After the United States shut down its airspace after the September 11th attack, a unique problem emerged: international flights.
Sure, some planes took off shortly before it was announced the entire U.S. air grid was on lock down, and they could turn back. But what about those beyond the point of no return, or those just about to land? What if the terror threat was broader than what we knew?
Insert our neighbor to the north, Canada, which instituted Operation Yellow Ribbon, a plan to land those international flights safely in North America. Of course, the biggest airports in Canada, outside of military bases, are in major urban centers. Given what we didn’t know, it wouldn’t have made much sense to send potentially hijacked planes to Toronto, so Canada chose airports that weren’t in large urban centers, often facilities that were joint airports and Canadian Air Force installations.
During the 2010 Olympics in Canada, Tom Brokaw produced a pair of videos on Operation Yellow Ribbon:
And then, amid the uncertainty that followed, entire communities housed and fed those thousands of passengers for days afteward.
One such facility was in Gander, Newfoundland, which took 38 international jetliners.
This is the focus of Brokaw’s longer Olympics special on Operation Yellow Ribbon:
PASSENGER GEORGE VITALE: Now Gander is a town of barely 10,000 people. There was over 6,000 of us. Now if you extrapolate the numbers to New York City’s 8 million people, what’s that? 6 million people showing up on your door saying “we’re here” do something.
You can, and should, watch the whole video below. Thanks, Canada.
