APPELTON, N.L. - It’s been a quarter-century since New Yorker Tom McKeon was stranded and whisked off a grounded plane by school bus to a small community in central Newfoundland. Twenty-five years later, McKeon is crashing in the same basement, with the same family who hosted him for those few emotional and troubled days in Appleton — just as he’s done on his many visits back to the province, at host Derm and Dianne Flynn’s insistence. “I try to insist to Dianne that I want to get a hotel, I don’t want to impose,” McKeon said. “The first time we did that, I think I might have insulted them.” McKeon was one of the thousands of “plane people” who were stranded in Gander after American authorities shut down the country’s airspace following the Sept. 11 attacks. ‘We really love each other’ Derm Flynn — the then mayor of Appleton — was one of many in the town and the region that opened their homes to the stranded travellers in the days after they arrived. “I, as mayor, made the decision because people were asking me,” Flynn recalls. “They were saying, ‘Derm, how come there’s people staying, sleeping on the floor? I’ve got two bedrooms at my house!’” So, McKeon spent a first sleepless night at Appleton’s small-town hall. For the second, he was invited — by either Derm or Dianne — to stay at the mayor’s house, along with five of the other “plane people” who were stuck in the community. Among the chaos of that second day, the Flynns found a small moment of respite with their new guests – a moment that sparked a friendship that lasts to this day. “We got back here to this room,” McKeon said from the Flynns’ basement bar. “Derm said, I think it’s time we had a drink.” “I think he was sorry about that, because he had probably one, and then all of his guests drank him dry.” The relationship between the two men only grew — McKeon was so moved by the kindness that he came back to visit the community again in the spring of 2002. The Flynns even travelled to New York to visit and would call to mark milestones, births and deaths in their families. “We really love each other. We’ve been part of each other’s lives since that day.” Nearly 7,000 people on 38 planes were diverted to Gander in the morning of 9/11, the first arriving minutes after American officials shut down their airspace. ‘My life was changed’ In response, Gander and surrounding communities launched an ad-hoc hosting campaign — finding places for passengers to sleep, eat and call home. The “plane people,” as they are still called, dwarfed the region’s hotel and restaurant capacity. “The second question wasn’t asked, ‘can you feed them?’ or ‘how are you going to feed them?’ or that sort of thing,” Mac Moss remembers. Moss was an administrator at the College of the North Atlantic in Gander when hundreds of “plane people” showed up at his door. “It was just, ‘will you take care of them?’ and everybody said they would, of course.” Among them was Kevin Tuerff, who was diverted to Gander while travelling from Paris to New York City. “My life was changed by the amazing compassion of the people who volunteered to help every single one of us who needed food, clothing, shelter,” Tuerff said. In response, he started the non-profit organization Pay It Forward 9/11, which encourages further small acts of kindness to “pay forward” the kindness shown in 2001, and to honour those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. “I’ve been telling this story to anybody that will listen,” Tuerff said. “This is my second full-time job that I don’t get paid for, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” Hundreds stayed at churches, community halls and school gyms across central Newfoundland — in towns like Gander, Lewisporte, Gambo, Appleton and Glenwood. More planes landed in other Atlantic airports. “Here we were being treated like spa guests, you know, having hot showers, having cruise-ship type meals available to us at all times,” McKeon said. “Having new friends who were willing to be our grief counsellors.” “So I see the friendship beginning kind of right away on the 12th.” Alongside Friday’s remembrance ceremony, Gander and other Newfoundland communities are also hosting dozens of small reunions —just like the one between McKeon and Flynn, and Moss and Tuerff. “The family relationship is growing,” Flynn said “It’s continued on right to this day.”
