Scandal over apparent Auburn men’s basketball flight may have led to diversion, audio shows

On November 9, 2024By Littum

AUBURN, Ala. (WBRC) – WBRC has learned that a flight that appears to be carrying the Auburn men’s basketball team to Houston was diverted due to an altercation on the flight.

The plane was diverted several minutes after it took off just before 15, according to FlightAware.

WBRC was able to listen to air traffic control for the area just after 3 p.m., where a plane requests an emergency landing in Montgomery.

When asked what the threat level was, the pilot replied, “We have a bunch of basketball players fighting.”

A few minutes later, air traffic control once again asked the pilot for the threat level.

“This cabin is safe,” replied the pilot. “The threat level is contained at the moment, we just had – we want police on the ground and we had two players who got into a physical altercation, clothes were torn.”

“It’s kind of crazy,” the pilot said moments later.

For legal reasons, we cannot share the audio with you right now.

Again, the plane ultimately ended up returning to Auburn about 40 minutes after takeoff, according to FlightAware.

WBRC has reached out to Auburn University Athletics several times for more information, but has not heard back. We have also contacted Auburn Police and Auburn Airport.

We will update this development story as more information becomes available.

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