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All right, we're ready for departure. Here on the Pilot Project Podcast,

the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the

RCAF. Brought to you by Skies magazine and

RCAF today. I'm your host, Brian Morrison.

Today, to mark September 11, we'll be talking

with three air traffic controllers who were on duty that

day and through the following days. My first guest is

retired RCAF Air Traffic Controller Rob

Hogarth. Welcome to the show, Rob.

Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Before we get started, we'll go into Rob's bio.

Rob joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1983 as an air

navigator, and in 1986, he reclassified to the air

weapons controller career field. His postings

included Canada East and CFB North Bay, where he served as

a Weapons director, or WD, before upgrading

to Weapons Assignment Officer Wao. This

was followed by a tour to Fox main dueline site as

OPSO, and his first outCan posting, which was to the

8th Missile Warning Squadron at El Dorado Air Force

Station in Texas as a mission crew commander and chief of

Standards and evaluations. After his posting to

Texas, he returned to North Bay, initially as the operations

rep in Fighter Group Canadian NORAD Region HQ

Intelligence Office Then staying in North Bay. Rob was

assigned to the Canadian Air Defense Sector or CADS as a

combat ready mission crew commander MCC and

later to 22 Wing North Bay in the tactics

and training office. His next move was to the Northeast

Air Defense Sector, or needs in Rome, New York, as a

mission crew commander. For the listeners, a small note. I made a

pronunciation error here, and it is actually pronounced

NEADS, not Needs. Although not on duty the

morning of the 911 attacks, as a combat ready MCC at

Needs, he was a part of the team that helped to develop NORAD's

rapidly changing doctrine to face a previously

unforeseen threat. Rob retired on September

11, 2013, after slightly more than 30 years of

service to his hometown of Cambridge, Ontario, where he still

lives. So, Rob, uh, we always ask our guests, where did

aviation begin for you?

When I was a young child, I got taken to

an air show when I was about four or five years old

up at, what's, Waterloo? Wellington Airport.

And I got to see the early

stages of the snowbirds, the Golden

Sanitairs. Got to see fast

air for the first time with an F Four fandom.

And from there I was hooked. As I went

into high school, we had both the

London Air Show and the Hamilton Air Show, which were running

both of them in June at the time. So

I would go see those and see

everything from World War II

warbirds right through to

state of the art aircraft.

From there, I, uh, selected Ryerson in

the Aerospace Engineering program, and then it

just seemed logical to join the Air Force.

Yeah, it's funny, those are some of the same air shows that I grew

up seeing because we're from actually the same hometown

as we were kind of talking about before the show. And those are just great

air shows. I loved going to the London International Air Show.

Growing was, uh, it was a lot

of fun. It was amazing what you could see because

it was my first real introduction to static

air shows where you could actually go and talk to the

pilots and find out what it was like to

fly the various types of aircraft.

So what led you to change trades to the air weapons

controller trade?

Well, I started off as a navigator, but that

just wasn't where my skill set was.

I tried the school not once, but twice,

and I'm living proof that the system

works. I

wasn't successful in it. The NAV School

had and maintained a very high standard.

I didn't meet that standard. And after

two tries, I moved on to

air weapons control. And

to be honest, I had a lot more fun being an air

weapons controller than I think I ever would have as

a navigator. So it worked out better for

me and it worked out better for the RCAF.

Yeah, that sounds like a success story to me.

How did you get over the mental hurdle of,

okay, this didn't work out for me, but I'm not going

to let it sink me? How did you turn that into something

positive?

I think it started with the fact that about

two thirds of the way through the NAV School, I

was struggling and I was wondering if this

was the right choice for me. At the

time, the NAV school was leading to careers

in Auroras sea Kings

and Hercs. My interest had

always been in fast air combat

jets, predominantly.

So the transition to air weapons

control actually put me more where

my interests lay.

Can you explain what an air weapons controller is?

Air weapons control is the old

air defense, where we would

sit there in front of a computer screen that

takes radar feeds from all of our AOR.

An AOR is an area of responsibility.

Feeds it all into one computer.

We track every aircraft that crosses through

that radar picture. And if any aircraft

does anything wrong, an air weapons

controller would scramble fighter aircraft to go

up and intercept whatever the aircraft was

that was doing something wrong and

take action to correct that behavior.

It could be something as simple as a flight plan getting

lost. And so we have to go up and positively identify an

airplane. It could be a, uh,

Russian bomber flying off of our coast,

or it could be, in more recent times, something

similar to the attacks on 911.

We merged the career fields of air weapons

control, which dealt predominantly with

putting fire and steel on target, basically,

and then air traffic control

because we had very similar skill sets. We

both dealt with talking to aircraft,

making them go where we needed them to go,

and keeping safe while we're doing it.

So shifting gears and talking about the

topic of today's episode, where were you when you found

out that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center?

I had actually worked an evening shift the night before,

so I got off at midnight the night before,

and I had just started onto what I thought

was going to be days off.

So got off at midnight,

went home, got up the next

morning, grabbed a coffee. I was sitting in front of my

computer checking email or whatever,

and I had the radio playing in the background and

I heard that an airplane had hit the World Trade

Center. I looked out the window and it was a

beautiful, clear, blue sky

day. And I thought, how could a

pilot be so dumb that he doesn't see

one of the biggest buildings in Manhattan on a day when

the weather is clear in a million?

And then a little while later, we hear about

the plane hitting the South Tower. And then

I realized it wasn't a pilot who

was dumb. It appeared to be a

coordinated attack.

So you were off duty at the time. Were you

immediately recalled back in?

No, actually, exactly the

opposite. I called in and told the

mission crew commander who was on duty,

I can be there in five minutes if you need me.

And he said, no, we've got it.

For now, the best thing you can do is just stay

out of our hair because we're really busy.

Okay?

Yeah.

And I guess that way you'd be rested for your own following

shift.

Yeah, I got a phone call at about 11:00 in the

morning and was told, we're doing a

total unit recall. Everyone has to

report for duty. Your first task is

to immediately go to crew rest,

report at 06:00 this evening, uh, for at

least a twelve to 14 hours shift.

Okay. So what was it like when you first arrived

for work on the night of September 11?

It was kind of surreal.

As I pulled up to the entry control point, normally

we would show them our restricted area badge and

they'd wave us through. That night

we pulled up to the entry control point,

we had to show our restricted area badge,

military ID. And then they

went around the car with a mirror on a

stick and checked under the car to make sure that we weren't

carrying in some sort of an IED.

As I get to the entry control point, I

looked over my right shoulder, and there, on

the proverbial grassy knoll,

was a sandbagged bunker with

one of our security forces with a machine gun

pointed at the entry control point.

