When Max Fraser started collecting footage and stories about how Sept. 11, 2001, played out in the Yukon capital of Whitehorse, he set out to make a point-of-view documentary about the terrifying spectre of 2 supposedly hijacked jumbo jets landing in - or on - Whitehorse. What Fraser ended up with is the mysterious tale of how Korean Air Flight 085, bound for New York City, came to land at the then-Whitehorse International Airport at 11:54 a.m. that day, instead of descending at one of the many better-equipped Alaskan runways it passed on its way. And even more mysterious is why 2 Korean planes were transmitting a hijack squawk" (a satellite code that can be discreetly set by a pilot to alert authorities on the ground of a hostile takeover), even though all was well on board the flights. In response, American and Canadian fighter jets were deployed to accompany those planes to the Whitehorse airport. That inspired the local filmmaker to make the 45-minute documentary titled "Never Happen Here - the Whitehorse 9/11 Story." It premiered [on April 24] at the Dawson City Short Film Festival. "Nowhere else in the world on 9/11 was a community under an evacuation order and nowhere else were emergency authorities told to prepare for a mass casualty incident involving a hijacked airliner," Fraser said. "What we experienced, what we went through, is a story that should be told the world over."
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