Today marks the 35th anniversary of the crash of United Airlines flight 232 at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa. The flight had departed Denver Stapleton International Airport with a destination of Chicago O'Hare International Airport, continuing to Philadelphia. Five years ago, a Featured Map offered an overview of the flight and what happened, but as this accident was too close to home on several levels I wanted to revisit it. More important than that personal connection, there are few accidents that better showcase brilliant airmanshp by skilled pilots, saving more than half of the 296 souls aboard.

Today's Featured Map draws from Figure 2 in the NTSB's report, estimating locations from that figure, and uses spline paths (introduced last year) to illustrate the 44 minutes between the uncontained engine failure and the "landing" on runway 22, plus the moments before the failure and the planned path after a turn. The blue path depicts the actual flight path until the engine failure near the completion of a right turn along with the intended path on a 95° magnetic heading beyond that turn, The remainder of the path (red) shows the path based on radar data, except for a 360-degree right-hand loop northeast of Sioux City (gold) which was not recorded on radar and was estimated in the NTSB report.

References and additional information:

• Aircraft Accident Report: United Airlines Flight 232, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, Sioux Gateway Airport, Sioux City, Iowa, July 19, 1989 (NTSB/AAR-90/06) – Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University: Hunt Library (1 November 1990)
• N1819U United Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 – Planespotters.net
  
  
• Featured Map: United Airlines Flight 232 DC-10 at Sioux City (19 July 2019)
• Featured Map: United's Island Hopper (9 April 2023)
• Featured Map: Uncontained Engined Failures (8 November 2010)