Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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LETTER: Thanks to the people of St. John's, NL for all they did on 9/11

Delta flight 119 landed at St. John's airport on 9/11, and 25 years later, passengers remember the warmth Newfoundlanders offered

It is hard to believe that it was 25 years ago when we were unexpected tourists that visited the beautiful city of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

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The unfathomable anguish that occurred during the 9/11 attack in America meant that our flight from Paris to New York would make a sudden and unexpected stop in St. John’s. And boy, was it sudden. Our captain announced that we would quickly descend and, upon landing, he would brake hard to make the transition to the taxiway halfway down the runway of the H-configured airstrip, as there were planes behind us that were also being grounded.

We were the eighth plane of 21 that landed at St. John’s International Airport and one of the last to be parked at the terminal, where we sat with all of the plane doors open and the BBC radio playing over the intercom system for more than 12 hours.

We, the passengers of Delta flight 119, had some idea of the horrors of the attack, while passengers of other planes had been told that “there has been a system malfunction” that led to their grounding.

One of our fellow passengers was travelling from Paris to NYC and then to LA to meet up with a second sister flying from Boston to LA to surprise their third sister. She quickly realized that her sister from Boston was tragically on one of the planes used in the attack.

Another girl had delayed her return by a day and worked in one of the upper stories of the World Trade Center and knew that many of her friends and co-workers were impacted.

We consumed everything on board for the close to 12 hours that we remained onboard, oblivious to everything that the people of St. John’s were doing to welcome their 4,300-plus unexpected tourists. These tourists had all arrived into town on planes much like the ones used in the attack, so we certainly could have posed a risk to your city.

When we did deplane and were loaded onto buses, we did so with no personal belongings and had no idea where we were going. We arrived at the brand-new Mile One Centre to ultimately join passengers from all of the other planes to an amazingly well-planned........

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