If someone had done something wrong, there's absolutely

no doubt in my mind that even though he knew us,

he would have taken actions to protect the

unit. Then, as I got into the

building, there were signs on the doors telling

the oncoming crew, do not go into the ops

room. Go to the break room. Before you go

into the ops room, the unit commander wants to

address you. So we gathered and

at this point we hadn't seen what was going on. We

didn't know how active the ops

room was. The

sector commander comes out to the break room

and he goes, okay, you're all here.

Before you go into the ops room, I want to let you

know we are, for all practical

purposes, in a state of war.

We control the skies over North America.

Nobody flies unless the Air Force says it can

fly. Uh, for all practical

purposes, it's a no fly zone over Washington,

DC. The only aircraft that are

airborne are military

aircraft, medevacs

and police helicopters. Nothing

else is authorized to get airborne in the DC

area. When you go into the ops

room, it'll be unlike anytime you've ever

done it in the past. Every

console will be manned. We

had what they call combat air patrols, or

Caps, over every major city in

the northeastern US. So

he was trying to mentally prepare us for what we were

about to see when we walked in.

What were your normal duties at that time?

Well, going in for a night shift, there might

be some training going on. Perhaps a squadron had

something that they needed to train that they couldn't get the

airspace during the day. Or maybe it was

something that they needed nighttime to train

to. So after the training was

done and any maintenance that needed to be

done, we basically just sat, ah, back

and monitored the air picture to look

for anything that one of my former bosses

referred to as the three DS. We were looking for

something dumb, dangerous or different.

And as long as nothing that met

those criteria happened, we just

sat there and monitored.

Okay.

And if something did happen, we would react

dynamically to that.

And on this night, as you went into the ops room,

how was it different from those normal nights?

Well, like I said, it was incredibly

busy. We had every

console was manned, most of them with

weapons team members, weapons directors and their

technicians. We had a couple extra

surveillance people, a couple extra identification

people on duty, and the

ops tempo was incredibly fast. Keep in

mind, at that time we only had a couple of

active NORAD air defense bases in each

sector. So we're trying to maintain

combat air patrols over. Well, in the

northeast we had, ah, seven different Caps

airborne at the same time. So each of those

would have a couple of fighters assigned to it, plus a

tanker, in order to keep it sustained.

So it was an

incredibly high ops tempo,

and we're working with units that maybe we hadn't worked

for. We had fighter units calling into our

battle staff and saying, I can give

you this number of fighters, I can give you

this type of fighters, and I can arm them in this

manner. Can we help? We had

tanker units calling and saying, hey, I

can get a KC 135 airborne

with this much offload. Where do you want

it? And so we were

just ad hoc. People were calling in,

trying to help us, and we were putting it

together. As assets became available,

we would look at the situation and go, where can

we use them? Um, and we'd send them to

wherever.

So it was something that was just constantly evolving.

Absolutely.

That night, there was so much going

on that information overload

became a real factor. We had all of our

fighter units. We had our region headquarters,

which was down in tyndall air force base. We

had NORAD headquarters, we had anyone

who needed to be there was on this trap.

So you'd spend your first hour working

the trap, building your situational awareness, uh,

finding out who was coming into the mission, who

was leaving the mission, when they were

airborne, when they were landing.

If it was someone who we needed to turn the jets around

and get them airborne again when they

were back onto status, all of that

thing, we would chat to everyone who was

using it. Then we'd go from there

to actually performing the MCC duty, where

you're reacting real time to the

evolving situation.

And after about an hour of

that, you were basically

done. So your next

hour would be, go, relax,

decompress, get ready. Because

at the end of that hour, you'd come back, you'd get a

turnover from whoever was working the chat, and you'd

sit right back down and start the chat again.

Yeah, it sounds really intense.

It was. And

especially because at the beginning, keep in mind,

NORAD had a philosophy that any

attack would come from abroad. We were thinking

in terms of pure nations,

to be blunt, probably russia

at the time. So

the concept of an attack coming from within

the shores of north america proper

was totally new to us.

Did you see your role or mission change in the days that

followed 911?

Yeah, initially, like I said, our,

uh, role prior to that was looking

outwards. So all of our radar picture was along the

coast. We didn't really have a lot

of radar coverage at the time in the center

of the country. So the first thing we

noticed is every time we came on duty, we were getting

access to more and more radars.

But, uh, the doctrine was changing

as well. Our rules of engagement were

changing. There was a term that I heard about

the second or third day after going in that

I'd never heard before in, at that point, about

15 years in the air force. And that was the

term a be no line. And during our

turnover briefing, the outgoing

MCC mentioned that the east

coast of the US. Was a be no

line. And I kind of raised my hand. I went,

uh, I've never heard that. What does that mean?

And he goes, there will be no air

force assets past the coast, over

water. The navy has

everything on the approaches to north

America. There will be no naval

assets, fighters, f, uh,

time over the landmass.

So that was something I had never heard before.

We also started changing our airspace

insofar as protecting

the Washington, DC. Area and

the procedures that go into that.

Our rules of engagement changed

from peacetime

through to wartime. And now

it started to include

contingencies that, uh, weren't

necessarily a part of our, uh, rules of engagement

before. So the first few days,

all of that changed, and it

was developed, for lack of a

better term, on the fly. That's not a really

good way to put it, but it's the best I can think

of. All the bureaucracy

disappeared we were using.

Does it make sense tactically, does it make sense

strategically, and can we actually make it

happen? And if we could answer yes

to all of those that became

our new doctrine, now, that might

change a couple of days later, but, uh, for

today, that was the step, and it was a very

iterative process.

And that's what happened in the first couple of

days.

Did you see anything or were you involved in any

specifically significant events through this?

Yeah, I was. There were a couple that were kind of

funny and a couple that were very

serious. A couple of days

after September 11, while we were

still working on our procedures,

and while the special

ops guys were working on their procedures

because they had their own mission to do,

there was an airplane flying in from, uh, I believe

miami, if I'm not mistaken, into Washington,

DC. And he

reported something unusual

to air traffic control.

Air traffic control then alerted us

and asked us if we had information on it.

And we never did find out exactly what it

was, but we believe to this

day, I'm convinced it was

a special ops team doing

a halo jump, the high altitude, low

opening parachute jump, because

an airplane at about

25,000ft had its

pilot report that he just had this

is an exact quote a dude in

a scuba suit just flew past his

cockpit. So it was probably a little

eye opening for the pilot of the airliner, but

probably a lot eye opening

for the guy doing the jump.

Yeah, no kidding.

