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[0:00] Lauren Van Hemert: Hi everybody, I'm Lauren Van Hemert, and this is Beltline to Broadway, where we talk about the theater from inside the Belt Line in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I am, to the bright lights of Broadway and beyond.

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[0:42] Lauren Van Hemert: On the morning of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration shut down U.S. airspace, forcing 4,000 planes to land immediately. 38 of those planes containing 7,000 passengers landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a small town with a population at the time of about 9,000. The events that happened in Gander in the days following 9/11 inspired the musical Come From Away, and the characters in that show are based on interviews with real people, including the character Kevin T. kevin tuerff was on the second plane to land in Gander on 9/11. He was traveling with his partner from Paris to the United States when their Air France flight was diverted to Newfoundland. And that's where my conversation with the real Kevin T begins.

[1:47] kevin tuerff: Well, we were flying, we had been flying several hours, I think four or five hours across the North Atlantic, heading west into New York City, which is our destination where we were going to transfer our Air France flight to a Continental Airlines flight directly to Austin, Texas, which is where Kevin and I live. And um at some point I did notice that we were descending rather quickly. And I knew from looking at the GPS map uh which they had uh on the screen uh on the ceiling that we were nowhere near land and so it was a bit strange and we started descending and then took a sharp turn to the right and I looked up and we were headed north and uh wow, we're looks like we're flying to the North Pole all of a sudden.

Because we're on Air France, the map switched between English and French, so I could see the island of Newfoundland that was there and it would in French Newfoundland is Terre Neuf, N E U V E. And so when the pilot came on the PA and spoke first in French, but said the word terrorism, I really stopped and I looked at Kevin, I said, Did he just say terrorism? And Kevin didn't wasn't paying attention, so he didn't know. Uh so looked back at the map and I thought, No, he just said terre neuves is what he said. But then it was a couple of minutes later, and in broken English, that's when he said, due to a terrorist attack in the United States, we'll be landing in Gander. And that was about it. And so, you know, you can imagine it's a million questions go through your mind.

Now you land in Gander, your Air France flight is the second out of thirty-eight planes to land in Gander, and after a few hours on the ground, you start scribbling on a menu and you wrote, The world has changed today for the worse. What information did you have at that point to indicate that the world had really changed?

[3:50] kevin tuerff: That I wrote that about five PM. So of course the attacks began early in the morning and you know, after we landed, I think it may have been ten thirty AM, eleven o'clock Newfoundland time somewhere in there. And so after after a while, you know, the captain said, Well, the airspace is still closed, but we're gonna try to get you closer to the United States. We're gonna try to fly to Ottawa or Toronto or something, Montreal. And then that was so that was all we had for another couple hours. And so I don't know exactly what time, but it was definitely the afternoon when the pilot uh the World Trade Center was hit by airplanes and it collapsed and the Pentagon was attacked and you know there were audible gasps and people crying and it just it seemed completely impossible.

In fact my partner Kevin was adamant that it was impossible because he remembered that there had been a plane hit the um Empire State Building in the nineteen thirties, which I I had never heard of and he said that it was just fine. So he said that's just it's a lie. It's not true. And so because none of us could verify there was no Google, there was no Wi Fi, no to anything to verify what the pilot said was true, we didn't know and finally I I I tried and tried and tried to reach my family I had an office in Austin, Texas and I knew my parents would be very worried in Nashville, Tennessee 'cause they my mom always tracks my flights and uh I knew they knew I was coming into New York that morning.

There were phones in the back of the first class seats that you could try to use with a credit card swipe. There was a man who had an empty seat next to him and I said, Do you mind if I try the phone? He said sure so I sat there and tried over and over and over it was just all circuits were busy. And finally it occurred to me maybe everybody in America's trying they're blocking you know, just too much traffic, so I thought I'm gonna try calling the other direction. So I went back to first class and I tried calling my friend Todd who we had just visited in Amsterdam. He answered the phone, I said, Todd is it true? And he said, Yes, I'm watching it right now. It's awful. You know, we didn't talk very long, but the the my main objective was I need you to do me a favor. I need you to call my office and I need you to call my parents and tell them where I am. But then I went back to my seat and I just announced to anybody within earshot, guess what? It's true.

