Plane carrying Kansas Jayhawks basketball team has engine failure before safe landing
The Kansas men’s basketball team’s flight home Sunday following its road victory over Stanford was rerouted and returned to the San Jose International Airport after one of its engines failed.
KU reported on its KU Athletics Twitter account that the team, “returned and made a safe landing. We are grateful to the pilots and the entire flight crew of Swift Air.”
The team stayed the night in California and returned Monday to Topeka’s Forbes Field on a 12:30 p.m. Pacific time charter flight from Oakland.
“We’re all OK,” KU coach Bill Self said in a text message to The Star.
KU senior associate athletic director Ryan White shared video of the plane’s sputtering engine from his seat in row 14.
“KU hoops plane blows engine on flight back to Lawrence. We just landed safely back in San Jose,” he wrote on Twitter.
KU athletic department spokesman Dan Beckler explained the malfunction, as witnessed by himself and others on the 60-passenger plane.
“We were 20 minutes into the flight. There was this weird noise, just a little bit of a rattle,” Beckler said. “It wasn’t just a normal turbulence. It was different. At that point, everybody was looking around to see what it was. The flight attendants were looking out the window to see what was going on.”
Beckler said the flight attendants informed those on board that “we had lost an engine and were returning to San Jose.”
Twenty minutes later, Beckler said, the plane was back on the ground at San Jose. Asked about the landing, Beckler said it was “normal. Really the only difference, when the engine went out, there was a rattling, kind of like the plane had a small vibration. That occurred for the rest of the flight, but it wasn’t anything that was jarring or anything like that.”
Afterward, Beckler said the deplaning was “orderly. It was really calm. Everyone was calm, cool, collected.”
Overall, Beckler said, “The crew did a great job. The pilots were fantastic. Just thankful we’re on the ground safely.”
Buses picked up the Jayhawks at the airport shortly after 7 p.m. Pacific time to take the team to its hotel for the evening.
Some KU players took to social media following the incident.
Forward Silvio De Sousa said on Twitter: “Gotta appreciate and thank the man above every single minute of your life. Thank God.”
KU guards Isaiah Moss and Devon Dotson both typed out the praying hands emoji on Twitter.
Redshirt forward Mitch Lightfoot wrote on Twitter: “Never prayed like that before! Thank the Lord!”
Dana Dotson, Dotson’s father, had a simple tweet that read: “Thank God.”
Lisa Wilson, the mother of freshman Jalen Wilson, wrote on Twitter: “Praise God!!!”
A second tweet from Wilson read: “Jalen called me after they landed he was sooo scared! Praise God they are all safe!”
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 8:16 PM.