So we just about had a midair collision between

some guy doing a halo jump and an

airliner. So that was one of the more

light hearted events. I wasn't on

duty the morning of the attacks, but I seemed to be on

duty when most of the other stuff happened in

the following time frame. Got a

call one Saturday about a month after September

11, and by this time, our

procedures were starting to get a bit more

concrete. And it

was, uh, about an airliner going from

London Heathrow to Miami.

And on board was somebody

who tried to light a bomb

in his shoe.

Oh, yeah.

Obviously, he wasn't successful. But we

scrambled fighters on that jet, uh,

intercepted it, and instead of going to Miami,

we diverted it into Boston.

So I was directly involved with the shoe

bomber. Another one that really sticks in

mind. Probably one of the closest that,

uh, I've personally ever come to being involved with a

shootdown was the

day that President Reagan's body was being flown

from California back to Washington to

Lion State at the Capitol,

we had fighters in a cap over

Washington. These particular fighters

were F 50 e's the Strike Eagles out

of Seymour Johnson. They hadn't

flown in the Washington cap before. So

they enter the cap, they put their radars into

ground mapping mode and try to get a feel for

where all the landmarks were. Well, one of

the restrictions in flying in that area

is you had to have a, uh, transponder

and be positively identified by air traffic

control. We had a target coming in

or a track of interest coming in doing about

100 and 3540 knots

that had no transponder.

So we committed one of the fighters out of the

cap. He went down. He identified it

as a Beach King Air, but he couldn't

get his radar out of ground mapping

mode and into any sort of an air to air

mode. So other than getting the

ID. He was essentially useless to

us. If it got

nasty, we could not have

engaged. So we sent him back

up to the cap because we couldn't use him for anything

else. And we started working through

the chain of command to get

authorization, if we needed it,

to use surface to air missiles which were now

surrounding Washington by this time.

But because the surface to air missiles are army

assets, they have different rules of

engagement set than we do with air to

air. So it has to leave the

NORAD rules of engagement chain

and go to a national chain. So

while they're working the authorization to

find out whether or not they'll be authorized to use

a surface air missile, it overflies one

of the surface air missile sites.

And the captain working at the site

got a tail number for us. And

the reason why we didn't shoot it down is because

somehow, over the years,

my mind has become a receptacle for

useless information. And when

the captain at the Sam site

gave us the tail number, it was

November 24 Sierra Papa

and I just screamed,

Sierra Papa. Tail numbers are reserved for

state police. It's a friendly.

Well, once we had the tail number, we were able to track

it back and find out that, yes, air Traffic

control actually did know who it was.

It was the governor of Kentucky trying to come into

Washington to get there before Reagan's

body did. Oh, my gosh. So we

had, at one point, a fighter sitting right

behind it. We were looking at whether or

not to engage it with a surface to air missile,

but the system worked. When we got a tail number, we

found out it was a friendly. And all of a

sudden, everyone breathed a sigh of relief

and just kind of, okay, let's go back to watching

the big picture. This guy's not a

threat.

Wow, that, uh, is crazy.

So you could go into work on any

given day, and it could be

incredibly boring. Not enough

coffee to keep you awake. Or you could

go in and it could be like the shoe bomber,

and you could wind up as breaking news on

CNN.

Back to 911. What effects did you notice this

had on the local community?

The big one was how the local community,

in particular the hospitality community,

pitched in for us. I don't know how, but

they knew we were working twelve to 14 hours

shifts. So we'd go into

work and all of a sudden food

would just show up. And you knew that the

restaurants were coordinating amongst each

other, because we never had food from

two restaurants show up at the same meal. But

every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight

snack, there'd be a delivery show up,

and there'd be enough for everyone who was on

duty. So, although the

details of what was going on were

never really common knowledge at the time,

they knew there was something going on, obviously,

because of what we do with there.

But, uh, the whole community chipped

in and did what they could to

feed us, to make sure that for the

people who had kids, made sure their kids were looked

after, because they were working long hours.

Even though they might not know why we were

there for so long, every day, they were

doing their best to take what load they could

off of our mind as far as extra things.

Wow.

That's really amazing.

Yeah, it was. And I've never seen a

community chip in like that before or

since.

How did this impact you personally, both in the short

term and for the rest of your career?

In the short term, we found we were leading kind of a

double life. We'd go into work and

we were on an incredibly high ops

tempo. And then when our shift was

over, we'd go out into the community

and the community at large, it was

largely back to normal.

We'd go home and we'd cut our grass,

we'd play with the dog. We'd amuse

kids. If you had kids

and then you'd go into work again and you were

at that high ops tempo and

it was a real hard transition in a lot of

ways and eventually we got used to that

level of ops tempo became

normal. So the

dichotomy wasn't as great after a while

in the long term.

Well, as you mentioned, my

retirement was September

11, 2013. So it

impacted me enough that I actually picked

the anniversary of the attacks for the day

that I retired. I

also put in a request that

my retirement flag would be

one flown over the Eastern air, uh, defense

Sector on September 11,

2011, the 10th anniversary of the

attacks. So both the flag

that I was presented at my retirement and my

retirement date were on anniversaries of

September 11.

So, obviously for you, this was a bit of a

defining set of events, a defining moment.

It really was. It was after,

like I said, after about 15 years in the Air

Force. I saw the way

tragedy brings out the absolute best in

people, and I truly

understood the concept of brothers in

arms. These are people who,

well, I would protect them with my life.

I would do anything for them. And

we had each other's backs both on duty and

off. I've been retired for almost

ten years, and, um, I'm still in touch with many of the people

who I worked with then.

It's amazing the bonds that you make serving. Like

you said, we really end up with brothers and sisters in arms,

people that you consider family. Okay, Rob,

that's going to wrap it up for our interview. I just wanted to thank you so much

for taking the time out of your day to be here with us

and sharing your experiences from a really

intense experience. So thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Our second guest is retired RCAF Air Traffic Controller,

Shelley Coulter. Welcome to the show, Shelley.

Thanks for having me.

