A Thousand Heroes (Movie review)

Airplane crash drill, with burning school bus posing as wreckage

This is the story of a city fully prepared for any disaster, a commercial airliner which lost all hydraulic systems, an experienced Captain, with almost 300 people on board… brought together on a beautiful day, July 19, 1989. This is A Thousand Heroes, also known as Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232.

The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (Movie review)

Uli (Lindsay Wagner), threatened by a hijacker (Eli Danker)

“Ladies and gentlemen, the plane is being hijacked. The Captain has agreed to cooperate with the hijackers and take them wherever they wish to go. So please, for the sake of everyone’s safety, just do exactly as you are told.” How did this happen, and so quickly? How did the lead flight attendant cope with the threat of two terrorists with automatic weapons and hand grenades? And most importantly, how did she manage to keep all but one of her passengers alive?

Tailspin (Movie review)

Closeup of Boeing 747

Movies based on true stories are always tricky. Sometimes, the true story is used simply as a base, other times the entire movie corresponds to reality, but always, there are some slight modifications due to dramatic purposes. Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy, also known as Coded Hostile, is one of the gems in the field of true air disaster movies

Miracle Landing (Movie review)

Boeing 737-200… minus 18 ft. of fuselage

The disaster that occurred on April 28, 1988 is quite memorable. An Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 lost an 18 ft. section of its fuselage at 24,000 feet, due to metal fatigue. Miraculously, only one occupant, a flight attendant, perished during the sudden decompression. With an aircraft getting more and more difficult to control, one engine out of two working, and an aircraft that could fall apart any minute, the cockpit crew does the impossible: a Miracle Landing.

Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771 (Movie review)

Jay (Scott Bakula), realizing he is lost

Imagine you’ve been flying for over 14 hours non-stop over the Pacific Ocean. You see nothing but the ocean around you. You try to contact your destination airport but get no answer. You then realize you are lost in the middle of nowhere… on a Cessna airplane. Your only hope is for the Captain of a commercial flight nearby (or believed to be) to help you. This is what the made-for-TV movie Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771, based on a true story, is all about.