Movie Jetliner Goofs

heavymetal · Thu Aug 16, 2001 7:04 am

Can you think of any movies where the director/producers screwed up when it comes to jetliners?

A few that come to mind:

GOODFELLAS

Great flick but during the sequence depicting Idlewild Airport in NYC in the late 50s/early 60s, they show the approaches of not one but two 747s (not around until 1970)...and one of them is an -SP in the latest Korean Air colors!

EXECUTIVE DECISION

Clearly a 747 Classic from the outside, the cockpit has -400 style LCD screens on the instrument panel. Not impossible I suppose (some -SPs and -300s are retrofitted I believe) but not likely. (Although as a director I probably would have done the same thing.) The "How to Fly A 747" bookshelf in what should have been the engineers panel was clever.

DONNIE BRASCO

Another Mob flick that paid little attention to airport reality...the era was supposed to be the mid 70s but a 90s era livery Continental MD 80 rolls by in the background, a Burlington Air Express 727 sits prominently in one shot (the green striped livery may have been introduced in the late 70s but I think it was the 80s)...and several ground vehicles have Northwest's new font style on them.

DIE HARD 2

Where do you start? But the thing that I thought was dumbest about this shoot-em-up flick was the intentional crashing of the "Windsor" airlines DC-8, which followed a purposely misleading glideslope beacon into the concrete. They say the plane is almost empty of fuel, flying on vapor while still in a holding pattern....
some vapor! It explodes like an atom bomb when it lands short and the gear collapses.

I keep thinking of the Avianca 707 that literally fell out of the sky into trees when it ran out of fuel near JFK. Little if any fire.

HOW ABOUT IT? WHAT FLICK GETS THE LOUDEST GROAN OUT OF YOU?

PHX 1 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 7:10 am

I don't know what the movie was called, it was one of those made for t.v movies. Anyway everytime they showed the airplane it would be a different type. First it was a 757 than it was a 737. Then at one point it was a MD 80. Maybe I'm being too pickie, but I think that somebody should have checked what type of plane they made the movie about.

Guest · Thu Aug 16, 2001 7:17 am

L.O.L. I was watching Turbulence 2 and they had a 747 with a 737 door. It was Hilarious.

Also, Air Force One has Harrison Ford flying a 744 Cockpit when Air Force One has a 742 Cockpit.
(I know everybody thinks Air Force One has a 744 cockpit, but I can clearly assure you that it has a 742 cockpit.) I have seen it up front.

And, while I was watching Home Alone 2... They showed Kevin boarding what appeared to be a 767-200 on the inside with a 747 door, and the titles 767 LUXURY LINER on the outside.

airplanetire · Thu Aug 16, 2001 8:42 am

I just saw the new movie "Rush Hour 2" and there was one minor mess up I think. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were leaving Hong Kong going to Los Angeles. The movie shows a twin engine aircraft fly over (it looked like an A300 or an A310 to me, I could be wrong though). It then shows Chan and Tucker on the inside of the aircraft. They were either in first class or business class, but the layout was 2-2-2. When they are landing in LAX, the movie shows a United 744. If they flew on that, they either had to change planes, which the movie did not show if that was the case, or the movie messed up. Probably the second one though. Movies don't tend to do real well with aircraft.

Notar520AC · Thu Aug 16, 2001 8:45 am

Some are really bad, some are really good. The Castaway recreation was one of the best I've seen, but I don't know how something on fire in the hold would catch the engine on fire...The crash was awesome though!

-Notar520AC

Dazed767 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 8:45 am

THE WEDDING SINGER -

747 classic interior (spiral staircase), but on the outside they showed something like a 757 (if i remember correctly). the seating config was wrong too.

b757300 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 8:48 am

Just about any movie with airliners in it can fall into this list. The first Airport movie might be an exception to the rule.

skihigh2002 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 9:38 am

In Airport they show the jet landing in the dark and you can easily see it's a DC-9 or some other tail mounted jet.