Shelley Coulter of Ottawa, Ontario, joined the Canadian Armed

Forces in 1990 as a direct entry officer. Having

already received her undergraduate degree in administrative law

from Carlton University, she served with a directorate

of air operations and training as a second Lieutenant before

proceeding to 22 Wing North Bay for training as an air weapons

controller or AWC at the Air Weapons Control

and Countermeasures School. In 1993,

after completing her training as an AWC, shelley was

employed with 21 Squadron, working with NORAD on Air

Sovereignty Operations. In 1994, she

was deployed to Vicenza, Italy, where she worked in the Combined Air

Ops Center as part of NATO's no fly zone over the former

Yugoslavia. Upon her return, Shelley

was promoted to Captain and transferred to 51 Operational Training

Unit in North Bay, where she took up the role of instructing new

weapons controllers. In 1996, Shelley went to

Cornwall to complete crossover training as AWC and

Air Traffic Controller ATC Trades Amalgamated and

was posted to CFB Cold Lake, Alberta as an ATC Tower

controller with Wing operations. In 1999,

she deployed to the Central African Republic as a UN

peacekeeper as part of Op prudence Minerca Upon

her return, Shelley returned to Cornwall and completed her training as an

IFR controller, becoming the first aerospace controller

AEC in the Caf to have been qualified to control in

any airspace in Canada. In June 2001,

Shelley was transferred to the Four Wing Cold Lake Combat Operations

Center, where she assumed duties as the officer in charge of the

center. On September 9, 2001, she

deployed with members of Four Wing Cold Lake to Innovic,

Yukon, where she was on duty during 911

operations. In 2014, due

to injuries sustained during military operations, shelley

released from the calf with almost 24 years total

served. Today we will be focusing on her experiences

on and following 911. So Shelley,

we always ask our guests, where did aviation begin for you?

The first memory that I have of being

really interested in anything, air Force.

I was about three years old,

living with my family along the

southern border of Manitoba and the United

States. One of my father's

friends had his own airplane and took me up

flying with my dad. I was sitting in my dad's

lap and

I had, uh, no fear.

I absolutely loved being up in the air

and flying. The next

experience that I had was during

the centennial

celebrations in

1967. There was

a search and rescue helicopter, uh, an old

Chinook. Well, they were new Chinooks then

that was on display. And I remember

being lifted by the loadmaster or the flight

engineer. I was all of four

years old at the time. And him reaching me just about by the

scruff of the neck and bringing

me up and into the cargo area.

And I thought it was absolutely amazing. But

from a military point of view, I

really didn't think about it until

I hit my glass

ceiling in my previous job

working in the Toronto Dominion Bank.

And so at the age of

26, I had topped out of my

career. I had a friend who was a weapons

controller, and I

considered what he was doing, and I thought,

he's no smarter than I am, I could do his

job. So

I was in Ottawa at the time, went down to the

recruiting center, and submitted

my name as an air weapons controller

candidate. It took about a year for

the whole process to be completed.

And in February of

1990, I received a phone call from the recruiting

center asking if I was still interested

in joining the Canadian forces

as an air weapons controller

recruit. Absolutely.

And a few months later, I

was off to chilliwack BC

and officer cadet training.

So it was, uh, as simple as that. You had a friend who was doing it and you

thought, hey, that sounds like fun. And you went.

For it.

Absolutely.

So we're going to chat now about 911 and your experiences that

day. How did that day start for you?

So we need to back it up

by a, uh, couple of weeks.

Traditionally, the Russian

air force will

deploy to their forward operating bases

in the spring and fall to

do daytime

training. The

members of the combat operations

center normally send up a small group, along

with a small group of

F supporting staff to act

as part of the NORAD

reaction to the Russians for

deployment. There's traditionally a

military air traffic controller that will

go up just to act as a liaison

for the civilian airport and the staff

that are there. And when the F

18s are airborne, the

air traffic controller liaison is always up

in the flight services tower that's

up there. I thought it would be a good opportunity

for me to go up and see

how the operation ran. It

wasn't until later, uh, in

the evening, once it got dark,

that my job kind of kicked

in. So I was up most of

the night on the

10 September while the

CF 18s were flying, monitoring the Russian

bears that were flying out of northern Russia.

I just got into sleep when

all of a sudden there was a lot of banging at my

door. I opened up the door

and there was this giant master corporal

standing at my door that said,

ma'am, you need to go into work.

A plane has just flown into one of the

towers of the World Trade Center.

Wow.

Yeah. Now,

knowing the various

different flight paths and restricted

airspace over New York City,

and how the weather was

pretty much all over North America that day,

there was no way that a

small aircraft would have been flying

in that area just because of the

updrafts. Ah, it's too hard in that part of

New York City to manage.

So it had to have been a fairly large

aircraft and a

fairly large aircraft flying into the

World Trade Centers. That's

something that's done on purpose.

Because as we saw several years

later with the miracle on the

Hudson, captain Sullivan did everything that he

could to avoid built up

areas. So my instinct was

that this was a purpose

driven event. And if my

instincts were right, we were going to need more than

just the one person from my staff

that would normally be on duty. We were going to need

more than one person.

So I m went

and banged on the door of the

master corporal that was on days

off. And when she

opened the door, I said, you need to come with me now, there's

an event going on. And she said, do

I have time to shower? And I said, no, just change

into your flight suit, we're going now. As a matter of fact,

you change. I'll meet you there.

And I started to head

out the personnel barracks

and that's when I saw the second

aircraft on the TV fly into the second

tower. So that's when I

had a good idea that

this was a day of

history. My section was a direct

connection to NORAD. So

that would be with North Bay,

with Winnipeg, and with Colorado

Springs. Up until that

day, NORAD and Air

Sovereignty missions had become kind of a joke

in the military flying community.

It wasn't cool. It wasn't seen as very

operational. Everybody wanted to

go fly air to air

combat. So all of a sudden,

NORAD and Air Sovereignty

Operations went to the

game in town. But

a lot of the corporate knowledge

had been lost because it had been seen as

unimportant. And all of a sudden, the

desk and the operations center that I was running

was the keeper of that corporate knowledge.

So I was spending an awful lot of time sitting

with the detachment commander

and the two I see the number two in

charge of the forward

operating location in Inuvic to get

them educated with the

defense conditions.

The defcons defcon or defense condition is the

US. Military's ranking system for defense readiness,

with five being the lowest perceived threat and one being

the highest.

And the potential

airspace changes that

might happen from a civilian point of

view. If we go to

Defcon Four, Defcon Three, what does

that entail for not just

military aircraft, but for civilian

aircraft as well? I got on my

cell phone and called

back to Edmonton Air

Traffic Center, which was

controlling the airspace for where we

were located. And I needed to know in

my head who I was going to be dealing

with if they shut down civilian airspace.

It just so happened that two days

before we had flown up

to Ennuvik four wing,

cold Lake air traffic controllers had

hosted a golf tournament and they

had invited up members of the

civilian team from Edmonton

Center. So I had been golfing

with the folks that I was now

going to be liaising with. So I

called and left a voicemail for one of the

supervisors, sue, that had been in My

forsome 72 hours earlier.

And I said, Hi, Sue. It's Captain

Coulter. I'm up in Anubic now

and when you get a chance, can you

give me a call? Just trying to get an idea of

what's going on. Then I went over

to Flight Services

and they were having a hard time

understanding that this wasn't an

exercise. They kept referring to it as an

exercise. And I said, no, we

are at, uh, war. For all

intents and purposes, we've been attacked.

