A chartered plane was forced to turn back on Friday after two players on Auburn University’s men’s basketball team engaged in a physical altercation, CBS Sports reported.
Meregrass Flight 681 took off from Auburn University Regional Airport at 2:40 p.m. on Friday, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. The flight returned to the airport at around 3:30 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
The flight did not leave Alabama airspace, according to FlightAware. The Auburn Tigers were traveling to William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas. The team is set to face off against the University of Houston Cougars on Saturday night.
The FAA said the flight crew had “reported a passenger disturbance,” but offered no other details.
In audio obtained by CBS News, the pilot of the plane can be told telling air traffic controllers that two players “got into a physical alteration” and that “clothes were ripped.”
The incident involved freshman forward Jahki Howard and senior forward Ja’Heim Hudson, sources told CBS Sports.
Stew Milne / Getty Images
Both players were barred from getting on a second flight, which left the airport later Friday night, according to CBS Sports. The two players will miss Saturday’s highly-anticipated game. Auburn University told CBS Sports it would release a statement, but has not done so at the time of publication.
Howard, 19, was the 2024 King’s Hawaiian National Slam Dunk Champion, according to his biography.
Stew Milne / Getty Images
Hudson, 22, played for two seasons at the University of Georgia and one season at Southern Methodist University before transferring to the University of Auburn for his senior year, according to his biography.
Neither player are starters, CBS Sports said, but both played in Wednesday’s season opener game against the University of Vermont’s Catamounts.