Ozark Douglas DC-9-32 incident
Douglas DC-9-32 · Incident: near collision between aircraft en route
From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) to Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84IA160
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-9-32
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N923L
- Operator
- Ozark
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), St. Louis, MOTo Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KY
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- 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
- Atc personnel(artcc) › Crew/group coordination, improper
- Atc personnel(artcc) › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Atc personnel(artcc) › Radar separation, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Crew/group coordination, improper
- Pilot of other aircraft › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
KANSAS CITY ARTCC (ZKC) HAD CLEARED OZARK FLT 709 (A DC-9, N923L) TO CRUISE AT FL270. WHILE PROCEEDING ESE NEAR THE EDGEOF THE ZKC AREA, THE DC-9 CONVERGED ON ZORRO 11 (A FLT OF 3 F-4'S). THE F-4'S HAD BEEN CLEARED BY INDIANAPLOLIS ARTCC (ZID) TO PROCEED WESTBOUND AT FL260 TO RENDESVOUS WITH A KC-135 TANKER (SHAKE 81) TO REFUEL ON AERIAL REFUELING ROUTE AR110W. THE BEGINNING OF AR110W WAS IN THE ZID AREA; FROM THERE IT CONTINUED WESTBOUND INTO THE ZKC AREA. THE TANKER WASORBITING UNDER CONTROL OF ZKC & WAS CLEARED TO MAINTAIN BLOCK ALT FL260 TO FL290. ZID CLEARED THE F-4'S TO THE TANKER FREQ WITHOUT HANDING THEM OFF TO ZKC & WITHOUT OBTAINING APPROVAL FROM EITHER ZKC OR THE TANKER. AFTER ESTABLISHING RADIO CONTACT, THE TANKER CREW INCORRECTLY CLEARED THE F-4'S TO CLIMB TO FL270. WHEN THE ZKC CONTROLLER REALIZED THE F-4'S & DC-9 WERE CONVERGING, HE TOLD THE DC-9 CREW TO IMMEDIATELY TURN LEFT. THE DC-9 CREW SAW THE F-4'S & TOOK EVASIVEACTION. ZID HAD NOT PROPERLY COORDINATED THE F-4S' POSITION & NONE OF THE PLTS WERE INFORMED OF CONFLICTING TRAFFIC.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84IA160
- Event ID
- 20001214X39467
- Case number
- ATL84IA160
- 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: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 80137d73c49c57b17e08b68b66149e8d23270510dba05ec60f2a1a3e8c6894e6; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:42:02.718Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "KANSAS CITY ARTCC (ZKC) HAD CLEARED OZARK FLT 709 (A DC-9, N923L) TO CRUISE AT FL270"