Goofs

On approach to Anchorage wheels are up, and next shot a second later, the plane is touching with landing gear in place.

As it nearly collides with the private plane, Global 502's landing gear are down. In subsequent shots, Global 502's landing gear are up again.

As the 707 is making an approach to Anchorage there is a close encounter with a single engine prop airplane. The 707 is forced to make an evasive turn and the passengers are jostled and stowed items in the overhead storage bins are thrown out. But earlier the 707 makes two or three similar "routine" turns with no ill effects on either passengers or stowed items. These turns had been made with comparable angles.

As the 707 enters Soviet airspace, Red Air Force fighters appear on its radar screen. The fighters come into view after 63 seconds and buzz the 707 numerous times. Then they then fly out of sight and suddenly they are no longer on the radar screen. With in a few seconds they are no longer on radar either, even though the time between their initial radar and visual sightings was different by over a minute.

The Soviet fighters buzz the 707 several times and are tracked on radar continually. The fighters then disappear visually and vanish off the radar. The fighters then come around from behind and even though the 707 was able to track them radar constantly before, the radar fails to find them. The fighters' presence only becomes known after they pull up to the side of the cockpit and are visually seen by O'Hara. In actuality, as before, the fighters would have been seen on radar well before being seen visually, just like the first time they came into the scene (even if coming in from behind. This is one of the reasons aircraft have radar: to track other aircraft before they can be seen visually and to see aircraft coming in from behind).

The cargo hold of a Boeing 707 is pressurized and its temperature would not be below freezing, so the federal agent should not be covered in frost and would not have frozen to death.

The Soviet troops surrounding the 707 after it lands in Russia are equipped mostly with American M-16 rifles, with only a couple of AK 47s seen.

Sgt Webb is said to be with the 3rd Batalion 47th Infantry Regiment(3/47th Inf) he is wearing the wrong divisional patch on his Class A Dress Greens. It show him wearing 1st Infantry Division , and in all actually the 3/47th Inf was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division at the time this movie was made not the 1st as shown

Sgt Weber is wearing stripes on the shirt of his class A uniform. Stripes are only worn on the uniform blouse never on the shirt.

During the in-flight galley scenes, the "exit" light above the door is illuminated. This would not happen in-flight unless the "emergency light" switch is activated from the cabin/flight deck - or on the ground during power cut over/loss of electrical power. Although the galley door exit light is illuminated others, including the one above the flight deck door and at the over-wing exits are not - and they are all on the same system.

The aircraft they exit from at the end of the film is a cargo aircraft. The aircraft is a Boeing 707-373C, which contains a large cargo door on the left side. The aircraft serves a dual purpose and can be converted to cargo use from a passenger aircraft.

Almost all of the vehicles at the site that is supposed to be Moscow Airport are American made.

A Boeing 707 has ten cockpit windows, including two smaller "eyebrow" windows above each pilot. These windows are seen in all exterior shots, and in some of the fighter fly-by shots from the airliner cockpit. Through most of the movie, however, the interior arrangement of the cockpit windows includes one full-sized window in the cockpit ceiling above each pilot. Only the Douglas DC-8 and 9 match this eyebrow window configuration (minus the center windshield panel), revealing the cockpit to be an elaborate set.

In the flight deck, the camera is looking directly forward, towards the front windows, but the clouds outside are moving sideways.

After completing its turn following take-off, you can see the jet's flaps are up. But in later shots of cruise flight, they're shown extended (down). This would cause unnecessary drag and increase fuel consumption. The jet should be "trimmed" for high-speed flight. This one clearly isn't. In later shots, while on the approach to Anchorage, the flaps are up again. It's not the way a commercial flight is normally operated.

When the stewardess is talking to the two passengers, the view is downward. If the aircraft was actually in the air, we would see clouds, land, or water below. All we see is some type of blue material that has been placed outside the windows to conceal the fact that the aircraft was parked on the ground when that scene was filmed.

The site which is supposed to be Moscow Airport is the Mojave, California Airport, a sandy desert location in the American southwest. Moscow Airport is not in a desert location.

The Moscow airport scenes at the end of the movie were actually done at Oakland Metropolitan Airport. You can clearly see its distinctive looking control tower to the right of the screen in the DVD wide screen version of the film.

They take off from Anchorage and land a few hours later in Moscow. Such a flight would take almost 21 hours.

Lovejoy claims the lipstick on the mirror is the same color as one of the passengers is wearing. However Lovejoy never saw the lipstick on the mirror, so she wouldn't know (the only people to see it were the female passenger, the senior stewardess and the pilot).

The plane is supposedly full and the cellist gives up the seat that he bought for his cello so the soldier can get home. Yet as the plane is taking off the row behind the cellist and the soldier is empty.

When SGT Weber is announcing his arrival, biography, and accomplishments, he states that he is from the "3rd Regiment, 47th Battalion". This is backwards. The correct unit designation is "3rd Battalion, 47th Regiment".