We are behaving like we are at war right

now. And just as I'm saying

that, his teletype went off

and it provided an

update acknowledging that there

had been an event in New

York City evolving to

aircraft that had flown into the World

Trade Centers. They didn't have any information, but

they were still in the information gathering phase at that point in

time. I told them I'd be back and I would

keep them up to date anytime I had additional

information. My cell

phone rings and it was sue

from Edmonton Center. I answered it.

Captain Coulter. And she said, Hi, Captain

Coulter. It's sue from Edmonton Center.

I went, sue, it's Shelly. And she went,

Shelly? I said Shelly ATC Shelly cold

Lake. And she went, oh, my God. Am m

I ever glad it's you. So

right away there's that connection that was

needed and that became really

effective in getting information

passed. So she told me

at that point in time that the decision

hadn't become official but it was

very likely that we were going to

see the emergency

grounding of civilian

aircraft uh, before the end of the day.

You'll hear the acronyms Escat or

Skatana bounced around and

it's the emergency coordination of civilian air

traffic. So I go

back to the forward operating location

and pass that on to

the debt commander. So now

he wants to know what Escat and Sketana is.

So now I'm explaining to him, helping him

understand that when they're declared

and the levels that they're declared determine

how much civilian activity is

grounded and who

can fly. As I was there, we find

out that a, uh, third plane

crashes into the

Pentagon a fourth plane

crashes in Pennsylvania.

And

NORAD and

FAA and, uh, Canadian

equivalents all believe that they

are likely additional aircraft

that are out flying around

likely being hijacked.

Move a little bit forward. And

I'm standing in the operations center

and one of the

secure phones in my team's

section of the Op Center rings. So I pick

it up, and it's one of my colleagues in

North Bay who tells me that

we've gone to Defcon Three. I

remember thinking that. I never

thought I would

see that day happen where we had

moved out of Defcon Five into Defcon Three.

After we finished, uh, the authentication

process and I hung up on my

budy from North Bay, I pulled

the Deck Commander aside so nobody else could

overhear us, and I briefed him that

we'd gone to Defcon, uh, three.

And he

asked each of the heads of the different sections

to meet him in one corner of the

Op Center. He was, uh, a lieutenant

colonel and the rest were captains. And

he sat us down and told everybody

ladies and gentlemen, we've been moved to Defcon

Three. Make sure to check on your

folks and check on each other as well

because, uh, we're entering into a

historical point here and

we need to look after ourselves

and look after each other. So now I have to

take all this information and go over

to Flight Services.

I'm over at the FSS tower.

Go in. And I said to him,

we've gone to Defcon Three. I'm expecting us to go

to change the, um, airspace status

anytime now. And he

said, Well, I haven't heard anything and no

word of a lie. His teletype

goes off as we're standing there and it

says, NORAD has transitioned to

defcon three. So finally get back

to the op center and

we received the notification

that the civilian airspace was being

shut down. Planes were being diverted

into Gander and Goosebay.

Only flights that were for

medical emergencies or

for military purposes were to

be airborne, and everything else

was going to be challenged by

military aircraft. We

received notice

that a

Korean airliner was being

diverted from Alaskan

airspace into Canadian

airspace, and that, uh,

we're likely going to scramble the

CF eighteen s after it, which

we actually did. I remember

when the CF 18 pilots,

after they went airborne, you could hear

a pin drop in the op center.

What was pretty much going through everybody's mind

was that each of us

had a hand in

possibly being part of 200

civilians being shot down by

CF 18 aircraft.

Wow.

Yeah. A very sobering moment.

We had no idea who was

behind the attacks. We didn't know if it was the

Russians because of where we were

postured. That was what was

going through our head. Was wondering

if this was the first

step in a Russian attack on North America.

We got the notification that Escad and

Skatana had been implemented, so

there was nothing flying.

So when the, uh, fighter pilots got back and

did their intelligence debrief, the

first thing that I noted was that

one of the pilots didn't even take the time

to change into his flight suit.

He was wearing sweatpants and a

rugby shirt, his flying

boots, and he had his G suit on, but he didn't

even bother to take the time to, uh, change into his

flight suit. And they were scrambled to go after

the Korean airline that

had gone into

American airspace responding

improperly to transponder

codes. Those are the four digit codes

that most aircraft

that are flying on long routes

use to indicate where

they are and who they are. What

happened was

that because it was an

unusual day, the words that you

usually expect to hear out of a

pilot's mouth or an air traffic controller's

mouth weren't happening

m the way that they normally would.

So the Korean airliner, the air

crew, when they were told to

change their code going

from overseas into Alaskan

airspace, they

dialed in an incorrect code.

They were unaware of

anything else that was going on,

because for whatever reason, their company

operations center hadn't been able to

let them know that there was this

major air event that was happening

in North America. So out of an

abundance of caution, the

air traffic controllers

and, uh, the senior staff

responsible for Alaskan airspace

decided to

change the destination of that

aircraft from American airspace

to Yellowknife.

When the CF 18 pilots

at our location were doing their debrief,

one pilot, the number two, said

it was the eeriest

thing that he'd ever seen on his

radar. He said he

got three hits on his radar.

He'd never seen anything like it before

when he went airborne. The first hit on his

radar was his flight lead.

The second hit on his radar

was the tanker, and the

third hit on the radar

was the Korean

airliner. The sky was already empty by that

point in time. We had

received word that North

Bay and Colorado

Springs, uh, the mountain at Colorado Springs

had both buttoned up. They'd closed their blast

doors, something that has only

happened once before, and that was

during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Again, Defcon three. The only time we'd gone to

it before was during the Cuban Missile

Crisis. So

that was September 11.

By the time September 12 came

and went, we

had received notification from the

Russians that not only were they standing down

their exercise, but they were going home. They

were deploying back to their main operating

bases as a way of

showing to us that they were not involved

in what was happening, and

also, as almost, uh, a

gentleman's agreement to allow the

teams that were needed elsewhere

to go look after what was going

on at home.

We started to

pack up everything and return back to Cold

Lake on, um, the

13 September.

When we got back,

we were given a couple days just to

unpack and get a couple

days rest, and then we're back

into work working

an increased ops. Temple until

we were able, we NORAD

Canada and the United States and

the rest of the world were able to identify that

this was a threat that we hadn't expected

before. Ironically,

NORAD Ah was in the middle of an

exercise on September

11, so they were already

in an exercise mode and in an

exercise beat with their staff.

There was an Airborne Warning

and Control Systems aircraft

that was off the East

Coast, but it

was a training mission, so it was all trainees on

board with instructors sitting

behind them. And so

when the two aircraft,

uh, four aircraft crashed,

we already had an awax up in the

air that could help finding the

additional aircraft if there had been

any. But as we know now, there

weren't any additional aircraft at that time.

