nick, who worked in the oil industry, had found a way to finagle another business trip to Houston.

It was a month after that trip, that Nick proposed. He did so over the phone in his car, unable to wait until his next trip to Houston. Diane happily accepted.

‘It was less than two months after we’d met, but we knew we wanted to be together,’ Diane said.

‘It just felt right,’ Nick added.

For the next year, the couple dealt with the red tape and logistics of Nick immigrating to the U.S, and strengthened their bond by meeting each other’s families. They made the decision for Nick to move to America because Diane had just purchased a house in Spring, Texas.

And while there can be no doubt that their romance was a whirlwind, given the circumstances under which they met, Nick and Diane knew that time was too precious to worry about whether or not they were moving too fast. They married on September 7, 2002.

For their honeymoon, the Marsons knew that they wanted to return to where their romance had sprung: Newfoundland.

‘Where would we spend our honeymoon other than where we met?’ Diane said.

They had intended to throw a thank-you dinner for the islanders who had welcomed them so warmly almost exactly a year earlier. Instead, their friends on the island surprised them with a wedding reception complete with wedding cake and a song about their love story performed and written by the mayor of Gambo.

‘We made so many memories with all of the people up there,’ Diane said. ‘We spent the week of our honeymoon with the people that had looked after us.’

Today, Newfoundland has become a home from home for the Marsons, who have returned to the Canadian island nine times and keep in close touch with their Newfoundland friends.

But while their love story, a bright spot in the midst of a devastating tragedy, may have been the talk of Gambo, it was largely unknown outside of Newfoundland. That changed in 2010, when they were featured in Tom Brokaw’s documentary about Gander’s role in aiding America’s Operation Yellow Ribbon – the nation’s response to the terror attacks.

‘Until that point, we hadn’t been comfortable with sharing the story with people other than close friends and family,’ Nick said. ‘I think it’s survivor’s guilt. We don’t feel comfortable with what we had when 3,000 families had been devastated.’

Three years later, Nick and Diane’s story was immortalized when their love story became one of those featured in the Tony and Olivier award-winning musical, Come From Away, which is set in Gander the week of 9/11.

The Marsons had been approached by the musical’s creators Irene Sankoff and David Hein in 2011, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and had given them their blessing to use their story but were largely uninvolved with the development of their on-stage counterparts.

When they did see the musical for the first time in 2013, they were thrilled with how Sankoff and Hein had brought to life that time in Newfoundland and paid homage to the kind people who had hosted them.

Since the musical debuted, the Marsons have seen the production in various forms, including on Broadway and in regional productions, at least 160 times. They have even toured with some theatre group productions.

‘Diane says every time we see it, it’s like we’re renewing our vows,’ Nick said. ‘It takes us back to those wonderful five days… sometimes, you think, “Was it real?”‘

Now, 25 years later, it’s clear that the Marsons’ love for one another is just as real as it was when they first met in the shelter on Newfoundland. Nick says that though they always hold space for the tragedy of 9/11, they have finally moved on from the guilt that plagued them in the early years of their romance.

‘Enough time has gone by for the survivor’s guilt to dilute,’ he said. ‘You realize that there are good and bad things that happen in life and you have to navigate all of it. We didn’t cause it, so we probably shouldn’t feel guilty that we found each other.’

For Diane, the tragedy surrounding their love story only highlights how important it is to cherish the time that they have together.

‘We just enjoy spending time together because we know how precious it is,’ she said.