Mid-Air Ruckus? Auburn Basketball Forced To Abort Trip To Houston After In-Flight Incident Between Players

I'm sure you've heard stories of incidents that occur on plane rides that force a pilot to make a judgment call, but I bet you've never heard of an athletic team having to abort their travel due to players getting involved in ‘horseplay’ on the trip. 

On Friday afternoon, the Auburn basketball team was headed to Houston for its matchup with the Cougars on Saturday night. But something that wasn't expected during the flight over to Texas was players getting involved in what has been described as ‘horseplay' that reportedly scared flight personnel enough that they made the decision to turn the plane around and head back to Auburn. 

In what might be the wildest travel story of the athletic year in college sports, multiple Auburn basketball players were messing around on the plane, which escalated to the point where the safety of other team members, along with the flight crew warranted the pilot to make the decision to turn the plane around after only being in the air for a short period of time. 

Update: Audio of the pilot speaking with ATC has made its way around social media, and the pilot is heard saying that there was a fight on board, with shirts ripped, and one player bleeding.

The pilot was originally going to land in Montgomery, but asked ATC if they could go back to Auburn, where they departed from, while also asking for police presence once the airplane touched down. 

"The fight has been contained. We talked to the coach, and there's a nurse onboard, and we've talked to them. That's where the captain wants to go (Auburn). Is there any way you can coordinate with Auburn to have sheriff or police there? Thank you sir."

Yes, you read that right. Members of the Auburn basketball team were causing such a ruckus on the plane that the flight attendant, along with the pilot were forced to abandon the trip, and get the plane back on the ground in Auburn. 

According to a tweet from WBRC, there is air traffic control audio that says the pilot of the aicraft notified ground control that they were turning back after "We have a bunch of basketball players fighting", which forced them to turn back. 

I don't know if I've ever heard of an incident like this, besides something out of a professional wrestling story.

The university had not released a statement regarding the matter as of midnight. There will certainly be questions asked of Bruce Pearl in Houston Saturday night. We will see if the school decides to make any type of statement. 

I also don't think it's cheap to have an airplane turnaround mid-flight because players were causing problems on the plane, forcing them to get on a different plane. 

Just when you thought you'd heard it all, Auburn basketball decides to get all sorts of crazy on a Friday night.