On September 11, 2001, Virgin Atlantic Flight 75 left Manchester bound for Orlando, Florida, carrying an extraordinary group of travelers. Among those on board were 90 terminally ill children, each making the journey of a lifetime to Disney World with the support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
But when the aircraft finally landed, the scene outside the windows was not the cheerful welcome the children might have imagined. Instead of Mickey and Minnie waiting in the Florida sunshine, they saw stern-faced police officers surrounding the jet, determined to establish exactly who was aboard.
That day, 25 years ago, the Virgin plane became the first of 38 fully loaded passenger aircraft diverted to the isolated town of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada — the same remote airport I arrived at this week.
Today, Gander International Airport is a quiet place, handling barely five flights a day, most of them small aircraft. Passengers arriving there, whatever conditions they left behind, typically step straight onto the tarmac and make their way through rain or snow toward a terminal that still carries the stamp of the 1950s. Yet on September 11, the planes kept coming. What followed was an extraordinary five-day episode that changed many lives and became one of the few stories of compassion to emerge from the horror of the Al Qaeda attacks — later inspiring books, documentaries and the hit stage musical Come From Away, performed around the world.
The jets were diverted after President George W. Bush, responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the fear of further hijackings, made the unprecedented decision to shut down United States airspace.
‘Get those goddamn planes down,’ US Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta reportedly shouted to underlings from a bunker under the White House shortly after the fourth hijacked plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
Every civilian plane already flying over the US was told to land immediately while all international flights heading towards America were told to turn back or land in a different country. Any that entered US airspace were warned they would be shot down.
On the eastern tip of North America, the island of Newfoundland thrusts far into the Atlantic. So Gander, intentionally built close to the so-called ‘Great Circle’ route that most flights follow when flying between Europe and America, was the obvious destination for many planes when the shutdown was announced.
Passenger jets were forced down following the 9/11 attacks amid the fear of more hijackings, with many landing at the remote airport of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada
Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after they were hit by two hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, in New York City
Operation Yellow Ribbon, which handled the diversion of civilian airline flights, has been hailed as a modern parable of compassion, community spirit and the kindness of strangers
The story of how a town of 9,600 people rose magnificently and magnanimously to the challenge of suddenly having to care for nearly 7,000 frazzled, confused and often terrified airline passengers from 92 countries – is one of the most uplifting stories to emerge from 9/11.
Operation Yellow Ribbon, as it was known, has been hailed as a modern parable of compassion, community spirit and the kindness of strangers.
The musical it inspired, Come From Away (which takes its name from the description Newfoundlanders give to visitors from everywhere else) has been a huge hit – winning four Olivier awards in the West End and a Tony on Broadway. It has played across Europe, South Korea and the Philippines.
More than 50,000 people have travelled to Gander to see the production now running in a theatre in the airport building.
And as I discovered this week in a place where everyone brandishes their own 9/11 scrapbook, few in this close-knit community have forgotten their five days of glory while the world waited for the US to reopen its airspace and they shared their town.
Gander was famous once before when its location earned it the nickname of ‘Crossroads of the World’. The airport – around which the town gradually grew – was built in the late 1930s largely at the instigation of Britain as an essential transatlantic refuelling stop for propeller planes.
After the war, it was used heavily by airlines and – after its stylishly modernistic international lounge (including the celebrated Big Dipper bar) was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1959 – it became the perfect star-spotting location. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles were among those who touched down on its beautiful orange and yellow leather banquettes. (Sinatra was famously told off for queue-jumping at the Big Dipper bar by a local – Newfoundlanders pride themselves on being unimpressed by celebrity).
But the advent of jumbo jets which could carry far more fuel meant air traffic from Gander dwindled, although its possession of two huge but underused runways – at one time the biggest in the world – ensured that it could be very useful in an emergency.
They’d never planned for an event like 9/11, Claude Elliott, Gander’s mayor at the time, told me. Many locals imagined the planes would only be there for a few hours but he suspected it would be considerably longer.
The local Red Cross organised accommodation while the Salvation Army distributed food. With the local radio and TV stations broadcasting a call to ‘lend a hand, do what you can’, schools and non-essential businesses were closed in Gander and the surrounding smaller townships so everyone could volunteer.