CC

baldguy · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:00 am

In almost all TV shows and made-for-TV movies they use stock air-to-air or takeoff/landing footage, often of the first 747 in Boeing colours. Usually the exterior and interior don't match.

On an episode of 'Roseanne' Roseanne and Dan are flying to Las Vegas - on a 707 in the early 90s.

And all of Airport 77.

boeingmd82 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:15 am

Oh, yea and in Airplane!, they were flying in a B707, but the engines sounded like a piston airplane!! Haw haw!, oops, that's right, I just got it!

PatM04 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:20 am

Another was in the movie Cool Runnings. When they took off they were in an American soemthing(I forget). When they landed they were in an Md-80. Now the first Mistake was 2 diff planes. The second was that we all know that a Md-80 will not make it from Jamaica to Canada very easily.

Pat

AC320 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:32 am

PATM04,

Stop and think for a moment. Does american fly direct from Jamaica to Canada? I think not, so they probably switched planes.

And regarding an earlier post about the Wedding Singer, the aircraft appeared to be a Canadian airlines 737. Although someone will have to check

PatM04 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:38 am

That wasn't my point. The movie was implying to people unlike us that they do fly nonstop and most people didn't notice that. I wasn't saying they did fly nonstop but I bet the producers and directors of that movie just filmed 2 planes of the same airline taking off and landing not even thinking about what they were implying. If they did know they probably thought that people wouldn't notice, but they mus have forgoten about people like us. Their goof up was also implying that they flew nonstop from Jamaica to Canada.

ac190 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:55 am

In the wedding singer, on the interior there was a spiral staircase, but on the outside , it was something like a 757!! Almost any movie with airliners in it has a mistake in it!
Rgds,
A C Smokin cool

Klaus · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:56 am

While "Almost Famous" was supposed to take place in the seventies the plane near the end obviously had winglets. I didn´t know they had them back then...

Nice touch with the yelling FA uniforms, though... Big grin

klm744 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 11:28 am

I saw a made for t.v. movie the other day about the Canadian airliner which ran out of fuel, forcing the pilot to use his experience as a glider pilot to land the plane. The plane was a 767 and most of the footage was of a 767, except for the takeoff scene where they used 737-200 classic Smile

That made me laugh and surprised me that such a big mistake could be made, although I doubt if any non-aviation enthusiast even blinked an eye.

AC320 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 11:31 am

"Their goof up was also implying that they flew nonstop from Jamaica to Canada."

Like anyone would like to watch the movie where they site in the terminal for an hour waiting for their connection Yeah sure

. I mean come on, that's a waste of valuable footage that could be better used to advance the plot

PatM04 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 11:33 am

A movie that didn't make one mistake at all was "Miracle Landing". The movie was about the Hawain Air plane that had it top ripped off in mid air do to stress on the metal. The plane flew for a very long time without a top over the front of the plane. The footage of the plane going through the air is very realistic and every time you see the plane it is a 737-200. The only unrealistic thing about the movie was the set of the cockpit.

IMissPiedmont · Thu Aug 16, 2001 12:01 pm

The most commom seems to be the 747 flying over on approach follwed by a shot of a narrow body taxiing to the gate.
And, who said the M80 can't fly nonstop Jamaica to Canada? MBJ-YUL is only 1884 miles. Well within an MD-80s range.

rw774477 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 12:40 pm

earthquake

Boeing 707 does a touch-and-go at LAX. In the meantime it gets a repaint from CO to TW c/s ( or vice-versa - I can't remember)

Home Alone 1

a/c land in Paris as a 757 ( takes of as a 767 or DC-10 )

Film about Flight 401 ( about EA L1011 Everglades crash )

About 15 minutes in a beautiful silhuoette of a 727 !!crossing the sky ! - I switched channels faster than a Concorde !

rw774477

heavymetal · Thu Aug 16, 2001 12:46 pm

A couple more:

In the movie 9 TO 5, the charector Roz is sent to language school in Colorado. The footage shows a freshly painted TWA 747 (in the red stripes scheme) rotating skyward. Though they never really say what city the movie takes place in, has there EVER been a TWA 747 that flies to Denver from within the US?