[6:22] Lauren Van Hemert: How long were you on the plane and what was the overall mood of the passengers during all those hours?

[6:33] kevin tuerff: It was actually really quiet. We were the total time for us was about fifteen hours on the tarmac, more than twenty from the time we boarded and you know, they kept the air conditioning running, they kept replaying movies about Shrek for the second or third time, you know, it just it was weird, you know, that they did keep the drinks flowing and so we had we had several cocktails by the time we were finally allowed off around eight eight thirty at night, nine o'clock. From your video footage, I think it was your video footage, it's now nighttime in Gander and it looks like there's this cavalry of school buses now coming towards the plane. And it sounds like you were hit with that kindness and hospitality almost the minute you deplane. So what happens when you get off the plane and you get into the airport?

[7:33] kevin tuerff: I'm not probably not the only person that saw a line of lights coming at us, but that I think my footage definitely demonstrated that 'cause I was like, what is that? What are what are these lights coming down the runway? And it's like, aha they're gonna they're gonna take us somewhere on school buses, but we didn't know where. Then they finally say, Take everything. You can't take your luggage, but take everything and you have in your overhead compartment and for us that was my brand new Sony video camera and Kevin's two bottles of Grey Goose vodka that he had purchased at the duty free shop. And so the line, you know, thank God we stopped at the duty free that's a real thing. Uh he loved Grey Goose vodka and it says the product of France on the label, but they don't sell vodka in France, they just drink wine and so he was so happy when he bought those bottles of vodka.

And I will just say four days later when we finally got back on the plane that we did not have any vodka to bring out of Newfoundland. It was gone. But anyway, so we walked into the terminal and as I say in the book, it's as if we walked into a party. There's food everywhere and volunteers everywhere and and I was just choked up and I c I could see this is why we had to wait so long because they had to get mobilized. Nobody expects to have seven thousand people coming unexpectedly and so by the time we were off the plane it was very well organized and they had thought of everything. I did make make a beeline to the payphone which they had in the they still actually had in the terminal and I called my parents collect and they answered the phone and I started crying and they started crying and but I knew I was safe but I I was the one who actually I said, I think I'm in Iceland or Nova Scotia and no, no, we know we've been tracking you we know you're in Newfoundland.

So I was one of the last people to get to use that uh out of that pay phone because they did put up a fake out of order sign on the pay phone because they they were tapping me on the shoulder saying like hang up, the bus is leaving. We need you to go So I was I just told my parents I'm sorry I they're making us leave but I'm fine, I love you. Bye. But then we get on the school bus and we're if they had taken us down sort of the main street in Gander, I would have had a different reaction than what we did. They took the other route which is on the highway, the Trans Canada Highway, which is straight through a forest and so it was a little scary, not too bad. The drive wasn't very long but we pulled up to this community college and all right, out you go and so we walked in with our bottles of Grey Goose and a camera and there was yet another party.

There were they had set up more food inside the cafeteria and they had television there set up because they knew that we wanted to see what was going on. And that was the first time we saw the images was more than twelve hours after they happened. And I I'm sure the reaction I mean the collective you're with an international group of people because it's not just Americans on that flight.

[10:50] kevin tuerff: Right. No there we yeah, our plane alone had thirty countries on it. Yeah, and but but a collective stun. I mean people glued to the television and silent and shock. It's it just looks of shock and horror on everybody, no matter where you were from. You got there on the eleventh, so this is the evening of September eleventh. You leave on the fourteenth, which we'll talk about in a second, but in those few days you begin to form relationships with the people in Gander. So can you tell me about some of those relationships including your friendship with Mac and Nelly Moss?

