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Audio/visual unsynchronised (1) |
Character error (8) |
Continuity (20) |
Crew or equipment visible (2) |
Errors in geography (10) |
Factual errors (17) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (3) |
Plot holes (2) |
Revealing mistakes (14) |
Spoilers (9)
Audio/visual unsynchronised
During the scene with McClane in the tower talking to the Air Traffic Controller and the Police Chief, there is an obvious overdub in TV versions with a completely separate voice and obvious audio/visual mismatch.
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Character error
McClane says the Glock 7 is made in Germany. Glock is actually an Austrian firm, and the pistol seen in the film is a Glock 17, not a 'Glock 7'.
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Holly stands at the door of the plane for 20 seconds, with passengers waiting to get out behind her. When you evacuate a plane you get everybody out as quickly as possible.
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Throughout the entire movie, Lorenzo and everyone else refer to him as Captain. He also wears Captains bars on his lapels. Near the end, when he is assembling the rest of his men, he says on the P.A. "this is Chief Lorenzo". Chief and Captain are two different ranks for police officers.
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The Windsor flight is marked as a 747 on the terrorists' list, but the actual plane has only one aisle.
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Thornberg occasionally talks into the wrong end of the skyphone in the toilet.
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Colonel Stuart refers to Esperanza's plane, FM1, using phonetic letters (Foxtrot Michael One). The phonetic alphabet for the letter M is always "Mike", never "Michael".
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When McClane shows Trudeau and Lorenzo the printout detailing Sgt. Oswald Cochrane's military service, Afghanistan is misspelled "Afganistan".
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Thornburg, the bad guy journalist, mispronounces the most famous award in his profession. The Pulitzer is pronounced "PULL it sir". Or, maybe the character really is that clueless.
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Continuity
When a black terrorist reaches down for a "present" it is a white hand grabbing the box.
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Blood on Grant's face when fighting with McClane.
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Samantha Coleman is listed as Samantha Copeland in the credits.
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As General Esperanza's plane is landing. McClane gets up to the runway via a ladder. As he is approaching the ladder we see the base of the ladder is up a step. However an overhead shot of McClane reaching the ladder shows it to be in a large pool of water.
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Esperanza's plane runs over the manhole grate on the runway just as McClane extricates himself. However in the wide shot, the tire tracks in the snow clearly miss the grate.
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During the fight in the luggage room with the black terrorist, John McClane strikes him with a golf club. When he wants to strike him a second time he swings the club over his left shoulder. But just before he strikes, the camera viewpoint changes and you see him (or actually his stunt double) swinging the golf club over his right shoulder. This is probably because Bruce Willis plays John McClane as a lefty. But the stunt double seen in the second shot must not have known that.
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As McClane is fighting with the sentry guard outside the church, they knock over some trashcans, which appear upright in the next shot. They appear knocked over, again, later on in the fight.
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When Marvin is explaining to McClane where the annex skywalk is, he circles the location with his right hand, but the close-up shows a left hand (with the arm wearing McClane's sweater).
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When McClane sends the fax with the fingerprints, the page is sent upside down. When Powell receives the fax the page is turned right side up. Faxes are received in the same orientation as they are sent.
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On the military plane, Esperanza's cigar is clearly lit and smoking before his guard lights it.
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When McClane is in the tunnel under the runway, the manhole cover is lit from above. It is night outside, and the light from the landing lights wouldn't shine directly down the manhole. Furthermore, in shots of the manhole from the runway, it is lit from beneath, not above.
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During the shootout at the church and subsequent snowmobile chase - the weather conditions alternate between snowy/windy and totally calm.
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The first time Samantha Coleman's helicopter is shown, the side reads "Night-Time News." The second time, there is no hyphen.
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When John falls off the 747's wing and tumbles towards the camera, there are no trails in the snow after the 747. The 18 wheels should make 10 trails when the aircraft goes along a straight line. The only trails seen are the trails from the car filming the scene.
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When the man in the church is shot, there's a close shot of the villain aiming and pulling the trigger. In the next shot the dead body is thrown backwards over some benches. In the background the villain is holding the gun straight downwards. The following close shot shows the villain aiming again.
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As the airport police begin to leave for the hangar housing Col. Stuart and his men, they pull away from the terminal straight ahead and cars can be seen at the exit through Lorenzo's windshield facing the same direction. The taxi they hit pulls directly across their path, but as seen in a following shot of McClane running over to Samantha Copeland and her crew, there was nowhere for the taxi to go except straight into the terminal building itself.
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When John is using the torches to try and show the ground to the plane coming in too low, he is shown waving brightly lit torches but when the camera shows only him, there is no light reflected from the fire.