One series of movies that seems to pay attention to such things is James Bond...even in the early films with shots of Pan Am 707s landing in Istanbul to Nassau, up to the recent ones showing inter-European BA flights using 757s and 737s...

Two things though:

I believe in one film, Bond flew the Concorde to Rio. Was that a regular BA run?

And in Tommorow Never Dies, Bond is supposed to be at a German airport, testing out his new BMW with Q. The Bae 146 in the hanger belonged to Titan Airlines...British right? Would it be common for them to hanger a -146 in Germany?

767ALLTHEWAY · Thu Aug 16, 2001 1:24 pm

In Rush Hour 2 it shows a quick sequence of an aircraft flying by at nightime taking off...in reality you could tell the aircraft was landing and it was a 737 (I could tell by the way the landing light was on the outer wing on the flap {can think of it} flap guide as i have seen 737's at night before then as "Airplanetire" stated they jump quicly to a 747 interior.

Also in a made for TV movie I saw recently it was about a 747. The pilot was recovering from a dive and he was straining to pull back like he was actually moving the controls himself (Movie producers have never heard of Fly-By-Wire) Also it was a 747-200 class from the exterior with a 747-400 cockpit and only two thrust controllers.

Another was another made for TV movie around several plane crashes. It showed an A320 crashing from the outside and a 737-2 cockpit with no overhead pannel. And another detail was the A320 starting up with a shot of an old 737-2 Engine smoking to life. It also had no cockpit door and the seating was 4-4 which is fales in both A320-737. Cant people make a movie which is technically correct in every aspect including aviation.

spinkid · Thu Aug 16, 2001 1:33 pm

In Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, the scene where they are at the airport. They board a plane with "no logo". However you don't have to look very hard to see that it is a Valujet DC-9 painted over with whitewash. The film is set in the early 1970's, long before the critter was flying.

srbmod · Thu Aug 16, 2001 4:14 pm

In Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas there is a Valujet DC-9 in the background shot as well. One of my friends has seen the movie dozens of times and never noticed it until I told him about it (I caught it the first time I saw it). And I don't think any of Eastern's 727s in the mid 70s had winglets. Now any goofs in "Airplane!" I don't mind, it's not meant to be taken seriously. And I have to agree that most movies that have any scene involving airliners tend to screw something up.

767-322ETOPS · Thu Aug 16, 2001 9:45 pm

The opening scene of the Charlie's Angels movie features an interior that is unrealistically spacious.

777fan · Thu Aug 16, 2001 9:46 pm

You stole my thunder on the miracle landing movie! I believe it was Aloha airlines?

I am sure there were some minor mistakes, but if you watch the movie and see photos of the actual plane, they are pretty close together.

How about "Executive Decision" with Kurt Russel and Steven Segal? I believe much of the 747 footage was accurate, except maybe the cockpit?

Also, anyone know how many times "Oceanic Airlines" is used as the name of the airlines? Seems like a lot!

Rgds,

Greg

Guest · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:23 pm

´The naked gun 1´ quite at the beginning of the movie clearly displays a DC-10-10 landing at KLAX(Flight of Frank Drebin) and then you see Mr.Drebin get outa an L1011 appearantly in TW-c/s.

But maybe this was meant to be a gag as well .

sccutler · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:33 pm

Yep, for me it was definitely the winglets on the EA 727 in Almost Famous; I was watching that flick, just enjoying it (they really did a pretty good job of historical continuity in that movie), and then I saw the winglet- and squawked out loud.