[11:32] kevin tuerff: Well yeah, Mac and Ellie Moss are are now very dear friends. They came to visit me in Texas really only maybe five years ago. And when they did I felt I've never had so much anxiety about hospitality because they had given me such amazing hospitality. The bar was set high. So I did everything I could to have make sure they had a good time in Austin. However, uh I didn't really get to know them when we were on in two thousand one as as Mac says it because we were not problem passengers. He only dealt with people that had a problem with something because he was really managing the staff of the community college who all became volunteers who worked around the clock. So I didn't really get to know 'em until the first anniversary of nine eleven when I wrote to him to tell him how I was thinking about him and this staff and how I'd started this idea called Pay It Forward Nine Eleven.

And I closed my office down and handed out hundred dollar bills and said go out into the community and remind people that today is the anniversary of this horrific attack. And we need to honor those souls that were killed. But then also tell them there was something else that happened to your b their boss where he saw the better side of humanity. Told them the stories of what our staff did with the money and he was very touched and um and then usually every year, every few years I would write another check our s our flight we did pass a box around and we started a scholarship for students at that school just based on the cash that people had in their wallet from many different countries. So as a result of several of us we kept that scholarship going for fifteen years and I would give it out to students who demonstrated kindness to others.

[13:28] Lauren Van Hemert: What were some of the kindnesses that you and your partner experienced being in Gander those few days?

[13:36] kevin tuerff: What what is the b I I they cooked. Clearly they cooked you kind of joked that you ate better there than you did in for I mean we were lucky 'cause they had a cooking school. They had a they t they still to this day there's a woman who was there in two thousand one. She's still there. Her name is Elizabeth Moss and she is the head of the Marine Cooking Institute and they teach people how to be cooks on marine ships. And so, you know, I I learned only through writing this book that, you know, how did they have on the third night we're there they had a sit down meal with two hundred and fifty stuffed chicken breast that tasted better than anything we had in our European vacation. And I was like something out of the Bible, like the loaves and the fishes. Where do you get two hundred fifty chickens in a small town on short notice? And um found out later that she was fast thinker on her feet.

[14:32] kevin tuerff: Her boss gave her the credit card, didn't set a budget, said go buy food for three hundred people. So she got her coworker and her two kids and they went to all three grocery stores and bought up all the chickens in Gander. So if you lived in Gander, you were not eating chicken because we were eating it only at the College of North Atlantic. The kindness was things that I had never, you know, had to experience before. I had a credit card. I could have bought a hotel room. There's no room. Had to sleep on the floor of a community college with the people I was on an airplane flight who were complete strangers. And then I it's first time ever you know then I I needed to get a pillow and so see the young man walk in at nearly midnight.

He's got two pillows and an inflatable air mattress. And so I made a beeline for him I thought, oh I want to sleep on an air mattress instead of the cold tile floor. And but I will never forget him because I got choked up. He handed off these basic items that I needed and all I could do was say thank you and he said, You bet and he turned or walked out. Don't know his name and um don't know if he ever got his pillows back. I do know that the air mattress they gave us did have a leak in it and it deflated. So we were sleeping on the concrete floor anyway. On September fourteenth you get word it's time to leave Gander, but that's followed by some bad news that you're not going back to the United States.

The pilot had warned that this might happen. There's another scene in the musical which where a near riot breaks out over, you know, hey, we might have to take you back to Paris. Well that came from my plane. That wasn't the case on Captain Beverly Bass's plane because she was on American Airlines. What happened was the US airspace was first open only to American air carriers. We were on Air France. And so when the pilot told us this, I mean people from all different languages were flipping out and very upset and because nobody we wanted to get to the United States. So when we got to the airport, went to the ticket counter, they gave us a ticket to New York City. So we're like, Oh good, that's Paris ideas off the table.

