For our friends from UA929 thought you might like to read this email composed during our return from Gambo to Chicago and onwards:

Dear Family and Friends....

We hope you all are well and recovering from the sadness of the tragedies that rained from the skies upon America last Tuesday.

Hopefully by now you have received the UA929 passenger generic email that was forwarded on behalf of all the passengers notifying of our impending departure-however we always prefer the personal touch and wanted to provide our own brief catalogue of the events as they unfolded to the present.

It was at 02:00 hours this morning that we were awoken to the news that we would be on our way. Our turn to leave had finally arrived and the school buses were on their way to pick up their tired but relieved cargo. The process to departure was long, laborious and somewhat frustrating, but now we are skimming across the glorious skies with Chicago's O'Hare airport 3 short hours away on the western horizon.

After the 30 minute trip from the Salvation Army church at Gambo we arrived at Gander airport at about 2:45. An American Airlines group was ahead of us waiting in the terminal and had to be processed before we could commence the formalities necessary for departure.

After another hour or so we were up. First was passport and boarding documentation and clearance then hand baggage search (no more X-ray machines --every carry-on bag must now be individually searched) and finally passenger identification and match up of checked luggage. Another 2 hours later and 198 individuals waited in the secured departure hall quietly excited and great anticipation that soon we would be climbing the steep stairway that beckoned us aboard our Boeing 777.

The hours went by and we continued to wait in the departure hall where the frustration levels grew. Soon we wondered, had their been another terrorist attack on America? Was O'Hare shut down due to yet another bomb threat? Could there be a security problem with one of our passengers or their luggage?

So nearly 4 hours later we finally get word to board our flight ignorant as to why we had been corralled for so long. As it turns out there were some minor technical problems with our equipment (777) that needed to be straightened out before we could board. It was not until 10:15 that UA929 finally taxied out onto the runway, her jets a symphonic harmony rocketing us down the runway for our ultimate embrace with the heavens. It is just beautiful up here today with warm blue skies and a sea of cotton tail clouds scattered like a soft blanket way down below, Chicago is now only 2 hours away.

As we taxied in Gander, out my window I caught a glimpse of a small black fox foraging for food in the grassy knoll beside the tarmac. He was quite oblivious to the massive object gently rolling by and to the tumultuous events that beset humanity.

The past 5 days were something of a vacuum or perhaps better, a time warp, for the passengers and crew of UA929, one from which the world we enter today is entirely different from the one that was left behind in London-for this and the horrific events that were perpetrated against America and the free world, we shed a tear.

We love you and thank you for all your wonderful support and love during this harrowing time-we feel truly blessed.

Julia and Iain.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX
OOOOOOOOOOO

ps. We arrived safely in Chicago and like all our comrades and crew were completely overwhelmed by the reception that we received at the gate-there was not a dry eye on the whole plane!
As it turned out we were the last United international flight to return home and of course the longest to have been grounded by the crisis. As we pulled up to our gate at the International terminal, on either side of the plane were long lines of ground staff and agents all cheering and waving little American flags, it was truly a memorable and stirring reception.
However, more kleenex tissues were needed for as the door was opened we were greeted by cheering crowds in the jetway who clapped every passenger off the plane - as I said there was not a dry eye in the place. Finally, we were able to get the last two seats on the only San Diego flight leaving O'Hare at 19:25 this evening-yippee!
We will miss our fellow passengers and crew of UA929 as well as our new friends in Newfoundland and vow to return under different circumstances to these most warm and loving human beings who shared their precious lives with us-surely they are the essence of humanity.