My wife was not amused, basically said that it did not matter. But it does, since something like that which is (for those of us who know the difference) destroys the myth of authenticity.

Sort of like, in films which are supposed to be set in the early sixties, seeing telephones with RJ-11 modular jacks on them. I remember phones which were wired to the wall permanently!

EFG · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:34 pm

Although it is not a movie, I watched The A-Team the day before yesterday, and it was an episode about a 747 being hijacked. Of course the A-Team came to the rescue, and at one point Hannibal and Face were entering the 747, but it was clear that they actually boarded a L-1011 Tristar.

HlywdCatft · Thu Aug 16, 2001 10:43 pm

Its pretty sad when there is a Discovery Channel show about an airport and they goof up.

I was watching "World's Busiest Airport" the other day on Discovery channel about Atlanta Airport and they were talking about a Delta 737 that was having some kind of troubles and needed to make an emergency landing, and they show a 757 or 767 landing, i can't remember which.

Then later they are talking about an L1011 and they show an MD-11.

There was some movie, I think Disney about 2 dogs and a cat based on Incredible Journey, but a modern version.

Anyway, the dogs and cats are on the runway of the airport and are dodging planes and such.

There were a few errors. For one thing it was supposed to take place at SFO San Francisco. It didn't look like San Francisco from what I saw, but I don't see why not because everything else was shot there. But I don't recall seeing any United Aircraft.

Another error, the dogs and cat escaped from their crates and were running along the ramp near where the passengers were supposed to be, but there were a bunch of FED EX aircraft around, and the cargo area is no where near the passenger area from what I recall at SFO, there are 2 active runways between.

The other error was that the family that owned the pets were just going somewhere in the mountains near California, I assume Tahoe. It shows them getting on a Canadien 737.

blink182 · Thu Aug 16, 2001 11:49 pm

HlwdCtft, also about the movie you were talking about, did FedEx fly the 737-200 then?

Also in Charlies Angels in the opening scene, as far as I am concerned it look like a 763 on the exterior and in the interior it had somewhat the same seating arrangement, I don't see anything wrong with that.

rgds,
blink182

Guest · Thu Aug 16, 2001 11:49 pm

Investigative Reports ran a series in 1999 about what happens behind the scenes at LAX. One part focused on UA F/As in training, including two on their first trip: LAX-LHR-LAX. The plane they show taking off, which is supposedly their return trip to LAX, is a 737-200!

The opening scenes of the 1967 movie 'Wait Until Dark' shows Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and Samantha Jones boarding an Air Canada DC-9. The air stairs are retracted while Jones still has one foot on it, and the door is still wide open. Was the F/A supposed to risk breaking her neck by leaning halfway out of the plane (with no stairs outside) to close the door? (In the same opening scenes, Jones puts a bag down on one side of her, which magically ends up on the other side a few seconds later. And watch for the woman in purple who comes down the same staircase twice in the space of a few seconds.)

DCA-ROCguy · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:16 am

In Die Hard 2, they try to pass off the LAX Bradley Terminal as Dulles....aack! In that movie also Bruce Willis uses a pay phone at "Dulles" that says Pacific Bell on it.

In one episode of the Dukes of Hazzard from around 1980 (OK, showing my age here), Daisy and the Boys drop someone or other off at Atlanta Hartsfield. Then they watch a Hughes Airwest DC-9 take off. Nice try, Hughes never flew to Atlanta.

In the idiotic Chris Farley/ David Spade film "Danny Boy" they go to catch a flight at "Cuyahoga Falls International Airport." Good grief. They also board a poorly-disguised British Airways L-1011 for their flight to Chicago.

In the sci-fi masterpiece "12 Monkeys," the facade of BWI is passed off as the outside of PHL. Then the inside of what appears to be a train station is passed off as the interior of PHL.

Jim

FATFlyer · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:25 am

HlywdCatft - Parts of the Disney movie Homeward Bound 2 were filmed in Vancouver BC. Hard for me to think of SFO when I'm seeing YVR.

