Flight from Dubai brings Americans fleeing Iran war back home to Chicago

Many Americans fleeing the conflict in the Middle East since the U.S.-Israel war in Iran started landed at O'Hare International Airport on Thursday, relieved to finally be back home.

On Thursday, the hugs were a little tighter at Terminal 5 at O'Hare as families were reunited with loved ones returning home from Dubai.

"I've been in Dubai for over a week, and I booked like three flights trying to get out of Duabi. This one stuck," said Ayesha Patel, a teacher from Lincolnwood now working in Kuwait.

Patel was in Dubai when the war with Iran started. She registered with the State Department, but said she wasn't going to wait for the United States government to get her home.

"I was like, I need to figure this out on my own. I'm not going to wait, because I don't know how things are going to be," she said.

Iranian missiles and drones hit Dubai's airport, and several surrounding buildings were set on fire in the early hours of the war. Dubai is in one of the 14 Middle Eastern countries U.S. citizens are being told to evacuate.

Americans now back on U.S. soil recalled the sound and feeling of those airstrikes.

"We just felt it shake the whole floor, and again the next morning three big booms as soon as you wake up shakes the whole apartment building," said Patrice Mikhaell.

The nearly 16 ½-hour flight that Mikhaell, Patel, and others were on from Dubai to Chicago deviated from its normal route to avoid the ongoing war.

"It took a very weird route, because they didn't want to be in the area where the war is," said Sawsan Yassin.

"It's fine. Two extra hours to see family was worth it," Patel said.

For anxious parents, like Nazar Mikhaell, who is back with his 20-year-old daughter, Patrice, it was great to be reunited.

"This is my baby girl, my bestie. Thank God I have her back," he said. "I will never leave her alone."