Stanford, Calif. — The KU men’s basketball team’s charter plane lost an engine shortly after taking off Sunday evening, forcing the flight to return to the airport in California, KU officials said.
“Upon our return flight home from San Jose (International Airport), roughly 20 minutes into the flight, one of the engines failed,” KU said in a statement. “The pilot immediately contacted the San Jose Airport, where we returned and made a safe landing. We are grateful to the pilots and the entire flight crew of Swift Air.”
The statement said the team would stay the night in San Jose and return as soon as other travel arrangements could be made.
KU coach Bill Self, who was on the plane along with players, coaches, managers and other team personnel and KU administrators, told the Journal-World the team was “fine” in a text message after the incident. The Jayhawks were back on the ground safely as of 5:30 p.m. local time.
11:45 a.m. Update, Dec. 30:
Kansas spokesperson Dan Beckler told the Journal-World on Monday morning that plans had been finalized for KU’s return to Lawrence.
The Jayhawks are scheduled to leave Oakland International Airport at 2:30 p.m. today (12:30 p.m. Pacific time) and will fly to Topeka’s Forbes Field as usual.
The estimated arrival time in Topeka is around 5:30 p.m., putting the Jayhawks back in Lawrence around 6:30, provided everything goes as scheduled.
Beckler said the team was returning home on another charter flight provided by Swift Air.
