This year marks 25 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, Cathy Weimer was flying home to Indianapolis from London. But her plane made an emergency landing in Newfoundland, Canada, where she would be stuck for the next five days. Weimer shared her story with Mirror Indy before she headed back to Canada for the first time since 9/11 to reunite with other passengers. Listen below.
Read the transcript here
Hi, I’m Sophie Young with Mirror Indy. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I talked to an Indianapolis woman with an incredible story.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Cathy Weimer was halfway home from London, sitting in an aisle seat on a plane 39,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. She was 36 years old, a mom of two and the owner of a successful medical transcription business in Indianapolis.
She was watching “Bridget Jones’s Diary” on her flight to Chicago when she heard what sounded like landing gear being lowered.
She switched the screen on the back of her seat from the movie to the map. It showed that the plane had dropped 10,000 feet in altitude in a matter of minutes. That’s when the pilot came over the intercom to make an announcement.
Weimer: “‘Just so you know, we have healthy aircraft, but airspace in the United States has been closed.’ And the gentleman sitting beside me was a firefighter in Seattle at the time, and he kind of started to panic a little bit, and he said, ‘This has never happened. Not even during the war. This has never happened. Something big is going on.’”
The first of two planes had hit the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York City during a terrorist attack. Weimer and the other passengers on United Airlines flight 929 didn’t know that yet. The pilot said they were going to make an emergency landing in Gander, a town in Newfoundland, Canada. She felt the blood drain from her face and hands.
Weimer: “So we’re watching jet fuel come out the wings because our plane was too heavy to land… we’re getting closer and closer to the ocean because if you look at where we landed in Gander, it is a little bit of a peninsula that you don’t see land until you’re almost on the runway, so it was terrifying.”
The plane landed safely in Gander. But it would be 25 hours before the 200 passengers could get off the plane. And they wouldn’t be able to go home for another five days. Weimer kept a journal the whole time.
Before she knew what had happened, she wrote, “I was worried. Speculation of nuclear war, military strikes, total devastation crossed my mind. What could possibly be happening?”
The first thing she thought about was her kids, Jessica and Jake. They were at home in Indianapolis with her in-laws. A week prior, Weimer and her husband Matt had flown to London, where they did all the touristy things — Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye. Matt worked for Rolls-Royce, and the company was about to move the family out to the United Kingdom for two years. He stayed in London for meetings.
Weimer didn’t have her cellphone, because she’d left it with her in-laws. That’s the number the school knew to call if there was an emergency. Now, she had no way to tell her husband or kids that she was stuck in Canada.
On the ground, there were rows of planes on the tarmac wherever they could fit. Her plane was the 27th one to land in Gander. More than 30 planes landed at Gander that day, and there was one set of stairs to help passengers off the planes.
Weimer: “So you had to wait in line for the stairs to come to your plane. So by the time we got off, I’m pretty sure it was like the next day.”
After the landing, the plane’s air conditioning broke. It was 84 degrees in Newfoundland. Flight attendants opened the side door, which had a long drop off to the tarmac below, just to get some air moving while they sat, waiting.
Weimer had checked her bag, so all she had was the clothes she wore and a backpack with a granola bar.
Weimer: “So they ran out of water. They ran out of you know any kind of like snack bars or anything. The lavatories couldn’t be serviced, so they were saying, ‘You know if you don’t have to use the restroom, you know try not to because it was going to get backed up and be really nasty.’”
The pilot put the BBC broadcast on the loudspeaker, so the passengers could hear the news from New York City.
Weimer: “Before you knew there was something that was really awful, you felt it. You just felt a difference, so and I can’t even explain it.”
The passengers learned that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center’s South Tower. They listened to news reports of a plane flying into the Pentagon and another crashing into an empty field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in these attacks.
Weimer wrote in her journal: “All I could do was put my hands over my mouth and shake my head. It just couldn’t be real.”
Weimer: “Flight attendants would come through, and you could tell they just had been crying … I think they had served us a meal because I distinctly remember them coming around and taking — even if you weren’t done eating — they were taking all of your trays and making sure they were counting silverware. And, you know it’s like later you get that it could be a weapon.”
It was nighttime now, and most people on the plane were trying to sleep or listening to the radio broadcast. But Weimer was determined to reach her kids. There was a phone at the back of the plane, and she’d heard that someone had gotten a line out.
Weimer: “I just kept dialing and dialing, redialing, and it didn’t work … I would try for like 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and then somebody would come to try to use the phone. So I’d let them. I’d go back and sit down, and then I’d try again.”
Weimer: “And eventually, after a few times, it rang, and it was middle of the night, I’m sure. And my mother-in-law picked up, and I was able to tell her where I was. I was fine, you know. ‘Can you call my mom? Can you call my husband? You know, can you let people know that I’m fine? Here’s where I’m at.’ … I never got to talk to my husband.”
After dawn broke, they learned that they were finally getting off the plane. So many “plane people”, as they would later become known, were staying in Gander, that the town of about 10,000 residents was out of room.
When they got off the plane, they had to go through customs. They lined up at a row of long tables, where Canadian airport staff apologized for having to go through each bag. There were tables of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Subway to grab. Weimer took a sub to go.
They were going to stay in Gambo, a village about 30 miles away. School bus drivers came back from the strike they were on that week to drive Weimer’s group.
