Flight Diverted After Auburn Men’s Basketball Team Members Involved in Mid-Air Altercation: Reports

The incident occurred on Nov. 8 as the team were headed to Houston for a game against the Houston Cougars the following day

A flight carrying the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team was reportedly diverted following an altercation between players onboard.

The plane was headed to Houston when it made an emergency return landing 40 minutes later in Auburn, Ala. after a physical altercation broke out between two team members on the flight on Friday, Nov. 8, according to multiple outlets, including ESPN, WBRC and the Associated Press.

A call was made by the pilot requesting an emergency landing shortly after taking off after 3:00 p.m., per local news outlet WBRC, who also cited FlightAware data showing that the plane diverted several minutes after 3 p.m.

The pilot said to air traffic control, per audio obtained by the outlet, “We have a bunch of basketball players fighting.”

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“The flight deck is secure,” the pilot continued. “The threat level is contained for the moment, we just had - we’ll have police on the ground, and we had two players that got into a physical altercation, clothes were ripped.”

The plane returned to Auburn where it landed forty minutes later, WBRC reported.

The pilot later described the onboard incident to air traffic control as “crazy,” per the outlet. The audio of the call obtained by WBRC was not shared for legal reasons.

The Auburn Police Department later confirmed it responded to “a declared emergency on-board an aircraft” on Friday at the Auburn University Regional Airport, per The New York Times.

Representatives for the Auburn Tigers, Auburn University Regional Airport and the Auburn Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. It was not immediately clear from reports which airline the team were traveling on.

The Auburn Tigers were making their way to Houston ahead of their game against the Houston Cougars at the Toyota Center on Saturday, Nov. 9. The game saw the Tigers beat the Cougars 74-69., per ESPN.

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ESPN cited sources who confirmed that the flight had to be grounded a short while after taking off due to what the outlet described as a "scuffle" between two players on the basketball team, which did not escalate and was quickly over, per the outlet's sources.

The Field of 68 host Jeff Goodman wrote in a post on X on the evening of Nov. 8 that the plane the team were on "returned back home due to horseplay between players on the flight that could have escalated into a fight," citing a source.

He added, in part, in the post that the team were "about 45 minutes en route and had to return home."

ESPN reported that the team departed on a different flight later on Nov. 8, citing sources.