I was visiting London with my elderly mother and sister. They wanted to stay and shop an extra day so I left a day before they did. I took off from Gatwick AA Flight 51, direct flight to DFW (so I thought!). The airplane was a beautiful new American Airlines 777 with movie selections and a map of the plane’s current location on the seat back. After finishing a movie, I switched to the map route which had us over the tip of Greenland, what a great view.
After watching the map route which still had us going to DFW it suddenly changed from LGW to Montreal. Everyone was laughing not knowing anything at that point. “Oh great, we are going to Canada,” the passenger were saying. About 20 minutes later the captain came on the PA, very calm, and just said that we were heading to Montreal due to some temporary air space restriction at our US entry point and should be cleared up soon. The captain told us that we would be landing in Montreal until things are squared away.
As we were making final approach to Montreal, the plane started ascending and wheels up. The map changed from LGW- Montreal to LGW – Toronto. OK, WTF something doesn’t feel right. The flight attendants made everyone return to their assigned seats. I asked if I could go to the restroom and the attendant followed me to the rr and back. When I set down, I told the passengers in my area that my thought is there might be a suspicious device on the plane. The captain came on the PA and professionally told us (although you could hear fear in his voice) that we would be landing in Toronto and nothing is wrong with the airplane.
We touched down in at Toronto Pearson Airport and went straight to a gate. My fear of a device on the plane was over since we pulled into the gate area. Had there been a device, we would have staged away from the terminal.
I looked out of the window and saw Canadian Police with their dogs surrounding the plane and I snapped a picture.
The captain came on the PA (I believe his name was Captain Smith), voice shaking, trying to keep his composer and told us that the World Trade Center was under attack and possibly other locations and we will probably be staying on the plane and stuck in Toronto for a while. He also told us to cooperate with the Canadian Authorities because we are on their soil and there are high tensions at the moment. Passengers were yelling and crying. I looked down my row and say a man vomiting in the barf bag.
I now need to find out if my family is OK in the DFW area…where the hell are they and how do I call them? Cell phones weren’t a thing at the time but there was a phone on the seat back (they had those back in the day). The other passengers were trying to use those phones with no success but I tried mine and actually got through to my wife who was at work.
I said are you and the kids OK? She started crying and said yes nothing is going on in our area right now. I told her that we had to land in Toronto and I am OK. She said she already knew that……
Wait, what? how do you know this info. She said that one of her co-workers’ husband is a dispatcher at American Airlines (AA is based out of Ft Worth) and he has been tracking FL 51 for her. She said we were heading for Halifax then diverted to Montreal and when Montreal ran out of gates we went to Toronto. After a long wait the passengers were taken off the plane in groups of 10. We were each escorted to a small office to be questioned by the Canadian Police. They were extremely nice. I asked one of the officers if a tower was really hit on purpose and he told me both towers and the Pentagon…he said this was another Pearl Harbor. I hadn’t had tears in many years but I did in that moment.
The next task was to get everyone to a hotel which was not easy since the Toronto Film Festival was taking place and lots of people in Toronto. My group had to go way out to a hotel called Montecasino. Fortunately, they had a bar!
After a few drinks I went to my hotel room and plugged in a fan using my adaptor from London not realizing that Canada used a different current. The plug and outlet started smoking but luckily tripped a breaker. My little world of problems was nothing compared to what I was seeing on TV but I just wanted to get home.
My wife relayed to me that AA was going to get their new plane back on American soil no matter what..and we might not be on it! But, early morning two days later most of us loaded back on the plane heading for DFW (about a dozen people would not board the plane in fear) and we were told we are the first flight up in the air in North America and its not publicized… very few people knew about the flight. After takeoff I noticed blinking aircraft lights on the left side. The flight attendant told me that those are Canadian Air Force jets escorting us back to US border and USAF will take us to DFW from there.
When we landed at DFW there was a ton of media waiting for (so much for the secret flight we were promised). I did a quick interview with a reporter about our experience. My Brother-In-Law called me to tell me he saw the interview but they had my name accidentaly listed as one of the terrorist..gee thanks for that.
I was a firefighter in the DFW Area and pretty much knew that there would be firefighter death but couldn’t fathom what those guys went through and the poor families and citizens in those towers.
When you see the number 343, that is the number of firefighters that lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. That number is displayed on thousands of fire trucks and fire stations across the continent.
Please never forget 9/11 and pass this tragedy on to the younger folks.
God Bless America