Ozark Air Lines Flight 982
Douglas DC- 9 · Stalled due to ice and pilot error
From Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 68
- Survivors
- 68
- 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
- 35
- 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
- Flight
- OZ982
- 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
- N974Z
- Operator
- Ozark Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX)To Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
- 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 (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Airframe ice
- Pilot in command › Inadequate preflight preparation and/or planning
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sioux City, IA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Ozark Air Lines Flight 982 was a regularly scheduled flight on December 27, 1968, originating from Sioux Falls Regional Airport to O'Hare International Airport connecting through Sioux Gateway Airport that crashed shortly after takeoff. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 struck the ground about 500 feet beyond the end of the runway and came to a stop about 1200 ft from the end of the runway. Thirty-five of the flight's 64 passengers and four crew members were taken to area hospitals, mostly for treatment of minor cuts and scratches.
Background
Ozark Airlines began service in Sioux City on August 9, 1955. It was the first crash of a DC-9 jetliner for Ozark since the beginning of their use on July 8, 1966.
Accident
According to the NTSB report: "At approximately 07:11 local time, the aircraft crashed a half-mile north of the airport in a wooded area. There were no fatalities. Among the 64 passengers and four crew members, 11 passengers were hospitalized with minor injuries and three crew members received serious injuries. The aircraft was destroyed in the crash. There was no fire. Flight 982 began its takeoff on Runway 35 with the flight crew aware that ice was present on the wings. The aircraft lifted off and the landing gear was selected to the up position by the first officer. The captain began turning off the landing and taxi lights. As the landing gear began to retract, the aircraft rolled abruptly and violently to the right to an angle of bank estimated by the flight crew to have reached 90°. The captain applied additional power and left rudder in an attempt to level the wings. When no immediate response was noted, he then applied left aileron. With the application of left aileron, the right wing came up; however, the roll continued to the left until the left wing contacted the runway. At this point, the captain discontinued the takeoff. He, approximately 110 feet beyond the departure threshold of Runway 35, succeeded in leveling the wings prior to final ground contact. The aircraft came to rest in a grove of trees approximately 1,181 feet beyond the departure end of Runway 35."
Investigation and cause
Investigation
According to the NTSB report, the probable cause was: "A stall near the upper limits of ground effect, with subsequent loss of control as a result of aerodynamic and weight penalties of airfoil icing. The flight crew failed to have the airfoil ice removed prior to the attempted takeoff from Sioux City. The board also finds that the crew selected an improper takeoff thrust for the existing gross weight condition of the aircraft."
Anderson Construction Company took 12 hours to salvage and tow the 27.5-ton aircraft to the Air National Guard hangar for further examination by the NTSB.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ozark Air Lines Flight 982” (revision 1362524224, 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 remarks
T/O MADE WITH KNOWN AIRFRAME ICING.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Ozark Air Lines Flight 982
- Article
- Ozark Air Lines Flight 982
- Revision
- 1362524224 · 2026-07-04 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q65048905
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19681227P023272
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Ozark Air Lines Flight 982" (page 61068617, revision 1362524224); merged with NTSB case NTSB19681227P023272 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681227P023272: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Ozark Air Lines Flight 982" and NTSB case NTSB19681227P023272, 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.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.