Newfies, as Newfoundlanders are known, are famous for their generosity and communal spirit – qualities that they attribute to the fact that their hardy fisherman ancestors, who mostly came from Ireland, Devon and Cornwall, had to rely heavily on each other as they struggled to survive in a harsh environment with ferocious winters. (Newfoundland – nicknamed The Rock – only reluctantly voted to leave the British Empire and become part of Canada in 1949).
In Gander, the planes were parked nose to tail on one of the runways but passengers couldn’t alight until police and the town’s sole immigration officer had assured themselves they weren’t letting a terrorist slip through.
Some passengers had to wait up to 12 hours cooped up on the runway before they were allowed off and – after running a gauntlet of metal detectors and pat-downs – allowed into the airport terminal.
Gander’s location earned it the nickname of ‘Crossroads of the World’, being built in the late 1930s largely at the instigation of Britain as a refuelling stop for propeller planes
Gander’s current mayor, Percy Farwell, said tensions between US and Middle Eastern passengers dissipated ‘once everyone realised they were all in it together’
Visitors had to sleep on the hall floor inside the Society of United Fisherman after their flights were redirected to Gander
They had virtually nothing with them as their main luggage was kept locked in the cargo hold. Some even thought they were being abducted.
A convoy of school buses, whose drivers had called off a strike as soon as they heard of the influx, were waiting outside to take them to various destinations – schools, churches, social organisations and even a Salvation Army summer camp outside town. (Gander’s 550 hotel rooms were reserved for aircraft crews.)
US officials initially requested the passengers from each plane remain together and didn’t want them staying in people’s houses because they were still concerned some might be terrorists. The airlines also wanted to keep them together in case they were given the all-clear to fly.
It made for some strange roommates as the denizens of First Class and Economy found themselves having to bed down next to each other on mattresses or camp beds on the floor of a school gym or recreation hall.
Prominent passengers included Werner Baldessarini, the chairman of fashion giant Hugo Boss, who’d been heading to New York Fashion Week; a US Army general in charge of intelligence; former supermodel Marisa Berenson, and the wife and children of Cheers star Woody Harrelson.
None of them asked for special treatment and when Mr Baldessarini was offered a Saudi Arabian prince’s private jet to come and pick him up, he politely declined insisting he had to see out the drama with his fellow passengers – although he did accept a consignment of clean underwear brought to him by a member of staff at his nearest store in St John’s, a three-hour drive away.
The ‘Plane People’ as the locals called them, were treated less like refugees and more like long-lost relatives. Many would later say they were profoundly moved by the friendship shown to them – the perfect antidote to the 9/11 horrors that, after hours in agonising ignorance about what had happened, they could finally see in TV reports.
There were initially significant tensions between some US and Middle Eastern passengers, Gander’s current mayor, Percy Farwell, told me, but they dissipated ‘once everyone realised they were all in it together – it’s a great equaliser’. Some passengers, too desperate to wait, ‘mutinied’ and hired a bus to take them to the US border 650 miles away.
With requests broadcast on local TV, every Gander business donated supplies for free. Pharmacies filled prescriptions for those whose vital medication remained with their luggage on the planes, a local telephone company set up a bank of 100 phones the passengers could use day or night to make international calls to worried loved ones.
A local toyshop cleared out its warehouse and, lights blazing, a Gander fire engine roared around town handing it all out to the visiting children.
The generosity continued on a personal level. Gander people gave them their bedding, their clothing, their food and their time. Gander is not the most prepossessing place – more a sprawling suburb of housing estates, business parks and retail strips than a conventional town. At the time it reportedly had just four sets of traffic lights.
The Newfies took people off on fishing expeditions and hikes, entertained them at night with karaoke, live music and drinks in the pub, and treated them to local delicacies such as ‘bottled moose’.
Many invited Plane People to come and take a shower or even – if they looked particularly worn out – stay in their house.
Bonnie Harris, who runs the local animal shelter, scrabbled around in plane cargo holds to rescue 19 ‘forgotten’ pets which were then looked after in an aircraft hanger.
