Summary: A model is proposed for the inviscid two-dimensional blunt-body flow in chemical nonequilibrium in the vicinity of the stagnation point. It is based on the use of the incompressible flow approximation for the density and velocity fields, and on a local linearization of the species convection equations about equilibrium values. A continuous solution is found that involves power laws whose derivatives are unbounded in practical situations. Thus, the analysis brings a rationale to explain why equilibrium conditions cannot be retrieved from the computation of such flow by a discrete method of conventional type.