- Continuity: In the beginning of the movie, the diamond shaped grating on the jail door rotates 90 degrees.
- Revealing mistakes: When a dead hostage is pushed from the plane, it is possible to see the hostage landing on a safety mat in the reflection on the lower side of the plane.
- Factual errors: When FBI agents who escort Charles Rane aboard the aircraft display their credentials, you can clearly see the badge of a US Federal Marshal (silver star with circle) and not the gold shield of the FBI. In most cases, Federal Marshals are the ones who escort prisoners across the country, not the FBI.
- Continuity: The same blonde girl is seen being released from the airplane three times.
- Continuity: Hat on state trooper's head while being beat up by Cutter.
- Continuity: The helicopter flying across Louisiana is shown in mirror-image.
- Revealing mistakes: The bandolier contains obvious prop grenades: they have holes drilled through the bottoms.
- Errors in geography: At the beginning of the movie, the banner reads "Lake Lucille County Fair". The scene takes place in Louisiana, which has parishes, not counties.
- Continuity: When Cutter is at the ticket counter before boarding the plane, a huge zit can be seen on the right side of his face. The zit disappears, reappears, and changes in size throughout the rest of the movie.
- Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Cutter first enters the tent at the fairgrounds, the announcer can be heard talking into a microphone. When we see the announcer in the background, he is talking into the microphone but no voice is heard.
- Continuity: When Cutter gets captured by the police, he is handcuffed. However, when the police officer's bring him down the stairs, he has no handcuffs.
- Factual errors: During the lunch with the airline executive, Cutter mentions that El Al, the Israeli airline, is the only airline that has never been hijacked. This is untrue, most certainly at the time the movie takes place. The one (and currently only) hijacking of an El Al flight took place in 1968, and was resolved through negotiations without casualties.
- Revealing mistakes: Right before Rane's henchmen take control of the plane and free him from the F.B.I. agents, one of the agents sitting next to Rane clearly has a bullet hole in his forehead before any shooting takes place.
- Plot holes: The plane is forced to land on a runway that is too short to land. As a result it would be far too short to take off on.
- Crew or equipment visible: Movie lights are reflected in the state troopers glasses when driving the car on the runway.
- Factual errors: In the first scenes Charles Rane executed the Captain, but as the plane land on the airfield you can clearly see a captain who pulls the throttle back.
- Continuity: When Cutter goes forward through security at the airport, he sets off the metal detector (both times), yet when he goes back, it doesn't go off (the metal detector is not turned off).
- Miscellaneous: While chasing the plane in the Sheriff’s car, Sly says to Cutter, "Hey John, you bring your ass back alive, do you hear me?" to which Cutter replies, "And miss the opportunity to get back at you? no way!", which makes no sense. This possibly indicates that Sly said something along the lines of "don't get yourself killed" in one of the takes and Cutters response to this was used in the final edit as this would make Cutters response more feasible.
- Continuity: In the last scene in the air, one of the aircraft doors is completely sucked out of the plane, though when the plane is landing all doors are still in perfect condition.
- Factual errors: Bathroom doors on planes have a spring that shuts the door. When Cutter leaves the bathroom to get the phone, the bathroom door is swinging loose on its hinges. This is shown when the terrorist turns around to see what was making a noise, and sees the door swinging loosely. Then when Cutter returns to the bathroom, he has to push the door to see out. He repeatedly pushes the door, and relaxes pressure allowing the door to close by itself. It even closes by itself when he leaves the bathroom. Now the door seems to have the spring hinge that was absent earlier.
- Continuity: When Rane is being escorted back onto the plane by the FBI, the motorcycle that Cutter stole and left at the fairground can be seen parked back on the tarmac beside an ambulance.
- Continuity: When Cutter is jumping on the plane landing gear taking off from Fort Lucille it is daylight, but as the landing gear is going up it appears to be night time.
- Revealing mistakes: Near the end of the movie when cutter is on the landing gear as the plane takes off from the airfield with the state fair in the background its daytime and in the next shot its night time.
- Revealing mistakes: After cutter throws the main terrorist out of the plane near the end of the movie it is clear that there is a green screen and a wire holding him up, because he falls out horizontally and does not fall out and towards the ground just out and horizontal.
- Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Cutter is tampering with the avionics with the intention of bringing the plane down, the stewardess says "What? This is a Jumbo jet", to which he replies "yeh, I know". Quite clearly it isn't.
- Continuity: When Charles Rane is being led up the steps back to the plane in Louisiana, Vincent shoots the FBI agents. Charles Rane runs up the plane and makes it all the way up to the top step and past Mr. Forget. After we see Rane run back onto the plane, they cut to a wider shot which shows him running up the steps again - about 6 steps down from the plane and Mr. Forget.
- Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Ms. Ritchie calls to Vincent for "service". When Vincent picks up the phone he identifies himself as "Robert".
- Factual errors: An FBI agents states Rane is going to California where they have the death penalty, which is not true - in fact it was repealed while Charles Manson was on trial.
- Continuity: When Ranes jumps out the window in the beginning of the movie, the customer sitting at the table he jumps on lands on top of Ranes when he hits the ground. The shot cuts away and when it cuts back Ranes is on top of the café customer, and he gets up and runs away.
- Continuity: After the first FBI agent is shot by Sabrina Ritchie, there is no blood or bullet hole in his seat. As Rane unlocks his cuffs, there is still no blood or bullet hole in the agent's seat. Later, when the plane is going down and the dead agents are leaning forward, the blood can be seen on the FBI agent's head and a bullet hole can be seen in his seat that wasn't there before.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- Plot holes: SPOILER: After having her first conversation with Cutter (Snipes), Marti is asked by one of the terrorists (Elizabeth Hurley) who she is having a problem with... after learning that there is a security expert on board, the terrorists do nothing with the information - they don't even watch Cutter to make sure he is seated before they start their takeover plan.
- Factual errors: SPOILER: When Rane falls from the plane, he's shown falling away as if dropped from a building. In reality, the speed of the wind outside the door would whisk his body away so quickly, he'd be gone in an instant. And probably hit the horizontal stabilizer in the tail.
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