Ozark Air Lines Flight 650
Douglas DC-9-31 · Collision with vehicle
From Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX) to Sioux Falls Regional Airport, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA84AA012
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- Occupants
- 86
- Survivors
- 86
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 2
- 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
Douglas DC-9-31
- Flight
- OZ650
- 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
- N994Z
- Operator
- Ozark Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX), Sioux City, IATo Sioux Falls Regional Airport, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Control tower service, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Ozark Air Lines Flight 650 was a regularly scheduled flight on December 20, 1983, from Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa, to Sioux Falls Regional Airport in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. While landing in Sioux Falls, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 struck a snow plow on the runway and burst into flames. The snow plow's driver was killed, and two flight attendants were injured.
Accident
Prior to departing Sioux City, Flight 650's flight crew obtained weather conditions for the flight via Sioux City's automatic terminal information service (ATIS) broadcast system. The ATIS report included reports of blowing snow at Sioux Falls.
Flight 650 departed Sioux City at 12:53 Central Standard Time, and climbed to an assigned altitude of 11,000 feet. At 13:06, the flight was handed off from Sioux City controllers to the Sioux Falls approach controller, who issued descent instructions to 3,400 feet and vectors to Runway 3 at Sioux Falls Regional Airport. Flight 650 was cleared for the approach at 13:11.
At 13:13, when Flight 650 was about 4 miles out from the airport, the Sioux Falls approach controller directed the flight to contact the airport tower. Flight 650's captain acknowledged the instruction, but did not contact the tower. When Flight 650 was about 2.5 miles out, the Sioux Falls tower called the flight, and the captain responded. The tower then cleared Flight 650 to land, giving a runway visual range of 3,500 feet. The tower did not advise Flight 650 of snow removal operations in progress on Runway 3.
The flight crew first saw the ground and airport approach lights after descending to an altitude of 200 feet, and then saw the runway. Because the ATIS report had advised of blowing snow, and the flight crew was not advised of snow blowing operations, they were not surprised to see snow blowing across the runway.
About 1,000 feet beyond the threshold of Runway 3, the aircraft made a smooth touchdown and the pilots deployed the spoilers. The copilot began to apply reverse thrusters when the aircraft entered a cloud of snow. The DC-9's right wing then struck a large snowsweeping vehicle on the runway. The impact ripped the right wing from the plane, destroying the snow plow and killing its driver, Douglas Stoner, age 38. Leaking fuel from the wing briefly created a fireball that engulfed the airplane but rapidly died out. The plane spun through 180° before coming to rest off the runway to the left of the centerline. Passenger evacuation was initiated through the front two doors. No passengers were injured in the evacuation, but two flight attendants suffered minor injuries.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The resulting NTSB investigation determined that the snow removal operations were controlled from the tower. The snow plow, call sign Sweeper 7, had been routinely directed to exit the runway to accommodate arrivals and departures. When Flight 650 was handed off from approach control to the tower it did not initiate contact with the tower. The tower controller eventually contacted the flight and cleared it to land. No communications had been made between the tower and Sweeper 7 after Flight 650 was handed off to the tower controller. Neither the approach nor tower controller had advised Flight 650 that snow removal operations were in progress. The hourly ATIS broadcast advised that blowing snow conditions were present, leading the flight crew to not be concerned when they witnessed snow blowing across the runway. The board concluded the snow removal operations were inadequately supervised by the tower.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ozark Air Lines Flight 650” (revision 1365409052, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
DURING LANDING THE CREW ACQUIRED VISUAL REFERENCE WITH THE GROUND & APCH LIGHTS ABOUT 200 FT AGL, FOLLOWED BY VISUAL SIGHTING OF THE RWY. SINCE THE ATIS REPORTED BLOWING SNOW, THE CREW EXPECTED TO SEE, & WAS NOT SURPRISED TO SEE, SNOW BLOWING ACROSS THE RWY ABOUT 2,000 FT BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. AT ABOUT 2,200 FT DOWN THE RWY THE ACFT ENTERED A CLOUD OF SNOW, & THE RIGHT WING STRUCK A LARGE SNOW SWEEPING VEHICLE WHICH WAS TRAVELING IN THE SAME DIRECTION & TO THE RIGHT OF THE RWY CENTERLINE. THE ACFT'S RIGHT WING SEPARATED & IT SWERVED OFF THE RWY. NEITHER THE APPROACH CONTROLLER NOR THE LOCAL CONTROLLER ADVISED THE FLT OF SNOW REMOVAL OPERATIONS, NOR DID THE LOCAL CONTROLLER COMMUNICATE WITH THE SWEEPER AFTER HE TOOK THE HAND-OFF OF THE FLT FROM APPROACH CONTROL. HE ALSO STATED HE DID NOT KNOW WHERE THE SWEEPER WAS WHEN HE CLEARED THE FLT TO LAND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Ozark Air Lines Flight 650
- Article
- Ozark Air Lines Flight 650
- Revision
- 1365409052 · 2026-07-22 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7116473
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA84AA012
- Event ID
- 20001214X45258
- Case number
- DCA84AA012
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Ozark Air Lines Flight 650" (page 19662886, revision 1365409052); merged with NTSB case DCA84AA012 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA84AA012
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA84AA012: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Ozark Air Lines Flight 650" and NTSB case DCA84AA012, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. 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.