That was my experience from the 9

September 2001 until

September the 13th.

How did that impact you in the short term and for the

rest of.

Your career in the short

term? I was angry.

I was angry that these

guys felt that this

was something that they could do

and get away with.

Attacking my neighborhood,

attacking my friends. I had friends

that grew up in New York, friends that were in the

Pentagon that day. I had friends in

Colorado Springs, in the mountain complex and in North

Bay. I felt like it was a personal attack.

I remember being

angry, um, when

we didn't attack back right away,

which is the lower ranks.

Reaction is like, we got to go now. Got to strike

while the iron is hot. And thank goodness

that the older gray hair

does the sober second look and saying, okay, no,

we need to take a moment here to

gather information and assess what's going

on. Now, looking

back with 22

years hindsight

and time in

the sober second look seat,

I understand a lot more

why some of the decisions were made,

why some of the time was

taken. There are other decisions that

I look at and I still question to this day,

why did it take so long? And,

um, there's the cognitive part of me that

goes, the reason that it took so long is

because we hadn't experienced anything like this

before. So there

was, I believe, an awful lot of,

wait, what? Are you sure?

Okay, I need to get this from a second source.

Whereas now

we would be a lot quicker to respond.

But like everything else, I'm sure

that memories

will fade and,

uh, information will go into the history books.

I hope that I'm not right, but

unless we learn the lesson, we'll be doomed to repeat it

again.

Let's hope not. Let's hope we've learned those lessons and learned them

well.

Yeah, I hope so.

As horrible as that day

was for me, for

us, for the world, it was

incredible to be involved in

it. I had an incredible career.

Uh, I loved every bit of it, even

the really crappy stuff.

It has given me a

unique perspective,

and I look forward to in my

old age, being able to talk

to some of the junior members of the

flying community and pass on some of

my experience.

Yeah, well, even today you're doing that. This will

reach a lot of people, and they'll learn from that. And

I just wanted to thank you so much for

taking the time to be on the show and to share.

Your story with us.

Thank you very much for inviting me

and for listening

to my little bit of,

uh, history. I appreciate it.

Our final guest today on the Pilot Project podcast is retired

air traffic controller Bert Petal out of Gander, Newfoundland.

Welcome to the show, Bert. Thanks for having me.

I hope you're all having, uh, a great afternoon.

Yeah, absolutely. Before we get started, we'll go through

Bert's biography. Albert Burt Petal of

Gander, Newfoundland, began training as an air traffic controller on

January 12, 1982. He spent time in

Moncton learning the basics of ATC before going to

Gander Tower, where he spent two months learning the visual flight

rules procedures of ATC. From there, he attended the

Transport Canada Training Institute in Cornwall, Ontario, for

an intense course in instrument rules flight procedures. He

returned to Gander Area Control Center, or ACC,

for an even more intense round of training. Bert

earned his instructor rating and helped teach six Japanese

controllers who were developing procedures for oceanic control between

Asia and North America. He helped develop the Canadian

automated air traffic system Cats, which

became the national operating system for air traffic control in

Canada. He retired in 2019 as a

supervisor for low domestic and Gander ACC.

Burt has seen many things in his career.

1985 was a bad year with the Air Indian One Eight Two

bombing, and then the Aero air crash on December twelveTH,

which was the biggest air disaster to happen on Canadian soil.

But the one the world would remember most is September 11,

2001. Bert was the approach controller for Gander

terminal that morning. So, Bert, where did

aviation begin for you?

Well, for me, I, um, was born the

day after the Queen opened the new, uh, airport

in Gander. So the new international airport was open the day before

I was born. So I probably heard

airplanes as my first things I ever heard in

life. Gander, of course, was a big

airport town, and we saw all

kinds of airplanes from DC Three,

S 747. I, uh, was actually

at the airport when the Concord first touched

down in North America and watched him arrive in

Gander.

Oh, wow.

Growing up in Gander, the airport was a big thing. My dad was

a meteorologist at the airport. He worked there for 38

years. And we ride our bike and go up and just go in the office

and, um, visit them. And you go to the

international terminal, you didn't know who you'd run into. It could be Frank

Sinatra or Mohammed Ali or Peter

Castro. It's a great experience growing

up.

That's really cool. So it's really in your blood.

Yeah.

My brother is an aircraft maintenance engineer. He was in the

military, worked in Cold Lake, and, uh, with 510

Squadron in Winnipeg for 22 years.

Okay, he's back here now. He still does, uh, maintenance, um, on

the Cormrand aircraft or, uh, 103 Search and Rescue here

in Gander.

Oh, awesome.

Where were you when you found out that a plane had hit the North Tower of

the World Trade Center?

I was actually at home in bed. My wife worked at

CFB Gander, and we had only arrived home the

night before. There was 24 of us were on a golf trip to Prince

Edward Island for five days. So I was home, I

was in bed, my wife was gone to work, and the phone rang

and I answered. She said, once, um, you get up and check

the TV, there appears to be, uh, an airplane has

hit the North Tower in, uh, New York City and the

base is going on lockdown. So

I hung up the phone and turned on the TV. And

within another five or ten minutes, uh, the shift manager from work

called and asked me to come in right away, that there was an emergency

situation. They needed some extra people.

Wow.

So your shift manager called and asked you to come

in. And then can you tell us about how the rest of that day

went.

It's a small town. It takes me probably five

minutes, ten minutes to get to work. So I left and got

into work. And as I was getting there, they were just

closing down the US. Airspace. So everything was

starting to get a little crazy. Everyone was being told

that they had to land at the nearest available airport.

On, uh, low domestic, we typically have maybe one or two

sectors open because we control all of Newfoundland, Labrador

and all those airports within it. So low domestic is

28,000ft and below high en

route. They control 29,000 and

above and 95 to

90. Uh, 8% of the airplanes that are coming westbound off the

ocean. Those days are overflying. They never, ever

enter low level airspace. But on that

particular day, of course, they all had to enter

aerospace. Just wasn't time

to, um, get strips to the

low level controllers in the format that we're used to.

Um, no passing investments to the towers.

It was, uh, sort of chaotic, uh, starting

out. So the high level controllers, we

would coordinate back and forth which,

uh, airplanes were going to what airport. We basically were working

with the towers and the airports, asking

the supervisor would ask how many airplanes they could

take. And we, as controllers, would send them to the airports that they,

uh, wanted us to send them to. Majority of the

airplanes all wanted to come to Gander because Gander was,

uh, a big international airport, and a lot of those

pilots are very familiar with Gander.

Gander was actually backup landing

spot for the, uh, space shuttle. If they had

to abort, Gander was an alternate location

for them to land. So people are very familiar with

Gander.

