Not sure if anyone finds this interesting, but I do.
I want to preface this by saying I was born after the tragic events and that I was also born in Canada. Recently, I spoke to my father who was a pilot during the 9/11 attacks. He has been a airline pilot since 2004, however before that he was a bush plane pilot, flying police officers and government officials up to Native American reserves in Northern Ontario.
I asked him if he recalls the day of September 11, 2001. He said he does and he was in fact working that day when he was flying a bunch of officers up to Duck Lake (I believe) he was radioed by Air Traffic control and they stated that the World Trade Centre is in New York have been attacked and that all aircraft’s in North American airspace were ordered to land and be grounded for the foreseeable future.
He did as he was told and landed his plane at Duck Lake where he was able to drop off his crew. However he was instructed by someone who caught ear of the fact since he was flying government hired individuals, he was permitted to use the airspace.
my father took off and went to fly to Bear Lake (I believe,) another lake in Northern Ontario. He got radioed by an American Air Traffic control which never happens considering his line of work rarely crossed the border. The man on the radio stated “GrizzlyBear-(call sign I can’t remember), I hope you know that you are the only other aircraft that is permitted to fly in the entirety of North America Right Now.”
He said the feeling of seeing an empty radar and completely empty airspace as far as he could see was surreal. He’s always had a way with words, and he said it felt like the sky was grieving. He’s never experienced an eerie feeling like he felt the day that North American aviation fell silent.
Of course everyone knows that the only other plane permitted to fly other than military planes was an aircraft delivering medicine to a man that was bitten by a snake. However I cannot find any records of my father’s plane in any logs. Then again I’m not good with archives and all that jazz. He said he was asked a few questions by a guy that posted a blog post or something on a forum page however I couldn’t find that either. It’d be cool to see some sort of record of my fathers plane flying that day so if anyone could find anything that would be sweet.
If not I hope you enjoyed this little story of how it felt to be a pilot that day.