coronavirus pandemic

Americans Play the ‘Waiting Game' After Last Passenger Plane From Moscow Canceled

"If I don't get a flight soon then I probably won't see my dad ever again,” said Grace Mitchell

People gather at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport terminal F
Yuri KADOBNOV / AFP) (Photo by YURI KADOBNOV/AFP via Getty Images

A teacher whose father is suffering from cancer is one of scores of American citizens trapped in Russia after the last passenger flight to the U.S. was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Grace Mitchell, 26, told NBC News she had no plans to leave her home in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, until she got a phone call from her mother saying her father’s cancer had taken a turn for the worse.

“All we could do really was try to get the last flight out of Russia because if I don't get a flight soon then I probably won't see my dad ever again,” Mitchell said.

So on April 3, along with hundreds of other passengers, the English teacher from Washington state boarded Aeroflot Flight 102 at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, thinking it was her last chance to get home.

It was one of the few flights available out of Russia as many had been canceled when the country's government restricted international travel in its effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow had also warned that the flight, which was scheduled to go from Moscow to New York on April 3, could be the last one for the month.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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