Lowsonboy · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:34 am

I think in Die Hard 2 the "Windsor" plane that explodes in a huge fireball despite having no fuel on board is depicted as a DC-9. Must be a new model that can fly across the Atlantic.....

heavymetal · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:41 am

Re: Tommy Boy

Actually, DCA, if you look closely it's an Air Transat L1011...

But you're right....the story takes place in Sandusky Ohio(actual poulation 29,764!)....interesting, because according to the film footage, a town this small is not only served by Air Transat L1011's, but a China Airlines 747-SP (in old colors!!!).

Plus! Tommy and Richard fly to Chicago (with in flight footage) on a TWA L1011!

Somebody in Sandusky is doing a damn good job getting airline service!!!

And you point out that one of the charectors wants a plane ticket from Sandusky to Cuyahoga Falls...the gate agent even says the flight goes through Columbus! (Clearly this movie portrays the state of Ohio as the PERFECT place for RJs!). In reality, it's about a 90 minute drive at most from Sandusky to Cuyahoga Falls, a suburb on the far southern fringe of Cleveland.

The only reasonably believable scene is at the start of the film when Tommy arrives back in Sandusky from college on a DHC-8....a lot more believable of an aircraft for a small town.

Criticism aside, the five minute routine of Chris Farley attempting to change clothes in the Tristar's lav is one of the funniest movie scenes in the last 10 years.

747buff · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:42 am

In Die Hard 2, which takes place at IAD, Bruce Willis walks past a map of LAX's Int'l Terminal.

DCA-ROCguy · Fri Aug 17, 2001 1:01 am

Thanks for corrections Heavymental. You'd think I'd at least get the title of the film right. Sheesh. Insane

Does John Hughes have some sort of product-placement deal with American? All of his movies seem to prominently feature their planes and terminals.

In Home Alone, the temporary international terminal that was built in the first floor of the ORD garage during the construction of the current Int'l terminal, doubles as a Paris airport's arrivals area. Not sure if CDG or ORY is intended.

Jim

Guest · Fri Aug 17, 2001 1:06 am

Don't forget in Turbulence 2 its a 747, but at the end they show an Alaska 737.

EGGD · Fri Aug 17, 2001 1:50 am

I think just about everything in Turbulence II was at fault.

Also, a couple of things in Final Destination (i thought it was pretty realistic)..

Firstly, when he gets on the aircraft, and looks down the side of the aircraft it looks a little like a 707, although i can't be sure of this. Also, The crash scene where he is inside takes a long time whilst in the air, maybe 5 minutes. Yet from the terminal it only seems a couple of seconds. Secondly, when its about to crash he looks out of the window, and they are banking to the right, when they are watching from the terminal, the aircraft is still heading forward when it explodes, and also there is not flames until it explodes.

If anyone could give me some info on the movie "French Kiss", i saw the end, and from what i saw (an AOM md-80) looked ok, unless AOM didn't own any md-80's.

Cheeers

Dan

dw747400 · Fri Aug 17, 2001 4:22 am

In the made for TV version of Pandora's Clock (the book was a well researched and accurate depiction of a 747-400.) the aircraft takes off as a 747-400. Within one or two commercial brakes it has switched to a -200B (I think) The interior and cockpit stay the same. The remainder of the movie was filmed as a -200 (I think, have not seen it in about 5 years.) As for Oceanic, it was used in Executive desicion and the same aircraft was used in a number of made-for-TV movies. I noticed in one movie black paint on the wing, which was put on during executive desicion to be the charred remains of an engine fire. Evidently the pilots in the made-for-tv movie were not concerned about their wing.

