Come From Away- Untold Story: Karen Voskanian

karen buscanyon has a story from i guess a very different point of view that of flight crew karen was here 20 years ago tomorrow karen hi good evening i'm karen foskanyan i was a working crew member on september 11th 2001 today i am reunited with two of my crew members although one's missing pam and aggie it's our extreme pleasure to be here with you tonight um just a little bit about me i'm a proud flight attendant i'm a i'm a wife i'm a mom i'm even a lady shriner but my favorite title of all is being a screeched in new field september 11th for most of us started off as a normal day we were working a flight from london to houston and we had a great crew and we had a light load so today was going to be easy our flight had been airborne for approxim approximately two and a half hours when we were briefed about the world trade center attacks our captain informed us that u.s airspace had been closed and that we were awaiting instructions on a place to land he told us that when plans were in place that he would inform the passengers we were also instructed to [Music] to inspect the cabin for suspicious activities our crew was so professional all of our years of training took over and we were all calm and collected after what seemed to be an eternity the captain did an all-crew call and told us we were cleared for landing here in gander as we strapped ourselves into our jump seats our captain announced over the pa american air space has been closed we're landing in canada i will update you when we're on the ground understandably the passengers were quite anxious upon landing we looked out of the aircraft windows and we saw plane after plane parked on this tarmac it was apparent that this was no longer an easy or a normal day as promised our captain informed the passengers of the terror attacks on american soil he also stated as you can tell by the crowded runway here we're probably going to be on board for a while headed to houston that day we had a large group of oil men on our flight and one by one someone would come to the back galley for a drink very very innocently one drink became two two became three and so on and so forth people felt the need to bond as people gathered in the back galley if they weren't already friends they soon were in 2001 not many people owned cell phones and if so it wasn't possible to charge them on the aircraft we had one passenger that had a full charge and starting with the crew he offered everyone on that plane to use his phone we were very conservative with our time knowing that the phone was going to eventually die and we wanted as many people as possible to use it in adversity many people resort revert to them their true selves one of our passengers who obviously wasn't using his phone connection or sharing said my meeting in houston has now been cancelled so i'd like to fly back to london immediately and while we were passing out sandwiches from cardboard boxes some of the sandwiches some of you folks here probably made one of my passengers said i ordered the vegetarian meal so of course being the trained professionals that we are we somehow accommodated him after about 10 hours on the runway we were told that it would be at least 10 more because people were being shipped in to process us it was then that we encouraged our party scene in the back galley to take a break and get some rest throughout the day we would look out the windows and see the lines of cars parked along the road and um y'all were looking at us i i can only imagine what your view was like 29 hours and 50 minutes into our duty day we were told it was finally our turn to deplane we had a group of passengers come to the back galley and say we don't want to get off we know what it's like here we don't know what it's like out there again being trained professionals we encourage them that it would be okay it was extremely surreal finally deplaning and being processed by the custom officials the setup in this terminal was amazing and the map on the wall which i believe was here that said you are here was extremely appreciated even by us seasoned travelers it was late afternoon on the 12th of september when we arrived at the hotel gander because there was no television coverage or internet this was the first time that we actually witnessed the horrific events that had taken place in new york i know no one here will ever forget where they were that moment in time during our stay we coordinated with the red cross to visit our passengers they had they had thought we had left them our passengers were accommodated at the fire hall in gambo when we walked in the fire hall we saw caught after cot lined up it was a very very impressive it was also spaghetti night the gentleman that let us use his cell phone was just finishing us dinner and said if we stay here much longer i'm not going to fit into the one outfit i have to fly home in quite a few of our passengers were not present at the fire hall we were told that they were at a bar when the red cross driver heard this he immediately said oh i know where they're at they're at the trailways i'll take you there never in my life did i think the red cross would take me to a bar at the trailways we saw several of our passengers and it was really special to reconnect with them off of the airplane we also had a beatles tribute band on board it was told to us that they had performed at the trailways the night before and they sang hard days night and dedicated it to the crew every day we were well taken care of and almost uh [Music] and and we had almost nightly visits for at the bar for mayor claude elliott where are you claude he did his best to keep us all updated with the current situation like most other plane people we walked to walmart we couldn't make it half a block before somebody was offering us a ride a key to their car or an invite to dinner apparently adopting an airplane person was a popular thing that locals did to help out one of our passengers shared a story about being adopted at the trailways he said instead of being driven back to the host home he was he was canoed there i don't know many places in the world that you can adopt a tall englishman and canoeing home what a terrific open door policy one night at legends we met an air traffic controller he asked if we were playing people and if so which flight when i told him continental five he said with tears in his eyes i have spoken to continental flight five for 10 years and i have never seen a face he hugged me so hard i thought i was going to break in too it was september 15th before we were allowed to reboard our flight we were sad to leave yet we wanted to be home i i remember feeling guilt for having such a wonderful time here in gander especially while our country and so many people were hurt and suffering and our world had certainly changed as people settled back on the plane marion one of our co-workers noticed nick and diane she said karen i think some of our passengers hooked up and as you know hooked up they did marion and i reminisced over this in a recent phone conversation we laughed about the hot towel cold tell scene and come from away we both claimed to be that girl so once and for all i will settle this we both said it but i said it first our passengers were happy to go home but also had the same bittersweet thoughts of leaving all of you behind they told us story after story of their wonderful experiences here and all their new friendships as we touched down in houston texas cheers and tears of joy were expressed by all a fitting into our story are the these beautiful words written by kim pham one of our fellow crew members sorry gander you nourished the hungry you sheltered the displaced you guided the lost you warmed our souls you stole our hearts and you and we are forever grateful to you thank you thank you

Channel: Come From Away

Views: 38,000

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Id: Kk0zccFHkgg

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021