RY 776 Stories 3 September 2026 34 reads

Where Were You on 9/11?

A Lead Station Attendant’s Memories of the Day Pearson Airport Stood Still

September 11, 2001.

There are certain days in your life that you will remember forever.

You remember where you were, who you were with, what you were doing—and sometimes, you can even remember exactly what you were thinking when you realized that the world had suddenly changed.

For me, that day was September 11, 2001, and I was at Toronto Pearson Airport, working as a Lead Station Attendant.

It started out like any other day.

The airport was operating normally. Aircraft were arriving and departing, ramp crews were doing their jobs, baggage was moving, and the usual hustle and bustle of Pearson was underway.

Nothing seemed unusual.

I remember completing a couple of flights and then heading into the crew room. By that time, several of the employees had gathered around the television.

Something terrible had happened in New York.

We watched the live coverage as the news reported that a jet had crashed into the World Trade Center.

At first, there was confusion.

Was it an accident?

How could a commercial jet have crashed into one of the towers?

We stood there watching the television, trying to understand what we were seeing.

Then suddenly, another airplane appeared on the television screen.

We watched as it crashed directly into the second tower.

For a moment, nobody said anything.

We just stared at the television.

That was the moment we all knew.

This wasn’t an accident.

Someone had attacked the United States.

And we were standing inside one of the world’s major international airports.

Everything changed almost immediately.

Pearson began shutting down.

Flights stopped departing.

The normal sounds of the airport seemed to disappear. Aircraft that were supposed to be leaving weren’t going anywhere. Gates became occupied by airplanes that suddenly had nowhere to go.

And then we received word that there were still airplanes in the air.

Those aircraft had been flying toward Toronto when the attacks happened and the American airspace was shut down.

Now they were being diverted to Pearson.

As a Lead Station Attendant, this was where the job suddenly became something completely different.

We had a job to do.

One by one, the aircraft began arriving.

They circled over the Toronto area before being cleared to land, and eventually they started touching down at Pearson.

Our job was to get them parked safely and deal with whatever came next.

The unusual thing was that some of these aircraft were types of airplanes I had never been trained on.

Normally, you know what equipment you’re dealing with. You know the aircraft. You know the procedures. You know where everything is supposed to go.

But this wasn’t a normal day.

We had airplanes arriving that weren’t supposed to be there, carrying passengers who weren’t supposed to be in Toronto.

There was no time to stand around and say, “I’ve never worked on that airplane before.”

We had to figure it out.

We worked together.

We watched what needed to be done, communicated with one another and used the experience we had gained over the years working around aircraft.

We improvised.

Aircraft were parked one after another.

Passengers began coming off the airplanes.

Thousands of people suddenly found themselves in a city they had never planned to visit, with no idea when they would be able to continue their journey.

Pearson had essentially become a refuge for stranded passengers.

And while all of this was happening, we were still doing our jobs.

As Lead Station Attendants, we were trying to keep the operation organized. We had to coordinate with crews, deal with aircraft, assist wherever we could and make sure things continued to move as smoothly as possible.

But underneath all of that, there was something else.

Fear.

We didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Were there going to be more attacks?

Was Pearson safe?

Were more airplanes going to be diverted?

Nobody had the answers.

And yet the people working on the ramp still had to go outside and do their jobs.

I remember looking around Pearson and realizing how strange everything had become.

An airport that was normally filled with the constant movement of airplanes had suddenly become almost eerily quiet.

Aircraft were parked everywhere.

There were no normal departures.

No routine schedule.

No sense of when things would return to normal.

For someone who had spent years working around airplanes, it was an unforgettable sight.

An airport full of airplanes—but hardly any of them moving.

Eventually, we began to understand just how serious the situation was.

The images on television were horrifying.

The two towers burning.

People running through the streets.

The smoke.

The devastation.

And then the realization that hundreds of people on those airplanes had simply been going to work, visiting family or travelling somewhere—just like passengers did every day at Pearson.

Nobody expected that morning to become history.

But it did.

September 11 also changed our jobs forever.

The aviation industry would never be the same.

Security procedures changed. Access to restricted areas changed. The way passengers travelled changed. The way airport employees looked at airplanes and security changed.

The innocence of aviation was gone.

Before 9/11, when you saw an airplane coming toward the gate, you thought about the work that needed to be done.

After 9/11, you couldn’t help but think about what had happened.

But perhaps the greatest lesson that day taught me was about the people who worked at Pearson.

When everything went wrong, people stepped up.

Ramp attendants, Lead Station Attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, customer service employees, security personnel, airline crews, airport workers and countless others all came together.

Nobody cared what department you belonged to.

Nobody cared whose job it technically was.

There were airplanes that needed to be parked.

There were passengers who needed help.

There was an airport that suddenly had to deal with an unprecedented situation.

So we did what airport people have always done.

We went to work.

We figured it out.

We helped each other.

And we got the job done.

Years have passed since that September morning, but I can still picture that crew room.

I can still see everyone gathered around the television.