So was it difficult? Did you guys have to take into

consideration, for example, how much fuel an aircraft had on board

and where they could get to? Or were there many people who were

short on fuel? Or was it more a case of people with extra

fuel and needing to dump?

No, it was the other way around. Most everyone had

plenty of fuel. And in actual fact, we,

uh, opened up, uh, arrival sector for St.

John's Gander arrival. There was a

western arrival sector for Steve Millen,

deer Lake. As well as the low level en route

sectors, we also opened up a fuel

dumping sector. So it was one guy that was just directing

fuel dumps for all the airplanes that had to dump fuel before they could go

land at an airport.

And would you guys normally have an area that

was put aside for fuel dumping? Like, for example, when we're

in Greenwood, there's an area for fuel dumping, for emergencies. Did you

have one that was normally set aside, or was this no, not at

all.

It's one we did ad hoc. As the airplanes advised us

that they needed to dump fuel, we'd clear them to a, uh,

sterilized altitude that they could begin, and I'd just hand them off

to the guy that was controlling all the fuel dumps. Of course,

you've got to be 15 miles either side of track, ten minutes

in trail to dump fuel. So there was a line of airplanes dumping

fuel north and southbound, staying away

from all the airports. They're basically out over oceanic

airspace inside our domestic area, but

out over, uh, water more than anything else.

You mentioned strips earlier. Can you explain what a

strip is?

Flight, uh, information strip had all the details of the

airplanes on, uh, low domestic. For a

westbound strip, the Ident aircraft type,

its speed would be on the left hand side of the

strip and a fixed posting. So if you had three or

four fixed postings going through your airspace, there'd be,

say, an eastern point, a midpoint across the

airspace, and, uh, an exit point on the west side. So

you'd probably have three strips on the board for each individual

airplane. Eastbound airplanes, of course, were just the opposite.

They had the, uh, Ident, the aircraft type, the speed

squat code would be on, uh, the right hand side of the strip.

Fixed posting would be on the, uh, left on

high level. The Ident was all in the

same format, would all be on the left side of the strip,

but they'd be printed in black for eastbound and

red for, uh, westbound. So

there was a big difference in the strip formats between

low domestic and arrival, as there was for

high level. But it was, uh,

such a big rush to get those airplanes on the ground, no one

expected them to be coming into low level airspace. Towers weren't

expecting them. So what ended up happening was when

the high level controller cleared the flight down to

29,000, they'd come over and give the guy, uh, who was

going to get the airplane, depending what airport they're going to, we

would use the high level strip and

basically passing estimates to the tower net was

out the window. There's no time to start

phoning and passing all these estimates. We just do it verbally over

a hot ride and let them know what the next five or ten

airplanes would be coming to their airport.

Wow.

So you guys were just operating outside of any of your

standard operating procedures?

Uh, absolutely, yeah. But it got to

calm down within the first half hour or so. It was pretty smooth

operation. We had a bunch of extra people called in.

So all the high level controllers that were controlling radar had a

data man, and it would be the data man that would run back and forth

with the strips. So there was always someone

watching the airplanes and talking to the airplanes, while there was

other extra controllers running around doing the grunt work, running

back for class and off strips and things like that, that we

needed.

Did you witness anything that was especially

significant or dramatic on that

day.

Just, uh, when I got there, they were splitting open

sectors. They were opening a Gander arrival sector, and one of the

supervisors was initially sitting in so we could get

the airspace set up and get your radar screen and everything set

up. I guess he was in a rush to get the first few

airplanes on the ground. It was a bit of a panic when we first started

out. We didn't know what we were getting into, so he was

trying to get them on the ground as fast as he could. And two heavy

aircraft lined up on final on Gander. The first

one rolled out long because none of these guys were

familiar with Gander Airport or we don't have parallel

runways or high speed taxiways. So the first

arrival actually was, uh, still on the runway

when the second guy was close final. So they had to

pull him up and go around. So that was

the only close thing that I saw that

day. I relieved the supervisor at that

point in time, and I probably had eight or ten airplanes

on my frequency. I said, Guys, uh, as long as everyone

has got lots of fuel, you don't have any emergencies, you don't have

any issues, I'm just going to space you all out 10 miles

on final. And everyone that was on

the frequency agreed with that. Just said, yeah, that's a great idea. We

got lots of room. It was a beautiful VFR day. There was no, uh,

issues with instrument approaches at all. So

we're just basically boxing people

on east and west of the airport. And I was

just trying to aim them for a ten mile final and

let one guy go downwind and turn them base leg behind the next

one and line them all up with 10 miles between them. So they had

a nice, stable, long final approach.

And so that all worked out pretty smooth. Yeah, it did.

Yeah, we had lots of time. There was no panic that

way. Uh, there was no rush for anyone to get on the ground.

Once everyone realized they had the land, uh,

everyone's pretty cooperative, they realized what kind of a

situation we were in.

Well, I was going to say it's funny, I think we think of that

day as a pretty frantic day for air traffic controllers.

But it sounds like where you guys were working,

you were able to keep calm and

just make it happen.

Yeah.

Very proud of the team we had here and the controllers we

had. There was no panic

initially it was a shock and just trying to get things

straightened out and how it was going to roll out.

But once we got into it and, uh, setting

people up, knew what airports they were going to, it rolled

out pretty smoothly. We did have some airplanes that

wanted to go on Toronto or wanted to go to. Different

destinations, but we were told to have everyone

on the ground as soon as we can. So it was

very short discussions with people who wanted to go other words, other

ways. Uh, I had one near India, wanted to know if he

could go on to Toronto. I said, Negative, you must now land

Gander. And nothing else after

that. He just said, Roger, and

just end 6000ft fly heading three 10.

And that was it. I get them lined up for the runway.

Well, that's what it's like when air traffic control tells you what to

do. You're going to do it.

Yeah. It's not ATC suggests,

it's ATC clears. Uh, that's

right.

Now, another really interesting perspective I wanted to

get from you was the perspective on the ground in Gander.

Most Canadians, I think, are aware, or at least certainly we

were back then, that Gander took on an immense amount

of people who know you just mentioned that Air

India flight, so they were expecting to go to Toronto. Now they're in

Gander. So how many people ended up stuck in Gander?

Temporarily

6800. Uh, at that time we

had a population of about 9000, so it was pretty close to

doubling the size of the town.

Wow. So where did everybody stay?

Just, uh, about everywhere uh, you could think of. It

wasn't just Gander. It was all the communities

surrounding here. It was Lewisport and Glenwood and

Appleton and Gambo and Dover.

A, uh, whole bunch of communities ended up taking for

all these service groups. Legions

and Lions Clubs and, uh, all the

schools. That was one of the first things

when I, uh, finally got relieved and

came home. The call went out for

sleeping bags and air mattresses and things like that.

