A holiday horror show happened aboard a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Chicago Wednesday morning. A 6 a.m. flight from Oakland airport had a problem with its landing gear, which was identified by the pilot quickly, but he then announced that the plane would have to burn its fuel before returning to Oakland.

The 139 passengers then had to endure a tense holding pattern, circling over Tracy for the next four hours and doing a flyby as air traffic control checked out the plane's gear, as ABC 7 reports.

“Everyone was very concerned because we thought we were having engine trouble, then we found out it was the landing gear,” passenger Ashley Stasio told the Chronicle once she was safely back on the ground. “It was scary.”

The paper noted that the plane has been taken out of service, and ABC 7 reported that at least one traveler opted not to travel today after the incident.

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