She watched the dense trees, rivers and a rocky shoreline flashing by out the windows. They stopped at a Salvation Army, where she would sleep on a church pew for the next five days with her pillow from the plane and a blanket that someone from the village gave her.
Weimer: “It’s a tiny little fishing village, and these people don’t have a lot. You know, the fishing industry at that time had kind of dried up a little bit. But they brought in food. Elderly passengers or handicapped people, they were taking to their homes, letting them sleep in a spare bedroom or on a couch. Truly, like the kindest people. It was really something to see the amount of like just people that pitched in.”
Even now, 25 years later, that kindness is what sticks in Weimer’s memory. She keeps a plastic tote full of memories from Gambo, including a shirt volunteers at the Salvation Army gave her. The people of Gambo set up shifts to wash dishes, prepare food and clean bathrooms at the church. They had people there 24 hours a day.
They rolled in TVs to put on the news. They even installed a new phone line at the church, so everyone could line up to call home.
A few days in, when the church was hosting a funeral, the people mourning their loved one stopped to say sorry to all the “plane people” for making them move from their makeshift sleeping quarters.
Another passenger on Weimer’s plane, Julian Dawson, chronicled their experience in a song. It captures the details of the Canadians’ kindness and how hard it is to sleep with 200 other passengers snoring in the sanctuary. Each night, he’d pick up a guitar and sing it.
Here’s Weimer reading some of the lyrics of “Waiting for a Plane.”
Weimer: “All along the waterfront/ Waiting for a plane/ A 1,000 miles away from home/ We should be plum insane/ But our plates are never empty/ Lord they’re feeding us again/ A 1,000 miles away from home/ and waiting for a plane”
Weimer: “We’re sleeping in a church here/ Like we’ve never done before/ We’re stretched on cots and benches/ some sleeping on the floor/ We’re aiming for the Guinness book for the all-time loudest snore.”
After five days, the school bus drivers returned to pick up Weimer and the others for their flight to Chicago. But watching TV news reports of the planes hitting the towers again and again left Weimer terrified to fly again.
When she was on the phone with her mother-in-law, she asked her to reach out to a doctor for a prescription to help with her anxiety. She filled it at a Canadian pharmacy for 49 cents. She never used it, but she knew it was there, just in case.
Her husband Matt made it back to Indianapolis before her. He drove to Chicago to pick up her and the handful of other passengers from Indianapolis that had been on the flight.
Weimer: “You know, it was really cool when we landed in Chicago. We were one of the last planes in, and all of the baggage handlers were … I get choked up. Sorry, I haven’t talked about this in a while … But they were all lining the way in with flags.”
Weimer is 61 now, and her third grandchild was just born. On Sept. 9, she boarded a plane to return to Gander and Gambo for the first time in 25 years. She’s bringing her husband, Matt, to show him the airport, the beautiful Canadian terrain and the Salvation Army where she slept.
Weimer: “I think when we drive up to the Salvation Army, we’ll be like the big ‘wow.’ It, you know, it’s been 25 years since I’ve been here, but I think it’ll be more happy than hard. I also like I said I don’t want the story to get forgotten, and it’s important.”
They’ll go to a ceremony on Sept. 11 and watch a performance of “Come From Away,” a musical based on stories like Weimer’s, of the 7,000 “plane people” who were stranded in Canada.
At the end of the journal Weimer kept of her experience from Sept. 11 to Sept. 16, she remembers the moment she returned to Indianapolis.
“The kids were out riding their bicycles and had made huge signs that hung across the garage doors – “WELCOME HOME MOM!” There was one for Matt, too!
“It was so wonderful to be home again, but I hoped that I would never lose that feeling of generosity that I felt for five days in Gambo!”
Read excerpts from Cathy Weimer’s journal
Sept. 12, 2001
“After freshening up as best I could in the bathroom, I entered the darkened sanctuary. There were stretchers and suitcases everywhere. It was like a maze trying to get through without stepping on someone. I couldn’t believe the snoring!! It sounded like a cattle barn!! As soon as people started sitting on the cots, the fabric against the metal frame made a sound that could only be described as a “passing gas” sound. I got my pillow and blanket situated and laid my head down. After a few seconds, as if on command, Linda (two pews up) and I sat up and just started laughing out loud. Then we heard other chuckling and a few interesting comments. Finally everyone settled down for our first night in the Salvation Army sanctuary.”
Sept. 13, 2001
“I couldn’t get over the generosity of the people in this amazing small town. They really opened their hearts to all of us. I heard that the small grocery store next door to the church had employees showing up to help without pay. The local pharmacists were working 12 hour days and were filling prescriptions for passengers and only charging the cost of the medication. Delivery trucks from local (and some not local) bakeries could be seen constantly running back and forth through town. Everyone pulled together!”
Sept. 15, 2001
“A really nice dinner was being prepared for us for our ‘last supper’ together. While the fellowship hall was being transformed again from gathering place to dining hall, I walked outside to get some much-needed fresh air. It had stopped raining and straight ahead of me was the end of an incredible, full double rainbow. We could see the whole thing and the end of it was just across the valley. It was almost close enough to touch. It was our sign. God was telling us that we had served our purpose and it was time to go home.”
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Sophie Young
Five days in Gambo: A Hoosier’s journal takes us inside 9/11 history