Positioned toward the end of the line, they waited close to eleven hours before disembarking, all the while with ambulances and buses speeding up and down the tarmac. In total, more than 8,000 airline passengers would be detained.

Dozens of planes enroute to the U.S. were diverted to Halifax International Airport, where they remained lined up for hours.

The view from Karen’s and Linda’s plane as they waited.

“We finally got to first in line and were able to get off the plane,” notes Seid, who joined EAW as PR director several months prior. “It was absolutely surreal – we walked under and around huge jetliners illuminated by searchlights, passing a row of armed guards on the way to the terminal. We were processed through customs and told to proceed directly to our bus, do not pass ‘go’ and collect $200, just get to the bus.”

“They must have commandeered every bus in Halifax – transit buses, school buses, private buses, mini buses – you name it,” Anderson adds. “Our group of passengers was kept together and herded on to a school bus. Some of the more industrious ones had made reservations at local hotels and also had tried to rent cars, thinking they might be able to drive home.”

The barracks at Camp Aldershot that became temporary homes for stranded passengers.

Off the group went into the chilly Nova Scotia night for a two-hour ride to Camp Aldershot, a Canadian Army Reserve Training Camp next to the town of Kentville. Close to 800 passengers were decamped here, what Anderson estimates as the last four to five plane loads in line.

Arriving at the camp around 4 am, they were shown to the barracks and told to “pick your bunk”. They still had only sketchy images of the attack, let alone having seen none of the shocking images on television.

“We hadn’t had the ‘luxury’- for lack of a better term - to see it unfold piece by piece on TV like most everyone else at home,” Seid offers. “When we finally found a TV in the officer’s quarters and turned on CNN, we got slapped by the whole thing at once, the planes, the fire, the explosions…”