The US diverted all inbound flights. A lot went up to our friendly neighbors of the north. Was their other countries that would not ‘accept’ the return of a possibly hijacked plane? I would think some of the West European countries and the UK may have been a little concerned for attacks to happen with them to. Did anyone else close the border madagascar style or did everyone accept our redirected flights
[NavCanada.ca says Canada did as well.](http://www.navcanada.ca/NavCanada.asp?Language=EN&Content=contentdefinitionfiles
ewsroom\backgrounders\911crisis.xml)
I have no idea if that is perfectly reliable or not, but it would make sense.
I was in Vancouver BC on 9/11 and yes Canada shut down its air traffic.
Anecdotally, ISTR that once all inbound flights from overseas to North America were accommodated on 9/11–that is, diverted to Canadian airfields when the US closed its airspace–Canada closed its airspace too.
So we landed anyway even though they closed their airspace?
EDIT: Anyone know where I can read other nations responses to our attacks? Their alert level and things like that?
If you think about it, it’s pretty hard to isolate US air space from Canadian air space. We share a very long border, have major cities within a few hundred miles of each other, and the great circle flight pattern takes many US airplanes over the Canadian land mass. Not to mention that something like 75% of all Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.
No, the US first closed its airspace. Then, inbound flights from overseas to the US were diverted to Canadian airfields. Once they were all safely landed and accounted for, only then did Canada close its airspace.
The sequence of events is important; the US closed its airspace while flights were en route to the US, and somebody had to take care of those flights. Canada was the obvious choice. Once all inbound were looked after, Canada could close its airspace, and it did.
True. If there had been plans for further attacks the next logical step after American flights shut down would have been to hijack a Canadian flight. A flight out of Toronto or Montreal could have been used to target NYC.
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Did Mexico also receive flights?
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Did Mexico close its airspace too?
Nevermind.
Googling found that Mexico took flights and did NOT close their airspace, unless my info. is wrong.
Thisis the web page for the Mexican DGAC (Civil Aviation Authority), which might have information about their response on 9/11. I can’t read Spanish nor do I have the time to try and find anything on that site, but perhaps a Spanish-speaking Doper can have a look and see.
[Here](http://www.navcanada.ca/NavCanada.asp?Language=EN&Content=contentdefinitionfiles
ewsroom\backgrounders\911crisis.xml)is a detailed summary of the NAV Canada response, including the sequence of events. The airspace was ordered closed at 12:28pm Eastern, but that still left some 200 aircraft in the air over the Atlantic and Pacific which had to be directed to various airports in Eastern and Western Canada.
The same cite indicates that aircraft which hadn’t crossed the halfway mark of their trans-oceanic flights were directed to turn around and return to their originating airports, so there would have been a similar amount of work for Eurocontrol to land all those planes and for airports/communities to potentially accommodate the passengers onboard. Based on reportsfrom the airspace closures due to the Icelandic volcano, it appears that European airspace was not shut down following 9/11, but there would have been significant disruption due to halting all trans-atlantic flights. Here’s a brief report on the actions of the Central Flow Management Unit of Eurocontrol during 9/11.
Ya gotta love “friendly neighbors to the north.”
Were you in journalism, because that’s the proverbial old article title on a slow news day.
I use it sometimes too, but I think it’s just from reading it so often.
This is anecdotal but my bro-in-law was flying an American Airlines flight that left London for Boston shortly before the attacks. After the US closed their airspace and they were not allowed to continue to their destination, they were denied return to London or the chance to land in any country (within reach) other than Canada. I know he said he tried London and Iceland at least. I think this was a case of not actually closed airspace but denying landing privileges to any other plane that might be transporting similar hijackers. Canada also denied them landing in anyplace with a large population, so they ended up in Gander.
Technically, Transport Canada “requested” that incoming pilots avoid the larger cities, but they didn’t outright deny landing to incoming flights at such airports. As noted by Mnemosyne’s post above, a good number of planes were diverted to large cities on September 11 — 34 to Vancouver, 17 to Montreal (Mirabel & Dorval airports), 14 to Toronto, 15 to Winnipeg, and 47 to Halifax. (Halifax isn’t huge—under 300k—but it’s not as tiny as Gander.) The reason Gander got so many planes relative to its size is that (a) it’s in Newfoundland, which is the first North American landfall for a huge number of flights between northwestern Europe and northeastern North America, (b) it has a fairly long runway due to the presence of a Canadian Forces Base and a long history of use as a refueling stop.
That can’t have been universal, lots of planes turned and landed back in the British Isles. Perhaps he needed somewhere in North America due to fuel/distance out, and given his route was given Gander?
That is odd, given as Reykjavyk is one of the most commonly listed ETOPS alternate airports and a common emergency diversion airport for flights using the Northern Atlantic routes. I suspect your brother-in-law’s flight considered first turning around to return to London, but discovered it was out of range (or would land below fuel minimums), then considered the natural alternate in Iceland. It probably turned out to either be closer to continue to Canada or one-too-many for Rejkjavik but had suitable fuel to continue on to North America so other aircraft were diverted there instead. There wouldn’t really have been any other choices, other than perhaps Greenland anyways.
The more I hear about what happened in all the airports on September 11th, the more impressed I am with the people working that day.
Eh? Potential threats were sent to Canada?
Geez, I knew the relationship wasn’t equal, but I didn’t realise Canada was expected to take a bullet for the US.
If the hijackers’ goal was to attack the US, why would they change plans and attack Canada? They took control of the flights, and they wouldn’t care if the airspace was declared closed – they’d still attempt to destroy their targets. The only flights that would comply with a request to divert to Canada would be those that were still under the control of the original pilots.