Woman Who Was in DCA When Wednesday's Plane Crash Happened Details 'Nervousness' Through the Airport (Exclusive)

• Jada Alcindor was 10 minutes from boarding a flight out of Reagan National Airport when flights were grounded

• In less than an hour, she'd learn the heartbreaking reason for the delay

• Alcindor recalls the feeling of unease throughout the airport in conversation with PEOPLE

Jada Alcindor spends many days a year traveling. Wednesday, Jan. 29, felt like any other travel day.

"I was actually coming from a site visit in Reno, Nevada. And I went from Reno to Phoenix and then I was supposed to go from Phoenix to D.C. and then D.C. to Albany. I travel a lot for my job as a conference coordinator," she tells PEOPLE.

Alcindor arrived at Reagan National Airport around 7:46 p.m., prepared for a two-hour layover before her connecting flight. She and her boss decided to get a bite while they waited.

"We had dinner. We were waiting to board our plane. It said it was supposed to board in 10 minutes. All of a sudden, you hear on the radio, 'There is an aircraft emergency. All flights are grounded.' We just kept hearing that over and over, but there was no explanation."

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Related: Pilot's Message to Anxious Fliers After D.C. Crash Goes Viral: 'We All Needed to Hear It' (Exclusive)

Travelers tried to look up the cause of the delay but information had not yet gone public. Alcindor texted her fiancé to let him know what was going on.

"Everyone just started pulling out their phones and looking it up but there was nothing online yet. At 9:23 is when I texted my fiancé and was like, 'All flights are grounded.' I didn't know until 9:27 that it was actually a crash that had happened."

In the following moments, Alcindor would see other people's expressions change as they saw the news themselves.

"There was a feeling of nervousness. Some people were just very unaware because I literally had a woman walk over to me and be like, 'I feel like I missed something,' after they first said everything was grounded. Everyone was just anxious because we were all ready to get on our flights and go home," she shares.

"As people became aware of the issue, everyone's pretty nervous. No one's freaking out but everyone's like, calmly nervous. We didn't know the effects or what a moment in history it would be."

What would happen next wasn't immediately clear for most travelers. Alcindor says she and her boss were told they could be rebooked on another flight in the morning.

"We had to wait in line, but then we had to find a hotel in D.C., which is hard to begin with. A lot of people were stuck. I know a gentleman who was in front of us was planning to stay at the airport but around 2 a.m. they cancelled all flights."

"At first, we were like 'We'll just wait it out. We'll hopefully be able to get on the airplane to leave.' The flight gate women were like, 'We don't think anyone's gonna go out tonight.' "

She continues, "We were ultimately unable to fly out. They rebooked us for Thursday morning at 10 a.m. but then the flights were cancelled around 2 a.m. Thursday, and they didn't have any flights back to Albany that would have gotten us there in a decent time. We ended up having to take the train Thursday."

Outside of the airport, there was an eerie sense of stillness for what would otherwise be a bustling travel hub.

"When we left, it was like a ghost town. Our Uber driver said it was a weird feeling to be able to pull into and leave the airport so easily when it's usually full around 9 p.m," Alcindor says.

"You could see all the lights from where we were driving to. It was clear it's a massive event. Around 30 minutes later, you could see there were a lot of emergency vehicles flying past."

The entire experience was jarring for the frequent flyer, who couldn't help but think of those directly impacted.

"Just hearing that it was a commercial plane and a military vehicle was pretty unsettling. It was mentally a lot because we first started to think that it could have been us," she says. "God forbid that we had came in an hour later or that Black Hawk flight had taken off an hour prior."

"My second thought was, 'Thankfully that is not us.' I really started to just think about the people who were waiting on people. My fiancé was waiting on me that night. I was putting myself in that position while being very thankful that I was not in that position."

"It was just so close in time," she adds. "An hour is not a long time in your life."

Alcindor has also found comfort in sharing her experience on TikTok, where she's been met with "an overwhelming amount of thoughts and prayers."

However, she says, "I really want to extend my prayers and thoughts to everyone that lost people. So many people were impacted."

Read the original article on People