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Throughout the outside scenes, there was no breath exhaust in what was obviously freezing weather with the snow falling.
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Colonel Stuart directs the Windsor flight to land on runway 29; however, the ILS screen shows runway 25L.
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The engine Grant is sucked into is clearly a different one than those on the plane. The center cap on the engines on the plane have a silver center with a black surround with a "spiral" painted on it that shows the engine is spinning. The center cap on the engine Grant was sucked into was all silver, with no "spiral" on it.
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Crew or equipment visible
In a shot of Esperanza's plane coming in, there are legs visible on the top of the screen
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When the SWAT team and Barnes arrive at the annex sky-walk, the boom mic operator wearing a blue jersey is reflected in the large mirror to the left behind them.
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Errors in geography
Pacific Bell phones and maps of Los Angeles in Dulles Airport (serving Washington D.C.)
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After McLane's airport shootout with the mercenaries, Lorenzo accuses him of violating five District of Columbia regulations. Dulles Airport is actually in Loudon County, Va., about 25 miles West of Washington D.C.
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If you look closely at the flight boards when the flight times are being changed to "Delayed", in the second scene of the flight board close-up, Auckland is misspelled as Aukland. Also, at the time of filming, no commercial jetliner could fly Auckland-Dulles nonstop (7,476 nautical miles). Airliners capable of serving this distance did not enter service until 2002, or 12 years after the movie was released.
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There is a general "V" shape to the Dulles Airport property. However, the area between the two legs of the "V" do not have public access. There is no church located in this area that would have cabling for the airport running underneath it.
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Reagan National Airport and Dulles International (IAD) are only 27 miles apart. However, Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) is still only 57 miles from Dulles by road, 46 from one to the other directly. In the movie, we are informed that National has closed due to weather conditions, but BWI is never mentioned, even though it was dedicated in 1950 and acquired by the State of Maryland in 1972. If the planes low on fuel could circle for 90 minutes, they could have easily been redirected to BWI.
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After the Special Forces platoon shows up, we see an Air Traffic Control tower. This is not Dulles tower. This one is round while Dulles tower is rectangular.
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While somewhere over Ohio we are told the pilot has just been given information by Dulles Tower. An en-route commercial jetliner at cruising altitude over Ohio would be communicating with Cleveland Center, not Dulles or any other airport control tower.
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Runways referenced in the movie for Washington Dulles International (IAD) are 15, 10, 29, 25L and 25R. In reality, IAD has only these 3 runways: 1L-19R, 1R-19L, and 12-30.
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A military flight carrying a high profile foreign prisoner would not be scheduled to land at a civilian airport but at a military airfield. Under the scenario in the movie, if General Esperanza was to be routed to Washington DC for the DOJ he likely would have landed either at Bolling Air Force Base, Andrews Air Force Base, or even Fort Belvoir (US Army).
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The bad guys wear DWP (Los Angeles Department of Water & Power) vests to the church, not Pepco. Potomac Electric supplies power in Washington. D.C Water supplies only water, no power.
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Factual errors
While normal practice would have been to use an internal plug to get automatic rifles firing blanks to cycle, which would make the weapon explode when shifting to live ammo, Stuart's team could have devised another mechanism. Nevertheless, any mechanism would have to be removed and the movie answer is merely to switch magazines which couldn't possibly work.
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The running lights of the NEA flight are reversed. The port wing should show a red light, the starboard a green.
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As you look in the L-1011 of Northeast (Holly's plane), there is a Boeing 747-200 panel in it, so there are four throttles in the plane, but L-1011's have only three engines.
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The baseball style hand grenades used to blow up the military transport with McClane on board have a fuse burn of about 5-7 seconds before detonation. From the moment the first one is thrown (releasing the spoon and igniting the fuse) to the explosion, 37 seconds elapse. While it's possible that the mercenaries may have put extended fuses in the grenades, why would they, as McClane's escape illustrates exactly why a short burning fuse is desirable?
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A 747 does not have a fuel dump valve in the pylon (engine mount). Any fuel dump is controlled from the cockpit and fuel is ejected from nozzles on the trailing edge of the wing, one on each wing just inboard of the aileron.
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The NEA aircraft Holly is in is a TriStar L-1011/DC-10 type of aircraft. Towards the end of the movie there is a shot with Holly and the stewardess. In the background there is a shot of stairs going up stairs towards the flight deck. These type of airplanes do not have stairs. Only in the 747 in the 1990s.
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Cool-looking explosions seen when planes crash are caused by fuel, of which flight Windsor 114 had precious little. With hardly any fuel, a more realistic crash would've seen a much smaller fire, possibly with much less lethal consequences.
