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 you for all the growth we've been experiencing, and we still need your help with the big three that's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See
you. Engineer shut down all four shutting down all four engines.