Couple Met While Stranded on 9/11. Their Unexpected Love Story Became a Hit Musical They’ve Seen 160 Times (Exclusive)

Johnny DoddFri, September 11, 2026 at 6:51 PM UTC

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Diane and Nick MarsonCredit: Courtesy Nick and Diane Marson -

Nick and Diane Marson first bonded in Gander, Newfoundland, after their flight was diverted on Sept. 11, 2001

Their love story is depicted the Tony-winning musical Come From Away,

“When we tell people we’ve seen it over 160 times, they look at us like we’re crazy, but as Diane always says, ‘It takes us back to that happy time. It’s like we’re renewing our vows,’ ” Nick says

A quarter century has passed since Nick and Diane Marson became living proof that love can blossom even in the darkest of times and in the unlikeliest of settings.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, Nick was an electrical engineer embarking on a business trip from his native Britain and his future wife, Diane, had just finished visiting her son in the U.K. and was heading back to Texas.

But al-Qaida’s terror attacks upended their travel plans and when U.S. airspace closed, their Continental Airlines flight from London to Houston — along with 38 others — was diverted to Gander, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland.

All at once nearly 6,700 passengers descended on the tiny Canadian town (with a population of some 11,000). As fate would have it, Nick and Diane, then 52 and 60, were assigned cots at the local Society of United Fisherman Lodge 47.

Nick’s first words to Diane didn’t exactly sweep her off her feet. “We were waiting in line for blankets and he said that ‘they smelled a little bit like mothballs,’ ” she recalls.

“Actually,” he says, “I said that they smelled like the inside of a camper.”

During their stay in Gander over the course of the next five days, the two, who both had grown children from previous marriages, forged a connection.

“Neither one of us got on that plane looking for romance,” says Diane. “I think both of us thought that life was gone.”

From left: Nick and Diane MarsonCredit: Courtesy Nick and Diane Marson

Hoping to take their minds off the horrible, nonstop images of the Sept. 11 attacks that were playing on TVs in their shelter, the couple would often walk together through the rural community.

On one of their treks, Nick pulled out a camera and snapped a photo of Diane in the countryside. “I wanted to be able to remember her, to remember what she looked like and confirm that I hadn’t made all this up in my mind,” he says.

Or as Diane previously told PEOPLE: “That’s when I knew he was interested in me and not the scenery.”

Two months later, having been able to return to something like normal, Nick proposed over the phone. They were married on Sept. 7, 2002, and moved into a house Diane had purchased in Spring, Texas.

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For years they kept their story under wraps due to survivor’s guilt. “We’d found something wonderful,” says Nick, “yet ... 3,000 families lost someone and were left devastated.”

All that changed in 2010 when NBC aired a documentary on Gander and the thousands of stranded travelers who descended on the community — and the Marsons began to realize how unique they were. “Both our lives,” Diane says, “changed for the better that day.”

Nick is also convinced that their chance meeting is the reason he’s still alive. “I quite likely wouldn’t be around now, [if we hadn’t met],” says the 78-year-old, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008.

“There were no symptoms and fortunately it was taken care of [here in the U.S.],” he explains. “Whereas in England, my good friend passed away from it. They don’t screen for it over there.”

From left: Nick and Diane Marson in 2024Credit: Courtesy Nick and Diane Marson

Their uplifting romance and marriage even served as a key plot in the Tony-award-winning musical Come From Away — about Gander and those who ended up there after 9/11 — that has played to audiences around the world and spent five years on Broadway beginning in 2017.

“When we tell people we’ve seen it over 160 times, they look at us like we’re crazy, but as Diane always says, ‘It takes us back to that happy time. It’s like we’re renewing our vows,’ ” Nick says.

Earlier this year, Diane ended up in the hospital due to some heart-related health issues and spent six months undergoing outpatient rehab.

“We both know that we’re here for each other and we try and take care of each other,” says Nick, an avid model airplane pilot who can often be found his flying radio-controlled aircraft near the couple’s home.

“We just try to enjoy each day and make each day special.”

One of the ways they do that is by traveling to see Come From Away every chance they get, confessing that they still get a heartwarming kick from the comments they receive after the show.

“Couples will come up to us and tell us their story about when they proposed or what their first date was,” Diane says. “Every couple has their first time story when they met their special someone — and I think our story makes people believe in falling in love.”

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”