During the airplane crash fire, real Los Angeles County Firefighter Jim Howe of Engine 9 can be seen pulling fire hose to attack the fire. In 1991, Firefighter Specialist Howe was killed in the line of duty fighting a commercial fire in Huntington Park. Howe served at Station 9 in South Central Los Angeles from the mid 1970s until his death in 1991. Station 9 was later closed in the 1990s. Eighteen years after his passing, Engine 216 out of Watts Station 16 was renumbered Engine 9 in Howe's honor.
On September 25th, 6 months to the day after this episode originally aired, PSA flight 182, with 128 passengers and a crew of 7, collided with a private Cessna 172 with two people aboard over San Diego, California. The sad difference is no one survived on either plane and seven people on the ground were killed as well. Also, that night a popular game show gave away a prize to a couple for a flight to San Diego on PSA airlines. The game show was pre-recorded weeks, if not months, in advance.
The filming location (Compton, California) was owned by the Compton Community Redevelopment Agency. The Agency wanted to demolish the buildings on the site to make way for redevelopment; the filmmakers wanted to burn some buildings and create explosions. So in exchange for demolishing the buildings, paying a small business license fee and hiring extra police and firefighters, the filmmakers were allowed to use the site. (Reference: "Plane Crash, Explosion Startle Compton Residents - But It Was All Just for Play," by Tom Gorman, October 6, 1977, Los Angeles Times, Southeast Edition, page 2.)
James A. Watson, who portrays "Lenny" of the jet's flight crew, goes on to play "Dunn" of the flight crew of the shuttle to the Moon in Airplane II.
Roy and Johnny are seen on-screen only five minutes of this movie.