Goofs

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.

When a black terrorist reaches down for a "present" it is a white hand grabbing the box.

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.

On the military plane, Esperanza's cigar is clearly lit and smoking before his guard lights it.

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.

Airport runways do not have manholes. Additionally, any manhole cover which could be lifted by one person would easily be crushed by a plane.

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?

After taking out the two terrorists in the baggage area, McClane identifies their weapon as a "Glock 7, a porcelain gun made in Germany," and says that the pistol can pass through a metal detector and not set it off. This pistol is an Austrian-made Glock model 17. Glock pistols do have a polymer frame, but the barrel and slide are still made of steel, which is more than enough metal to set off a metal detector. Glock pistols were the first with a polymer frame to be widely marketed, and this was a common misconception at the time.

When McClane tries jamming the flight controls, the General notices the sluggish response. He looks over his left shoulder and sees McClane on the wing, just feet from the fuselage. In reality, even if he had his face pressed up against the left facing cockpit windows, he wouldn't be able to see the wing tip, let alone 3/4's of the wing.

Due to the lower scan resolution of fax machines of the day, the faxed fingerprints that McClane sends Powell would have been useless.

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, or simply be brushed off periodically. Snowfall can also give sudden flurries.

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.

When McLane faxes the finger prints, the receptionist dials a number on the fax machine without being told the number to dial. McLane repeats the number out loud as he is told it, so the receptionist can write it down.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Evergreen 747 the terrorists escape on is strictly a cargo 747. There are only a limited number of passenger seats 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.

Aircraft are made of aluminum. When the bullets hit they wouldn't create orange sparks.

The map does not indicate a body of water adjacent to the church.

The Windsor flight that crashed had no view of the runway until they were about to impact the ground. This indicated zero visibility. Yet Samantha Coleman mentioned in her live broadcast that she could see a number of planes in the sky from where she was standing. This would be impossible if it were indeed zero visibility.

The fire trucks arrive within seconds to put out the fire of Esperanza's exploded aircraft (which no one knew was going to explode). Yet earlier with the deliberately crashed airplane coming in from London (which the Dulles Tower knew about beforehand) it takes a lot longer for the fire trucks to get to the wreckage. And since Esperanza's plane is coming in from the sea this discrepancy can't be explained by that runway simply being closer to the airport than that which the plane from London comes in on.

McClane flashes his badge to the airport worker to get into the baggage handling area. Firstly no city policeman has authority in the airport, let alone McClane who's badge states he's L.A.P.D. and not Washington DC. Secondly any airport employee would know not to let anyone in without proper reason and approval from a supervisor or Airport Police.

(at around 1h 45 mins) As McClane rolls along the tarmac after being kicked off the wing of the plane, there are tire tracks in the snow from the camera vehicle (and not, as would be expected, from the aircraft).

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.

In a shot of Esperanza's plane coming in, there are legs visible on the top of the screen

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. Furthermore, New York City is a 45 minute plane ride from the DC area and has three major airports itself (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark). Diversion of all aircraft in need was feasible and doable.

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).

There are maps of Los Angeles in Dulles Airport (serving Washington D.C.)

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.

Tall mountains can be seen in the background near the Church that the terrorists use as their base of operations, which would normally not be found in the area surrounding Dulles International Airport.

When Grant went through the engine it should have blown out, or more likely exploded.

The entire premise of the movie, is that shutting down the communications of an airport, will leave the overhead aircraft helpless and uninformed. In fact, any Flight Service station transmitter, airport, aircraft radio shop, or aircraft, within fifty miles, could have alerted those pilots of the situation. Literally, there would be hundreds of radios in the area, that could be used to end the terrorist plot.

The mercenaries "plan" was to use the distraction of potentially dozens of civilian flights being endangered to cover their escape plans for the dictator. This is patently ridiculous as there are dozens of airfields of varying sizes within a 50-mile radius of Washington DC, including Ronald Reagan National Airport and two major USAF airfields. Additionally, for larger aircraft, Baltimore, Richmond, VA and Philadelphia are all within easy diversion range as if Dover AFB in Delaware which is a major military transport installation. If the aircraft couldn't land at Dulles, there are numerous other options, rendering the mercenaries plans irrelevant.

The terrorists' entire plan, which would have taken weeks and weeks of preparation, entirely depends on there been heavy snow on the day they put their plan into action.

Major Grant's team arrives at the airport in helicopters. Where did they get the army truck in which they drive to the church?

As Captain Lorenzo is following Control Tower Chief Truedeax up the stairs and complaining about the activity in the airport, if you look above Lorenzo's head in the stairwell, you'll see the boom mike.

In the Annex Sky-Walk, a SWAT Team would have "Secured the Area" by taking up multiple positions then order each man "painting" down to be checked one by one before "Running the Walls" they would walk around or step over any seats, ladders, or move objects out of their way. No SWAT Team world-wide would ever walk in a single file on to a moving walkway, a potential ambush "kill zone" surrounded by unknown men "painting".

To show that it's loaded with blanks, McClane shoots the Heckler & Koch MP5A3 at Chief Lorenzo This is not a recommended method for proving if your weapon is loaded with blank ammunition - at this range, even blanks could cause serious harm to Captain Lorenzo, not to mention that fully discharging a firearm in such a location would definitely prompt nearby officers to shoot McClane.

Thornberg occasionally talks into the wrong end of the skyphone in the toilet.

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".

In an evident effort to sound British, the script has the Windsor pilot say he's on "petrol" fumes. Any pilot would know that jet fuel isn't petrol (gasoline).