United747-200 · Fri Aug 17, 2001 4:49 am

Has anyone seen the movie Turbulence III??? There are so many things wrong with that movie, it's sad. These are the ones i decided to note (BESIDES the concert onboard.) Firstly, I believe they are flying from somewhere in California (LAX?) to Canada with a Marolyn Manson-look-alike onboard. Well, when preping the 747 for departure, they use the old footage from Turbulence (I thought the first movie was good.) The only problem with that is, it was at JFK in the WINTER!!! This was LAX in the summer. You could clearly see snow in the shot of "LAX". And, the huge cockpit seemed to have a car CD player mounted where the flight engineer's station should be...oh yeah, they used a 744 cockpit on a 742! So there WOULDN'T be any flight engineers station...at least to the producers. Maybe we should all get together and make a movie. Ehh?

United747-200

clewatcher · Fri Aug 17, 2001 4:57 am

watched a made for tv movie yesterday "Quarantine" and the computerized airliner they used was a Airbus 330 but the newscasters say its a 737

NWA · Fri Aug 17, 2001 5:27 am

"I think in Die Hard 2 the "Windsor" plane that explodes in a huge fireball despite having no fuel on board is depicted as a DC-9. Must be a new model that can fly across the Atlantic....."

It was a DC-8, the one that they some how fixed the g/s to have -200ft, and the pilot would not have knowen about this huh, they must have changed his alt as well. I belive that the cockpit had three throttles as well, the DC-8 has 4. They pilot also would not have knowen any thing was up to when the fake ATC was talking him the whole way down, please!

heavymetal · Fri Aug 17, 2001 5:30 am

A couple of unintended 'cameos' to look for:

In TRUE LIES , in one of the climactic rooftop scenes, an unknown 747 (though I think it was Tower Air) makes an appearence as it makes the familiar westbound approach to the north of the Miami skyline.

MIA departures make their presence known in SCARFACE, in the scene filmed on Key Biscayne where Tony Montana courts Michelle Pffiefer poolside. Listen for the climbing jetliners heading off southeast to the Caribbean....

In FALLING DOWN .... a 757 drifts across the sky as Michael Douglas gets ready to fire his rocket tube!

Any other 'cameos' you know of?

TonyBurr · Fri Aug 17, 2001 11:30 am

It is not just movies they mess up, also books. Often they talk about small planes flying to Europe, or flights leaving the ast coast of the USA at mid day (which they do not) and arriving in Europe that same morning, or leaving Europe in th eevening and arriving in New York the next morning.

I think they should at least check a flight schedule to see how flights go, or ask someone!

CaliforniaSoul · Fri Aug 17, 2001 11:52 am

Well, I hate to bring this one up because it proves that I watched it, but "Plan 9 From Outer Space" has some good long shots of what appear to be an American Airlines DC-6; However, when they show the cockpit, you can plainly see the shadow of the boom mike reflected on the wall and that the cockpit is nothing but a couple of chairs and a curtain!

HlywdCatft · Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:08 pm

cameos

Fools Rush In- Salma Hayek/Matthew Perry- When the first scene of Vegas is they show the Luxor with an AA MD-80 taking off in the background

I remember seeing a DC-9 in the background in an Alanis Morrisette Video, the one where the video is a parade, you see a DC-9 flying in the background.

other rock videos-

band: Presidents of the United States, again I forget which song, but they are on a boat in New York harbor and you can see planes landing at LGA in the background.

Midnight Oil- Beds Are Burning. A flying Tigers 747SP going across a taxibridge over a road. I assume it is at Sydney since the band is from Australia.

747buff · Fri Aug 17, 2001 1:46 pm

Flying Tiger never operated 747SPs, only -200s.

KCLE · Fri Aug 17, 2001 2:44 pm

I know of one movie where all of the aircraft are correct!! And it's none other than Rugrats In Paris. You can clearly see 767's 757's, and the plane the rugrats fly on is clearly a 747-200. Take-off speed and length for a 747 bound for Paris were totally unrealistic, but then again, since when do half a dozen babies run after airplanes on taxiways? Big grin

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