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When Trudeau finds out the airport has been taken over, he orders all aircraft to their alternate airport other than those that have already started their approach. All of these, he orders to "hold at the outer marker." The outer marker is a beacon 5 to 7 miles off the end of the runway. If "all" lanes held at that spot, it would be very dangerous.
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Esperanza's aircraft is a Fairchild-Hiller C-123 Provider, a twin-piston-engined aircraft with NO jet engines. The aircraft depicted in the film does not exist.
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Airport runways do not have manholes. Additionally, any manhole cover which could be lifted by one person would easily be crushed by a plane.
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The bad guys adjust the ILS system to set ground level for 200' below actual ground level in order to cause the Windsor flight to crash. This is not possible because the ILS system uses antennas mounted on the ground around the runway which send out signals to the receiving plane. The system is based on how far and where the plane is relative to the antennas. The antennas would have to be physically moved in order to change where the ILS glide-slope would be. Even if they were put 200' below ground, the signals would not reach an airplane.
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The handheld radios used by the terrorists are on the 440MHz amateur band, yet the base radio used by the army in the tower to attempt to decode the terrorist's transmissions is clearly showing a 144MHz frequency on the screen.
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McLane claims the Glock 7 is untraceable on metal detectors due to its porcelain components. First there is no Glock 7, at the time there was the Glock 17. No portion of the Glock is made of porcelain, instead it is made of an ultra-hard injection molded plastic and steel. It is also easily detectable on an x-ray machine, or at least no harder than any other handgun.
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The seat layout on the NEA flight is incorrect for a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. The seats appear to be arranged in a 3-4-3 layout like that of a Boeing 747, instead of the standard 2-5-2 layout for the L-1011.
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The NEA plane wouldn't have crashed into the runway as Stewart reduced ground level by 200 feet. At that altitude on the landing glide slope, the plane wouldn't yet be over the airport.
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When the terrorists are taking off in their 747, after the General detects that the aileron has been tampered with, he is applying forward/backward pressure on the controls but the controls look stuck. Forward/backward motion controls the elevators and other pitch controls. The ailerons help turn the plane, so the controls would have been jammed side-to-side, if at all.
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McClane impeding the aileron on the terrorists 747 wouldn't have prevented take off, since they are used to turn the plane. The plane could have taken off and the General could have flown the plane, although difficultly, compensating for the aileron with the rudder.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs
When McClane, the Army commander and the Police Chief are arguing outside in the blizzard, the amount of snowfall on the Police Chief's jacket keeps changing. The first time the camera shows him, there's a lot of snow on him. The camera flips away, and then back, and his jacket is cleared of snow. The camera flips away and back again, and this time there's snow on his jacket again. However snow can melt and fall off a moving persons clothing. Snowfall can also give sudden flurries.
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When Trudeau addresses the aircraft before their communications are cut, the Fuji Air plane shown is a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. The next time it's seen, during the end credits, it's a Boeing 747. Furthermore, it would make more sense for the Fuji Air plane to be a 747, because in real life, a Tristar could never fly nonstop to Dulles Airport from anywhere in Japan. It is however entirely possible there is more than one Fuji Air flight.
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When talking to Powell on the phone, with the female desk staff listening, McClane mentions his stay at his in-laws and also that he's waiting for his wife. Afterwards when the desk staff asks him for a date, he shows his engagement ring as if the girl doesn't know he's married. However some people aren't bothered about asking out married men/women, some people are unfaithful.
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Plot holes
Several shots show the view from the Control Tower where the visibility is good enough to see the runways and even the lights from the airport perimeter. This would mean that there would have been enough visibility to land airplanes. Also the crash at the beginning would not have happened because their glide path put them on the runway, the pilots would have seen the ground in time to avoid it.
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When Esperanza's aircraft is coming in and they are lighting up a runway, Col. Stuart tells the tower, "do not attempt to land any planes, we are monitoring you." Before that, Barnes had turned the outer marker into a way to talk to the planes without Col. Stuart knowing, therefore, the tower would be able to tell a few of the planes near that particular runway to sneak in before and after Espinozas plane. And, since the planes have been told not to listen to the towers regular frequency, Stuart would not be able to retaliate by downing another plane.
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Revealing mistakes
When a construction/painting scaffold falls over onto a terrorist killing him, it is obviously a dummy.
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When John McClane enters the airport for the first time and shakes the snow off his jacket you can clearly see that it is sunny outside the doors he enters and you can even see green trees.
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Obvious stunt double for the black terrorist in the fight with McClane in the luggage room.
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In the luggage room, when McClane sprays the can at the black terrorist, the other terrorist shoots the can, blowing it up. It then shows another take of McClane dropping the can, but it is now fully intact!
