Auburn team plane forced to return to airport after players fight on flight!!

Following an altercation, senior Ja’Heim Hudson and freshman Jahki Howard were benched and will not play against the Cougars on Saturday.

The Auburn men’s basketball team’s flight to Saturday’s game against Houston was forced to return to the airport shortly after takeoff Friday afternoon due to a physical altercation between players, according to CBS Sports.

Auburn team plane forced to return to airport after players fight on flight to Houston for Saturday's game – bgodinspired.com

The incident reportedly involved freshman forward Jahki Howard and senior forward Ja’Heim Hudson. As a result, both players were prohibited from boarding the rescheduled flight later that evening and will remain on campus, missing Auburn’s high-profile matchup against fourth-ranked Houston at the Toyota Center on Saturday night.

Neither Howard nor Hudson is a starter, but both logged over 15 minutes of playing time in Auburn’s dominant 94-43 win over Vermont in their season opener on Wednesday. Their availability for future games remains uncertain.

Flight data showed the team’s plane did not leave Alabama’s airspace before turning back. Additionally, a report from Birmingham’s Fox affiliate indicated that Air Traffic Control received a message about “a bunch of basketball players” fighting onboard, leading the plane to return to Auburn University Regional Airport.

A social media post from WBRC’s Jonathan Hardison shared a quote from a pilot involved in the incident: “Flight deck is secure, the threat level is contained. We just had — we’ll have police on the ground, we had two players that got into a physical altercation, clothes were ripped.”

On Friday night, an Auburn spokesperson informed CBS Sports that the school intended to issue a statement, but as of Saturday morning, no announcement had been made.

Power-conference teams typically use chartered flights for travel, which was also the case for the Tigers. Auburn arranged another flight late Friday night out of Alabama, with the plane arriving after 1 a.m. local time.

The Tigers are set to face the Cougars at 9:30 p.m. ET. Ranked No. 1 (Houston) and No. 2 (Auburn) by KenPom.com, this matchup marks only the ninth time since the 2011-12 season that the top two KenPom teams have played each other.