And then we go through security, which took hours to get through checking everything for bombs. And that's when the pilot comes out and says, Um, Air France called, they want their plane back. We're taking you back to Paris. And that's when I really almost lost it. I've always thought of myself as a quick and easy decision maker. But I didn't know what to do. There were some people are saying, We're not getting on a plane on to France. We are we will figure out a way to get home. And in fact, fifteen people from our flight of two hundred and seventy two did come up with fifteen hundred dollars apiece and they chartered a bus and it took 'em three days to get back to the United States, but they did it.

So I was calling collect again back home to my parents. My mother told her this situation. She cried and said, Don't go. Do not get on that plane. And it's one of the few times I disobeyed my mother and we got on the plane. And so, yeah, back we went to Paris. So you know, here we are, we're trying to land in United States, forced to flee to Canada and then we're in Canada, we're forced to go back to another country in Europe. Still can't get into my home country. When we arrived in Paris, there's a scene in the musical where I noticed that they're having a moment of silence and everyone is standing still at attention. And in the musical it appears that that happened in Gander, but it really happened at the Paris Airport.

And I was stunned that like busy, busy Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport, everyone, everyone is come to stand for a moment of silence. And I wondered would we do the same in America with a busy airport or cars, trucks and the freeway they pulled off the side of the road and came to stood out of their truck and for a moment of silence. Wow.

[18:44] Lauren Van Hemert: So how long were you in Paris before you were able to come home to us?

[18:48] kevin tuerff: Two more days. So we it took us seven uh our one day trek took seven days and so what I tell people is I had a taste for what it's like to be a refugee for seven days. Now we weren't seeking asylum in any of these other countries, but we were forced to flee our home country and we had similar needs to refugees. We needed food, we needed clothing, we needed shelter, information. All that was taken care of by strangers. And you know, it's just it's many, many years later now looking at the world that we live in today where we are don't have that same compassion for refugees. That was quite the opposite. So when you get back to Austin and I was very much struck in the book. I should say throughout the book, the idea of you all being refugees of sorts, you know, refugees of at one point you say refugee of war, even though like you said, you weren't seeking asylum, but you were you were stuck.

You you stuck and you not in your homeland, not in your own country. What was the psychological toll on you and your partner when you returned to the United States or were you just so relieved to be back that you tried to start some sense of normalcy, normal life?

[20:23] kevin tuerff: Well, I mean it it definitely had an impact, but I don't I mean we it was really both. We did try to you know we took an extra day after we got home, uh but then after a day I wanted to go see my friends and and so I did go back to work. And I think everybody by that time if you weren't in the New York or D.C. areas they were trying to encourage that kind of normalcy. And I I definitely also you know I was not afraid to fly again and I 'cause I looked at that as giving in to the fear that the terrorists were had caused and in fact the the fear that they did create is what's influencing our world today. The fear of the stranger, fear of the migrant, fear of the refugee. Yeah, I'm not saying I didn't have any specific issues but I I just my own that was my way of trying to process and heal was to try to get back to normalcy and get back to business and but and then on this annual tradition with Pay It Forward 9/11 is when we stop to remember and give thanks.

So it's ten years before you return to Gander for the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and you said you've been in touch with some of the friends that some of the people that you had met there, Mac and Nelly Moss. So you go back on the ten year anniversary and two things stick out to me about what you write about that trip. Um one is you were screeched and you became an honorary Newfoundlander. What what is that ceremony about Kevin?

[22:05] kevin tuerff: You really kissed a cod. It is I did kiss a cod. I was at Mac and Nelly's house. It was unexpected but I didn't ask for it. They it was after dinner, they dressed up sort of marine wear fisherman's gear and um bring out a oar and bring out a ugly stick. I'd never heard of an ugly stick before. It is an instrument but it's a it's a ceremony to induct people as honorary Newfoundlanders. There's it's many steps of things you have to eat and drink and you have to several tongue twister lines you have to recite and but it's it's really just a lot of fun. The second notable thing that happens on this trip, the tenth anniversary trip, is you meet David Hine and Irene Sankoff and they have an idea to write a 9/11 musical. What's your initial reaction to that?

