Abstract We present optical emission spectroscopy measurements from the vacuum ultraviolet to the near-infrared in a recombining nitrogen plasma flow. An inductively coupled plasma torch is used to create an equilibrium plasma at atmospheric pressure. This plasma is then forced to recombine by flowing through a water-cooled tube. For certain conditions, the plasma is forced out of chemical equilibrium. The emission of excited nitrogen atoms, essential for reentry radiation, is measured to study the nonequilibrium distributions of the electronic states. The densities of the low-lying energy states are found to follow a Boltzmann distribution while the high-lying states are closer to a Saha–Boltzmann distribution—consistent with previous predictions of recombining nonequilibrium plasmas. The measured densities are then compared with the predictions of a two-temperature model, which is found to underpredict the measured densities. The total measured radiation is around 5 orders of magnitude stronger than the equilibrium radiation. The 2-T model estimate of this radiation is much closer yet still underestimates the measured radiation. A model using a single electronic temperature is therefore not sufficient to predict the measurements. The measurements presented in this paper will be useful to test more detailed state-to-state recombination models.