Flight 85 timeline

September 11, 2001

• Flight 85 takes off from Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea.
• 8:46 a.m. (Eastern Time Zone (ET))- American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower
• 9:03 a.m. (ET) - United Airlines Flight 175 hits the World Trade Center's South Tower
• 9:37 a.m. (ET) - American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon
• 10:03 a.m. (ET) - United Airlines Flight 93, whose ultimate target was thought to be either the United States Capitol or White House, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania
• 11:08 a.m. (ET) The pilot of Flight 85 included the letters "HJK," a code for hijacked, in an airline text message
• 12:00 p.m. (ET) - ARINC officials notify NORAD about the use of the hijack code
• 1:00 p.m. (ET) - Jets are scrambled from Elmendorf Air Force Base to shadow the plane
• 1:24 p.m. (ET) - The Korean pilots change their transponder signal to the four-digit universal code for hijacked — 7500
• 1-2:45 p.m. (ET) - Alerted that a possible hijacked plane might strike a target in Alaska, Senator Ted Stevens orders evacuations of potential targets
• 2:54 p.m. (ET) - Flight 85 lands safely in Whitehorse and is met by armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who determine that the plane wasn't hijacked

Operation Yellow Ribbon

Operation Yellow Ribbon was the operation that Transport Canada created to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights following the September 11 attacks in 2001. The operation started after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all aircraft across the United States and re-routed incoming international flights to airports in Canada. During the operation, departing flights, with the exception of police, military, and humanitarian flights were canceled, marking the first time that Canada shut down its airspace. As a result of Operation Yellow Ribbon, 255 aircraft were diverted to 15 different airports across the country.