[22:57] kevin tuerff: How silly is that? I don't remember exactly how I told them, but um I've been a fan of musical theater, so I wanted to support them in whatever way and so I was happy to give them an interview. I've been giving interviews for many years. I was and wanted to tell the story to anybody would listen. So I did have an initial interview with them and then they said, Can we call you in a couple of months and they did. We I did a couple of Skype interviews several hours, gave them all of my video footage and then it was a couple of years go by and I get a call like, Hey, remember that interview? Well, we wrote a musical and you're in it. And that was like the last I mean, I've really it just didn't even occur to me because I you would think that a musical about what happened there would be all based on just the people who did all the wonderful good deeds.

But they needed to tell the story through the eyes of some of the passengers that come from away. And so my ex-partner and I were among those that were honored, I guess. And um so it's been uh surreal to say the least. And now there's gonna be a movie. They always you always hear this question, like if there was a movie of your life, who would play you? Would you actually have a movie of your life coming out?

[24:14] kevin tuerff: I know. I'm thinking uh Ryan Reynolds is pretty handsome and he's Canadian and I think it'd be a good choice, but I think they're actually gonna they don't want celebrities, they wanna go with uh probably be somebody from one of the casts is my guess. I'm not sure. I don't know about how they're gonna handle that. Nobody consults me. Let me just put it that way. One quote that struck me from your book, and I think it was Diane Davis who who said it, the school teacher in Gander, is fear and misunderstanding can lead to extreme action or it can lead to empathy. What do you hope people hearing your story on this podcast and then hopefully there's so much of your story that we haven't talked about that's in the book, so hopefully people will read the book or see the musical. What do you hope people hearing the story or seeing the musical what do you hope the takeaway will be?

[25:09] kevin tuerff: My hope is that people, no matter where they are, that they will really take the time to study up on compassion. It's a word that has been sort of lost and people might mistake compassion for a fluffy loving word. But the word compassion I've learned as a result of joining forces with the Charter for Compassion, international charities formed ten years ago. Compassion is to engage in the suffering of others. And so I tell people, the people of Gander, if they wanted to just have kindness and empathy for the people on the planes, they could have sent thoughts and prayers and some boxes of pizza and we could have waited on the plane. But uh when I interviewed the mayor, he said we weren't gonna let you rot on those planes and so it was no question they were gonna let us into their country, into their town, people from ninety countries, and they took a chance.

And they when they let people in their own homes to take a shower, they and when they had to stop working so that they could stay up all night cooking for us, that is compassion. And that to me is what the world is lacking right now when it comes to there's so much suffering around us. It's not that it doesn't exist but we've become so siloed in uh many ways we we can only be compassionate for our small group of our neighborhood or maybe our political party or our church or whatever but um that's not how human beings evolved. We were meant to live in community and we were meant to help each other and 'cause that's the way they do it in Newfoundland. They have live by the golden rule. Treat others like you want to be treated.

And so to me this is the only way we get through this ridiculous polarization, especially in America, but it's really across the world is you start by doing some random acts of kindness until it becomes a habit. And the more that we can do that I think the more that we can break down some of these divides uh that are seemingly paralyzing our world. My true hope is that people will try to become more compassionate for themselves and for others, even those outside of their own city and country.

[27:55] kevin tuerff: The events following 9/11 and his time in Gander, Newfoundland renewed my spirituality and inspired me to become a champion of compassion and kindness. I told you I want to live in a world more like Gander, so now I spend my time volunteering for organizations that not only help the environment, but also support refugees and settlement agencies.

[28:24] Lauren Van Hemert: If you like what you've heard today, please consider subscribing to this podcast, leave us a review, follow us on social media, and visit us online at www.beltlinetobroadway.org. Until next time, I'll see you at the theater.