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When Thornburg shuts himself in the bathroom in order to phone the studio, the overhead shot clearly shows that the toilet is fake; lined with silver foil, rather than an actual metal fitment you'd expect to find in a plane.
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It is impossible for John McClane to hit Esperanza's face from the ground when he opens the door of his air transport after landing. He would require some stairs to get to plane's floor level.
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When McClane is hiding in the cockpit one of the terrorists throws a grenade in but blatantly misses.
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About 20 minutes in the film, when McClane takes fingerprints from a dead terrorist on a gurney, the stiffs hand keeps lifted. That is impossible because the man is only just deceased; for a hand, rigor mortis has to set in. That will happen between 2 and 6 hours after somebody has passed away.
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The Evergreen 747 the terrorists escape on is strictly a cargo 747. There are only enough seats for about 4 passengers in the top part of the aircraft. Also the door over the wing is welded shut, there is only one operational 'passenger' door and that is at the front of the aircraft. All other doors are welded shut and all windows are painted over.
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Look carefully at the 747 that the terrorists use to try and escape from Dulles Airport while it is still inside the hanger, and you will notice that in several shots, its tail is completely missing. Also the rear tail wings are not visible as they should be with a head-on shot. The tail wings are higher on the fuselage than the main wings on a 747.
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When Col. Stuart asks his henchman to give him a flight number that is low on fuel, the henchman hands him a transparent slip with the information for Windsor 114, which lists the model of the aircraft as a 747, but the plane itself as seen in the movie is in fact a Douglas DC-8-60, not a Boeing 747.
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The hand held device used by Col Stuart to communicate with the control tower is actually a 20hz, sound-powered telephone (nomen, AN/TA-1/PT) used for many years by the US military to troubleshoot tactical telephone lines. The maximum transmission range is no more the 1 mile using only physical wires.
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When the planes land on the fire trail we see a line of them coming in. If they were that close together, especially under the blizzard-like conditions depicted, they would all crash into each other on the runway; there simply isn't enough time between landings for all of them to taxi out of the landing path. However this optical illusion is caused buy telephoto lenses - it's called compressed perspective
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When McClain and the reporter are kicked out of the control tower, they are sent down the elevator. McClain climbs out the elevator escape hatch before the elevator stops and it is met by two airport police officers. But as the elevator doors open, the two officers are already looking UP into the elevator, as if they knew McClain was gone, even before the doors opened.
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Spoilers
Continuity
The model used for the destruction of General Esperanza's plane is missing the door. It should be between the first two windows.Share this
Continuity
In several shots in which McClane is fighting first Grant then Stuart on the wing of the plane as it taxis down the runway, the engine is barely turning, obviously not powered on.Share this
Continuity
At the end of the film we can see Holly's plane, just before the old lady shouts at Thornburg. The "NEA" letters can clearly be seen washed out at the upper half and another caption becomes visible. The next time we see it from a different angle, when Marvin arrives, and the upper half is just fresh white painted.Share this
Continuity
Just after John gets thrown off the left wing of the terrorists' 747 - and we know he opened the fuel dump valve before hitting the ground - the aircraft swings onto the runway for take-off and opens throttles. Then when John utters his famed expletive and lights the fuel trail ablaze, the line of fire that follows the plane down the runway is seen to follow the #3 (RIGHT inboard) engine. But in the next shot, as the plane climbs higher, it's the #2 (LEFT inboard) engine that blows up, triggering an explosion of the entire plane.Share this
Factual errors
On the incredibly remote chance that the fuel did light, the stream of fuel would burn far too slowly to ever catch up to a 747 traveling at take off speed (roughly 155 knots or 180 mph).Share this
Factual errors
When Grant is pushed into the engine at the end it would have caused serious damage to the engine. 747 engines can ingest a large bird and still work but a whole person including clothing etc. would cripple it.Share this
Factual errors
At the end of the film, Richard Thornburg has been taken off the plane by person or persons unknown, still badly dazed and immobile from having been tasered, and left to lay on the snow-covered tarmac. No one else on any flight is injured, yet all receive prompt medical assistance from dozens of responding airport paramedics. No professional paramedic, having known what Thornburg had been up to on his flight or not, would leave an injured man in the snow and attend to other people who do not require assistance.Share this
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
When John blows up Colonel Stuart's plane, the pilots see the flame and use it as a guide to land. The fire from the earlier crash couldn't be used the same way because they were too high at the time to see it. (Were clouds involved?)Share this
Revealing mistakes
At the end when they show the shot of all the aircraft, they are all parked very close together and in skewed positions. If they had all followed the same landing path as indicted they would never have been able to park in such positions.Share this
