A daytime and nighttime vertical distribution of ozone is retrieved from far-infrared emission spectra recorded by a balloon-borne Fourier transform spectrometer with 0.0033-cm-1 resolution. The accuracy achieved is approximately 11% in the 27- to 39-km altitude range. The global-fit analysis performed on several different spectral intervals and on several different limb-scanning sequences allows a statistical evaluation of individual error components due to frequency-dependent and time-dependent uncertainty sources, as well as to spectral noise. The statistical evaluation of the error component due to the latter source is in good agreement with the estimate given by the nonlinear least squares fitting algorithm. The possible causes of the observed 9.5% difference between deay and night column densities in the 29- to 34-km altitude range are discussed. Our altitude profiles are compared with the results of previous analyses of the same data set and with the results obtained using other instruments during the same campaign of measurements. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1989