quote:

Hundreds of Americans are stuck in Russia after the country abruptly suspended international air traffic on Friday in response to the coronavirus epidemic, forcing the last flight bound for the U.S. to cancel its takeoff even as it was waiting on the runway.

Julian MacKay, a ballet dancer, and his younger brother, Nicholas, had been frantically trying to get out of Russia for two weeks to reach their father, who is dying of cancer in Montana. The brothers on Friday thought they had managed to do so as they fastened themselves into their seats on the last flight out of Moscow to New York, which was run by the Russian state airline Aeroflot.

The plane's doors were already closed as the plane prepared to leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. They were messaging their mother to tell her they were on their way when a cockpit announcement in Russian suddenly informed passengers the flight was canceled. Pandemonium followed, as desperate and angry passengers demanded answers from the crew.

"We were buckled in and kind of ready to go, and we were messaging our mum saying we were going to come home," Nicholas MacKay, 19, told ABC News by phone. "And right as we were doing that a voice came over the intercom. They said the flight was cancelled and that all flights from Russia would be cancelled. And that was it. They didn't say anything else. People started panicking and yelling and trying to stay on the flight."

The MacKays and other passengers were forced to disembark and are now stranded in Russia as all flights in and out of the country have been halted -- it appears until at least May.