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I was at the end of season gala luncheon of a 99 year old discussion club to which I belong here in Ottawa
The guest speaker was the man who was the Canadian Minister of Transport during 9/11
He said a number of interesting things, most of which I didn’t know.
- By international agreement, responsibility for air traffic control in the North Atlantic is split between the UK and Ireland in the East and Canada in the West
- When the American FAA closed down all air traffic in the US and forbade any aircraft from entering US airspace, they did so without any consultation, apparently including consultation with other US agencies and definitely not with Canada. Also with no real thought about the aircraft that were in the air and on their way to the USA
- There were about 400 aircraft in some stage of travelling across the Atlantic or getting ready to do so. When the FAA forbade any aircraft from entering the US, about half were able to be turned around while the other half were past the point of no return and effectively became Canada’s problem (even though most of them were American aircraft)
- The Minister was in Montreal at that point and had flown there in a government aircraft as he was planning to go to Toronto after his meeting. Ironically, the meeting was a major gathering of members of ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. He was the host minister and was giving the welcome speech.
- Nobody had a lot of information at that point and he got on the phone to talk to his Deputy Minister (the highest ranking civil servant in the Department) and they decided that all aircraft currently in the air should continue to their destination but that nobody should be allowed to take off. Unfortunately, that included his own aircraft and he got into a van with his staff and started to drive back to Ottawa, about a 2 ½ hours away.
- Cell phones were still new but they had two of them and he was able to make decisions while on the drive to Ottawa. It turned out that there were some decisions that only the Minister could legally make and he had to do so verbally. It would seem that there were other decisions that were necessary but nobody was certain if even the Minister had legal authority to do so. The Deputy was a lawyer and she thought it was OK so he made these decisions but it was pretty clear that he was going to make the needed decisions even if he didn’t have legal authority
- With a couple of hundred aircraft flying towards Canada on both coasts they had only minutes to make and transmit the decisions, otherwise aircraft could start to run out of fuel.
- The Department of Transport (Known now as Transport Canada) had a 24 / 7 emergency crisis room and they got a team together in a very short time to manage things. This included the military, the Mounted Police (our federal police), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and interestingly, the US ambassador.
- They decided that all incoming aircraft would land in Eastern Canada, mostly in the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia because they did not know about the security situation on the incoming aircraft and they were afraid that if they let the planes fly to Toronto or Montreal, somebody could crash one in the downtown area and kill huge numbers of people. A lot of the planes ended up in the small town of Gander whose population of 10,000 almost doubled in a couple of hours. In the West almost 40 aircraft were diverted to Vancouver
- For security reasons they made everybody stay on board until they could get the military to fly a lot of customs, immigration and security people to Gander, Halifax and a few other places from Montreal and Toronto. It was rough on the passengers who were aboard for 18 hours but they were not going to take any security risks given just what had happened in NY and Washington.
- A lot of people assumed that US airspace would be open in a few hours but in fact it was closed for several days and in Gander at least, virtually all the townspeople took strangers into their homes for the duration.
- One incident that I had never heard of before was that a Korean airliner was thought to have been hijacked over Alaska and was being escorted by a couple of US fighters and not responding. It crossed into Canadian airspace and the Canadian government authorized the US Airforce to continue their escort into Canada until they were able to force the plane to land in Whitehorse in the Yukon territory. Turned out to be a transponder problem along with translation issues
- The Government did a port mortem on the response and decided that some changes in regulations were needed to better cover off emergencies. The Minister said that normally it can often take a year or two to do the consultations and write and pass the regulations. He said it all got done in two weeks.
All in all it was a very interesting lunch.
The guest speaker was the man who was the Canadian Minister of Transport during 9/11
He said a number of interesting things, most of which I didn’t know.
- By international agreement, responsibility for air traffic control in the North Atlantic is split between the UK and Ireland in the East and Canada in the West
- When the American FAA closed down all air traffic in the US and forbade any aircraft from entering US airspace, they did so without any consultation, apparently including consultation with other US agencies and definitely not with Canada. Also with no real thought about the aircraft that were in the air and on their way to the USA
- There were about 400 aircraft in some stage of travelling across the Atlantic or getting ready to do so. When the FAA forbade any aircraft from entering the US, about half were able to be turned around while the other half were past the point of no return and effectively became Canada’s problem (even though most of them were American aircraft)
- The Minister was in Montreal at that point and had flown there in a government aircraft as he was planning to go to Toronto after his meeting. Ironically, the meeting was a major gathering of members of ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. He was the host minister and was giving the welcome speech.
- Nobody had a lot of information at that point and he got on the phone to talk to his Deputy Minister (the highest ranking civil servant in the Department) and they decided that all aircraft currently in the air should continue to their destination but that nobody should be allowed to take off. Unfortunately, that included his own aircraft and he got into a van with his staff and started to drive back to Ottawa, about a 2 ½ hours away.
- Cell phones were still new but they had two of them and he was able to make decisions while on the drive to Ottawa. It turned out that there were some decisions that only the Minister could legally make and he had to do so verbally. It would seem that there were other decisions that were necessary but nobody was certain if even the Minister had legal authority to do so. The Deputy was a lawyer and she thought it was OK so he made these decisions but it was pretty clear that he was going to make the needed decisions even if he didn’t have legal authority
- With a couple of hundred aircraft flying towards Canada on both coasts they had only minutes to make and transmit the decisions, otherwise aircraft could start to run out of fuel.
- The Department of Transport (Known now as Transport Canada) had a 24 / 7 emergency crisis room and they got a team together in a very short time to manage things. This included the military, the Mounted Police (our federal police), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and interestingly, the US ambassador.
- They decided that all incoming aircraft would land in Eastern Canada, mostly in the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia because they did not know about the security situation on the incoming aircraft and they were afraid that if they let the planes fly to Toronto or Montreal, somebody could crash one in the downtown area and kill huge numbers of people. A lot of the planes ended up in the small town of Gander whose population of 10,000 almost doubled in a couple of hours. In the West almost 40 aircraft were diverted to Vancouver
- For security reasons they made everybody stay on board until they could get the military to fly a lot of customs, immigration and security people to Gander, Halifax and a few other places from Montreal and Toronto. It was rough on the passengers who were aboard for 18 hours but they were not going to take any security risks given just what had happened in NY and Washington.
- A lot of people assumed that US airspace would be open in a few hours but in fact it was closed for several days and in Gander at least, virtually all the townspeople took strangers into their homes for the duration.
- One incident that I had never heard of before was that a Korean airliner was thought to have been hijacked over Alaska and was being escorted by a couple of US fighters and not responding. It crossed into Canadian airspace and the Canadian government authorized the US Airforce to continue their escort into Canada until they were able to force the plane to land in Whitehorse in the Yukon territory. Turned out to be a transponder problem along with translation issues
- The Government did a port mortem on the response and decided that some changes in regulations were needed to better cover off emergencies. The Minister said that normally it can often take a year or two to do the consultations and write and pass the regulations. He said it all got done in two weeks.
All in all it was a very interesting lunch.
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