Local police officer Oz Fudge helped organise a Disney-themed party after hearing that terminally-ill British children who’d been on one of the flight had birthdays
Beulah Cooper said her first reaction on learning that so many planes were landing in Gander was ‘thank God they’re coming here because I know they will be looked after’
A steel beam from the World Trade Center was gifted to Gander to thank residents for supporting thousands of stranded airline passengers
When local police officer Oz Fudge, famous for hugging any Plane Person he thought needed it, heard that several of the terminally-ill British children who’d been on that Virgin flight had birthdays, he helped organise a Disney-themed party for all 350 passengers on their plane.
A shop baked a 14ft-long cake, there were clowns and a sea of balloons while Constable Fudge’s daughter and her friends dressed up as Disney princesses.
The children eventually had to fly back to the UK and never made it to Disney World but one of the birthday girls’ fathers revealed to Constable Fudge she’d admitted she enjoyed herself so much in Gander it didn’t matter. ‘That tore the heart right out of me,’ he said.
Even romance blossomed among the Plane People. Nick Marson, an oil industry engineer from the UK and Diane Gray, a buyer for a Texas department store, flirted for days as they slept feet apart in a school gym and then kissed on the bus back to their plane. They married a year later and honeymooned in the place where they first met.
The generosity of the Newfies could be overwhelming. When a local school requested loo rolls, they rapidly received enough rolls to last a year. So much fresh food was donated that the town’s ice rink was turned into a giant fridge.
Down at the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, where 67 Aer Lingus passengers shared the hall floor, Legion stalwart Beulah Cooper (who inspired one of the main characters in the musical) epitomises the Gander spirit.
‘I don’t shake hands, I’m a hugger,’ she informed me. Her first reaction on learning that so many planes were landing in Gander, she said, was to think: ‘Thank God they’re coming here because I know they will be looked after’.
And they certainly were. ‘The day they left here we all lined up at the bar and sang For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow and So Long it’s Been Good to Know You”, and there weren’t many dry eyes that went out that door.’
Beulah, now 85, who put up three women in her own home, kept passengers’ spirits up with trays of sandwiches and a limitless supply of saucy jokes.
She particularly bonded with an Irish-American passenger named Hannah O’Rourke who was frantically worried about her son Kevin, a New York firefighter, who had gone missing in the World Trade Centre. Beulah’s own son was a volunteer fireman and she walked Hannah to church to pray.
The O’Rourkes later discovered their son had indeed died but – like so many of the relationships forged in Gander which have continued in the subsequent decades– the two women remained friends for years until Hannah died of cancer in 2025.
Why has what happened at Gander resonated so profoundly with people? Former mayor Claude Elliott believes his town ‘restored faith in people’ after the nightmare of September 11.
‘We like to say that on the 11th you saw the worst of Man, and then on the 12th you saw the best,’ he said. ‘Right now, with our world in such a mess, people are looking for a good news story and this is the one they are grabbing onto.’
As if to prove his point, minutes later he’s embraced in the airport terminal by Charlotte Bayford, from Colchester, Essex, who has seen the Gander musical 60 times and has flown to the town with friends to see it again. She said she found it inspiring to find so much ‘kindness and compassion’ in a true story.
Former mayor Claude Elliott believes Gander ‘restored faith in people’ after the nightmare of the September 11 attacks
A Washington DC firefighter is welcomed by his Gander counterparts, marking the town’s ability to conjure a small heartwarming triumph out of a heartbreaking disaster
The visitors started arriving on a Tuesday and had gone by Sunday – many looking far more emotional than when they’d arrived. ‘I’m not sure we could have gone on many more days – people were exhausted,’ said Mr Elliott.
‘Gander was lonely when they all left, said Beulah Cooper. ‘But it did your heart good to know you were part of it.’
The passengers not only left $60,000 to help pay for their stay but some also contributed $85,000 worth of new computers to a local school while others set up a $2million scholarship fund to help young Newfoundlanders attend university.
Many continue to return to see old friends even as – thanks largely to the musical – Gander has become a tourist attraction.
The idea that an event as horrific as 9/11 could spawn a musical seems outrageous, but it speaks volumes for a little town’s ability to conjure a small heartwarming triumph out of a heartbreaking disaster.
