Illinois State University's football team and personnel have been stuck at Central Illinois Regional Airport since a ground stop was announced nationwide Friday afternoon.
ISU’s football team is scheduled to play against Youngstown State in Ohio at 11 a.m. Saturday. The flight time between the two locations is a little over an hour.
Craig Bertsche, sideline reporter for the Redbird radio broadcasts, said if the team’s plane had taken off five minutes earlier, they would have been able to depart.
“We were on the runway, taxiing and getting ready to turn to go on the runway and take off and then we stopped,” he said on the phone with WGLT from the plane. “We were sitting for a little bit and then the pilot came on.”
The team’s Facebook page confirmed the players have not been able to leave Bloomington-Normal. The team had been waiting in and around the chartered plane at the Synergy Flight Center at CIRA for about three hours as of 5:30 p.m.
“Is it a good thing we didn’t go or a bad thing that we didn’t get out of here on time?” Bertsche said.
WGLT reached out to ISU Athletics to find out if the game will be rescheduled or cancelled.
Bertsche said the players and staff are relaxed but waiting to see what happens next.
“We would be in the hotel by now easily if it weren’t for that situation,” he said.
This story will be updated.
