diff --git a/src/apify/scrapy/scheduler.py b/src/apify/scrapy/scheduler.py
index 2c6945bb..dc3add93 100644
--- a/src/apify/scrapy/scheduler.py
+++ b/src/apify/scrapy/scheduler.py
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ async def open_rq() -> RequestQueue:
         try:
             self._rq = self._async_thread.run_coro(open_rq())
         except Exception:
+            self._async_thread.close()
             traceback.print_exc()
             raise