On 27 December 1991, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 operating the flight, registration OY-KHO, piloted by Danish Captain Stefan G. Rasmussen (44) and Swedish first officer Ulf Cedermark (34), both experienced pilots with 8,000 and 3,000 flight hours, respectively, was forced to make an emergency landing in a field near Gottröra, Sweden.

It had logged approximately 1608 airframe hours and 1272 takeoff and landing cycles and was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-217C engines.

[4] The aircraft had arrived at Stockholm Arlanda Airport at 22:09 local time after a flight from Zürich the previous evening and was parked overnight at temperatures of around 0 to 1 °C (32 to 34 °F).

The flight crew responded by throttling down a little, but an automatic system, ATR (automatic thrust restoration), that had not been described to the flight crew by SAS, simultaneously increased throttle as a response to the asymmetric engine power and reduced climb rate.

SAS Flight Captain Per Holmberg, who was on board as a passenger, noticed the problems early, hurried to the cockpit, and provided invaluable assistance to the crew.

The pilot responded to the loss of both engines by pitching the aircraft down in a dive before leveling it, to try to have it glide the longest possible distance without stalling.

The flight attendants had instructed passengers to adopt the brace position, which is credited with the lack of fatalities.

[7] The flight crew, and especially Captain Rasmussen, were lauded for the skilled emergency landing in a fast-developing, potentially fatal situation.

Rasmussen commented that "few civilian air pilots are ever put to a test of the skills they have acquired during training to this degree".

[8] In 2022 he still suffered from PTSD from the aftermath of the accident when he was both called a hero and a villain despite him just believing he did the job he was trained for.

From 1985 onward, McDonnell Douglas gave extensive information, including several "All Operators Letters" that dealt with the clear ice problem.

"The newly installed ATR prevented the pilots from successfully performing the normal remedial measure to halt compressor stall, i.e., throttling back the engines, as the ATR system — designed to prevent pilots from using less than normal thrust when climbing out after take-off for noise abatement reasons — restored engine take-off power throttle settings, contrary to the pilots' reduced throttle commands.