So I actually lost three sleeping bags.

Once everyone was gone, you didn't get anything back?

Yeah. And how

was that on the community? Was it tough or did everyone just come

together?

Well, as I say, Ganner being

an airport town, it has an emergency

plan in preparation for things like this.

And, uh, things went quite smoothly. The calls just went

out from, uh, like a local TV station. We had a

local Rogers cable, a local

production, and they just got on air. And you turn on

cable nine and they were just saying, okay, we

need sleeping bags at Gander

Academy or we need toilet paper at Gander

Collegiate. In two or 3 hours you would hear

the guy on the cable say, okay, stop bringing toilet paper

to Gander Collegiate. They've got enough.

So it was amazing for the community to pull together way we did.

But for the air traffic control part of it, we had

a busy three or 4 hours. And then we had five

days doing nothing. We actually turned our cafeteria

into, uh, takeout space. We cooked meals

for five days and delivered them to all the schools or all the service

buildings where people were being stayed.

Well, I suppose there was nothing going on. There was no one

flying.

It was crazy. The first and only time

in my 36 and a half years that there was not

a radar target in the sky.

That must have been kind of eerie.

Yeah, well, when you look at it, um, as I

finished up, we were looking probably 16

to 1800 flights a day going back and forth

across the ocean. So typically you have an

eastbound flow that airplanes, uh, start

heading overseas just around supper time, Newfoundland time,

and fly until around three or 04:00 in the morning. And

then eight to 09:00 in the morning, they're turnaround coming back

westbound and going to North America. So you're

getting m eight to 900 flights in each

flow.

That's wild. Yeah.

People don't realize how busy it is, but you get a

clear night here on the west coast of Newfoundland. Look up and all you can

see is ID, uh, lights.

Well, that's pretty much where all of the whether they're heading

to Gander or somewhere beyond. That's where

most of the tracks across the Atlantic, uh, cross.

The North Atlantic Track system is developed by the

Gander planners. So that's part of, uh,

a function of the oceanic control, uh, sector. So we're

actually two different area control centers. There's

Gander, uh, and there's, uh, Domestic and

oceanic, all in one building. We all work hand in hand

with each other, but it's considered two pieces of

airspace.

Uh, the last thing I wanted to ask you is what

changes did you see happen in the world of ATC after

911 specifically related to

procedures or security?

Uh, not a lot on our side of it. It's more

on the airport side through security. Our FAM

flight program got, uh, canceled every two years.

We used to be able to take a trip. We'd ride in the cockpit

and, uh, get familiar with pilot

procedures just for our own, uh, so we

knew on the ground what they were doing in the cockpit.

I've gone to Scotland and went to visit

Heathrow, flew across in their Canada

crew, watched the arrival in Heathrow,

watch all those airplanes around everywhere.

That's awesome. That's too bad that that ended up canceled.

Yeah, so that was one of the things that you weren't allowed in the

cockpit anymore. So the Fan flight program was basically put

on hold for that period.

So you didn't see any new emergency plans or

procedures that came into place?

Not really, because basically what we had worked so well,

I don't think it needed to be updated very much.

That's pretty impressive. Yeah, it's pretty

amazing that all of the emergency procedures set

up in Gander worked perfectly.

As perfectly as we, uh, would have expected them.

Under those circumstances. You didn't expect

6700 people to arrive in your town one

afternoon.

That's right.

And right now, the Broadway play

or the play Come From Away has

been playing here in Gander all, uh, summer.

It finishes up next week and there's been people

here from everywhere, all over the world.

Asia, Australia. It's crazy.

So the town has been full of, uh, strangers all

summer long as well. It's about what happened

here on 911.

It's a musical.

It's crazy. Who would ever thought that you could make a musical

about a disaster like that? But it

was based on the stories that this couple came,

uh, they came here on the 10th anniversary of

911 and interviewed, uh, as many people

as they could and they ended up

writing a musical about it. And it was on Broadway for

almost four years.

I think that's amazing.

It's pretty emotional when you go see it,

the way you see other people look at it.

I, uh, golf a lot, and I'm on the executive of the golf

course here. I was just out doing some

work one afternoon, I came up on beside number

14 green. There was a couple there and I hadn't seen them before, and I just

stopped and spoke to them. I said, how are you enjoying your allen? And

they said, it was great. I said, it's your first time here? Yeah. We come from North

Carolina. I said, oh, you must have come to see the play. He said,

yeah, we did. I said, well,

I was the approach controller Gadner on

911, and it was amazing. They just

came over and wanted to hug me and thank

us for everything we did. To us, it was much,

ah, ado about nothing because it's something.

Ah, we just took on that task and didn't give

it a second thought, but it seems people really

appreciated it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, think about the number

of aircraft that you safely

coordinated and got on the ground under

very extraordinary circumstances. And then when that

was done, the taking in of so many

strangers and treating them like family. It's very

east coast hospitality type of story, for

sure.

It worked like a charm.

Well, Bert, is there anything else you think I should ask you about?

You're obviously deal, uh, with military, uh,

aircraft, and we do here a

lot. We have a lot of, uh, aerospace reservations come through

here. We have a search and rescue squadron

here. There used to be a, uh, squadron in, uh,

Goosebe. I had some funny stories over the years.

There used to be a lot of German fighter pilots up there training

and from different countries. And I remember, uh,

I think it was a tornado. Declared emergency,

needed to get back to Goose Bay. Roger, us the nature

of your emergency. Had a bird strike, so

I got him cleared down to 7000ft, sent him over to Goose

Ratcon. After he had landed, the tower call me. He said,

what did that guy say was wrong? I said, he had a bird

strike. And the guy in the tower said, well, the bird must have been

sitting in a tree because he's got a piece of a spruce tree sticking

at the leading edge of his wing.

Oh, my gosh.

So there's just been some great experiences over the

year.

Okay, well, I think that wraps it up. I just want

to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to share

your experiences with us. And I want to thank you for the work you did that

day.

Oh, no problem.

My pleasure.

All right, that's going to wrap up our episode. Looking back and

remembering 911 from a Canadian perspective.

Did you know that the third Friday of every September is

Military Family Appreciation Day? There's no way we could

do this job without them. So for our next episode, we'll be sitting

down with a few of the spouses of pilots to gain their

perspective on what it's like to marry into the RCAF. Uh,

do you have any questions about anything you've heard in this episode or would

you or someone you know make a great guest on the show? You can reach out

to us at thepilotprojectpodcast at, uh@gmail.com,

or on all social media at

atpodpilotproject. As always, we'd like to thank

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Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See

you. Engineer

shut down all four shutting down all four engines.