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Conflict11 September 2001

Closing the American Sky

Also called: Operation Yellow Ribbon

On 11 September 2001 the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered every plane in the sky to land at the nearest airport. Some 200 transatlantic flights were diverted to Canada — 38 of them to the small Newfoundland town of Gander.

When the second plane hit the south tower, the FAA stopped all take-offs from US airports, and at 9:45 a.m. it ordered every aircraft in the air to land at the nearest airport — the first time in American history. Nearly 4,500 planes were on the ground within a little over two hours.

International flights bound for the United States were sent to Canada (“Operation Yellow Ribbon”); more than 200 airliners landed at Canadian airports. Gander, a town of some 10,000 on the island of Newfoundland, took in 38 planes and more than 6,500 people. Its residents opened schools and churches and fed and housed the strangers for days.

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The map in 2001

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States and rulers at the time
United States — President George W. Bush
Canada
Places
Gander International Airport

Before and after

Earlier
2001 American Airlines Flight 77
Later
2001 Collapse of the World Trade Center

Themes that include this event

  • The September 11 Attacks1988 – 2014

    Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the four airliners hijacked on the morning of 11 September 2001 and the fall of the twin towers, the closing of the American sky, twenty years of war in Afghanistan and the death of bin Laden, and the memorial pools in the towers’ footprints