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Michigan Basketball's Moe Wagner on plane crash: 'We actually might die'

Michigan Basketball's Moe Wagner on plane crash: 'We actually might die'
Posted at 12:05 PM, Mar 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-23 14:57:36-04

Ahead of Michigan Basketball's Sweet Sixteen matchup against Oregon on Thursday night, Moe Wagner is detailing what happened during the team's plane crash two weeks ago in an article on The Players' Tribune called 'Still Alive.'

"Our plane is crashing, we're out of control, we're on the runway going some outrageous speed, and our entire team - all of Michigan Basketball, plus families, almost 120 people total - is in serious trouble. Our plane is literally going down," Wagner wrote

High winds forced the plane to have a rejected takeoff on March 8 as the team headed to Washington D.C. for the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament.

According to the article, Wagner said all he was thinking about was desert islands, monsters and time travel.

"It's funny where your brain goes, in certain moments," he wrote. He said his instinct is to make a joke about it to break the tension.

"I look behind me to find my target. And what I see, in that moment...I'll never forget. I just see everyone...this plnae full of my Michigan family...with this look on their faces that I don't even recognize," he wrote. "It's almost, like, an entire emotion that I've never seen before. I immediately turn back around. I lean over to look out the window. We're careening off the runway and into a field. 'Oh no,' I think. 'Oh, God. Oh no.'"

According to Wagner, his memories from the rest of the plane ride were a weird combination. He said they are so vivid yet also very blurry.

"We just keep hearing those words, shouted, over and over. 'Evacuation! Evacuation!' It's all happening so fast, and with this urgency that I don't even know how to describe. I'm thinking like, 'Holy sh*t. (sorry for cussing) Are they worried this thing is about to explode?'" he wrote. 

The team eventually got on the Detroit Pistons' chartered plane after spending hours at the airport. 

"I'm not going to lie to you: Getting on a plane, so soon after our crash - I feel scared out of my mind. I think we all do," he added.

Read the entire article on The Players' Tribune.