Ozark Air Lines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 · Incident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Springfield, IL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85IA118
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N978Z
- Operator
- Ozark Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield, ILTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR go-around
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, delayed
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural perception
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
OZARK FLT #814 MOMENTARILY TOUCHED DOWN WITH THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR 16 FT OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF RWY 31. WHEN 50 FT ABOVE MINIMUMS DURING THE ILS RWY 31 APCH THE F/O CALLED RWY IN SIGHT. CAPTAIN ASKED FOR LANDING LIGHTS WHICH THE F/O TURNED ON. CAPTAIN STATED, 'AT THIS POINT I NOTICED IT WAS SO BRIGHT, IT WAS DIFFICULT TO SEE. EITHER THE WEATHER HAD DETERIORATED OR THE LIGHTS REDUCED THE VISIBILITY TO THE POINT THAT I DECIDED A GO AROUND WAS NECESSARY.' A GO AROUND WAS INITIATED AND THE FLIGHT DIVERTED TO ST. LOUIS, MO. A 4 FT WIDE BY 100 FT LONG TRACK WAS FOUND IN THE SNOW 16 FT OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF RWY. WEATHER AT THE TIME WAS DOWN TO APPROACH MINIMUMS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85IA118
- Event ID
- 20001214X35647
- Case number
- CHI85IA118
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-02-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 72e991934663f0dc841133459fc9b23641b59ba82e00c75d56891986844c9377; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:31:02.067Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N978Z; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.