Halifax Stanfield International Airport

So they tell Moncton ATC that they have smoke in the cockpit and they need to divert to a closer airport.

And Moncton ATC immediately offers them Halifax International Airport in Nova Scotia.

Which makes sense geographically.

It does.

Swimming in the lake when a Swiss Air flight crashed.

landed, which was unusual for Halifax Airport.

And we realized, all of us in the water, we were all adults, thinking, okay, that's actually the families of the Swiss Air disaster victims.

That is so sad.

When we look at it, Transport Canada and Nav Canada, the country's air navigation service provider here in Canada, made a decision within hours.

Flights that couldn't reach the United States would be redirected to Canadian airports from Vancouver to Halifax and everywhere in between.

It was the beginning of what became known as Operation Yellow Ribbon.

When we look at this, we explore how small Canadian communities, some with barely more residents than the number of passengers landing on their runways, they opened their homes, their schools, their hockey rinks to total strangers.

Transport Canada says that 224 flights carrying 33,000 passengers landed on Canadian soil, while Nav Canada says 238 planes landed.

Flights originating from Asia were diverted to Vancouver and other airports in Western Canada, while planes on the busy transatlantic route were diverted to airports in Atlantic Canada.

Halifax International Airport received the largest number of flights, and that was 47 planes carrying more than 7,000 passengers, while, as I said earlier, Vancouver International Airport received the highest number of passengers.

Only 34 planes, but 8,500 passengers.

The pilots contacted air traffic control, and they needed to land.

The closest major airport was Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

So the pilots turned towards Nova Scotia.

But the situation, it was getting worse very quickly.