Henry Gruver found himself seated in the front row of the main cabin, alongside his wife and seven-year-old daughter, as they embarked on a journey to Japan. The flight seemed routine until an unexpected maneuver shook the atmosphere.
“Suddenly, we began circling over the city of Omaha,” Gruver recounted to CNN. “The plane’s wings were tilting, creating a noticeable bank, which caught everyone’s attention.”
Gruver’s wife was among the first to notice something amiss. “She saw the stewardess knocking on the cockpit door quite insistently,” he explained, “which made us wonder what might be going on.”
As the plane continued to circle, Gruver found himself turning to prayer. “The thought crossed my mind—could the pilots have lost control? Could we be in danger?” he mused, recalling the tension of the moment.
Throughout this unsettling ordeal, the passengers remained in the dark, uninformed until the plane safely landed and police officers boarded the aircraft.
“Surprisingly, everyone stayed remarkably calm,” Gruver noted. “Perhaps it was better that we were unaware of the situation at the time.”
The Embraer ERJ 175 regional jet parked away from the terminal with two firetrucks surrounding it, a photo showed.
“After landing, it was determined there was a problem with the inter-phone system and the flight crew was knocking on the cockpit door,” the FAA said in a statement.
SkyWest confirmed a problem with “a flight crew mic” on Tuesday, adding “we apologise for the inconvenience.”
The flight finally took back off for Los Angeles nearly five hours late, according to FlightAware. The Gruver family missed their connection to Japan and waited overnight in the airport for the next flight.
Skywest and American Airlines have not contacted them since the incident, they said.
