Goofs

When Sabrina starts the hijacking she shoots two FBI agents, one on her left and one on her right. She shoots the one on the left first, but in the background you can see the bullet hole and blood on the head of the agent to her right. When she goes to shoot the agent on her right, there is no bullet hole or blood.

The helicopter flying across Louisiana is shown in mirror-image.

The same blonde girl is seen being released from the airplane three times.

When Cutter rides away on the motorcycle, a shot of the plane shows the door closed and nobody else being released from the plane. A minute later when the FBI arrive at the airport, passengers are again being released from the plane. There is no reason why the terrorists would have closed the door and stopped releasing passengers, and then started over again.

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.

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.

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.

The fuel truck sent to service the airliner was marked with a "UN 1203" hazardous materials placard, which is the code for gasoline. The code for jet fuel is 1863; turbine-powered planes small enough to land at Lake Lucile are common enough that the airport's fuel dealer would have jet fuel.

Just as Cutter climbs onto the nose gear of the departing aircraft it is seen rotating for takeoff. The takeoff speed for this type of aircraft would be well in excess of the speed that the sheriff's car could achieve.

Rane angrily interrupts the airfield controllers by shouting into the jetliner's radio. Aviation radios are universally push-to-talk, meaning that if anyone is pressing the TRANSMIT button, nobody else can transmit on that frequency until the first user releases the button. It is impossible to interrupt someone on an aviation radio, an important safety feature given that it is used to transmit critical information. Rane would have to wait until the controllers concluded their transmission before responding.

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.

Cutter wants to get back at Sly for putting him in that position by having him agree to work for the airline.

The movie establishes who are the terrorists right from the first moments on the plane. However, only three are shown at a first moment; the other two (Matthew and the first guy who fought with Cutter) simply appeared out of nowhere without any scenes showing they were on the plane. Not all of the passengers are shown on screen, there are over 200 aboard. These two would have been there the whole time but not shown until they took over the plane.

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. The plane's left side faces the camera as it lands which shows both doors still in place. The door which was blown out is located on the other side. When Biggs stops to offer Cutter and Marti a ride into town, in the background you can see emergency workers using this door to board the plane.

When the aircraft lands at the airfield we are told by the control tower that the airfield does not accommodate aircraft of that size. When the plane lands we see airstairs approaching the plane to let passengers off. A small airfield which does not accommodate such aircraft would not have a set of airstairs.

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.

When the police arrive to arrest Rane the officer in charge states that Rane is on the third floor. After fleeing the operating room Rane jumps out of the third floor window. A drop from three floors up caused some kind of injury such as a sprain at the very least, or, more likely, broken bones. He should not have been able to just get up and run the way he did.

The bandolier contains obvious prop grenades: they have holes drilled through the bottoms.

When Ms. Ritchie shoots the first FBI agent, the other agent can be seen with a bullet hole in his head, even though he has not been shot yet.

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.

When Chasing the plane, Chief Biggs hands Cutter his gun and says "I want this back in good condition". The camera and crew can be seen reflected in his glasses.

While landed for refueling, Rane tells Chief Biggs to take a look at the plane door just forward of the landing gear. As the body of the pilot is thrown out, the reflection can be seen of the crew holding some sort of landing mat in the planes fuselage. You can then see the pilot land on the blue mat.

Movie lights are reflected in the state troopers glasses when driving the car on the runway.

When Rane jumps out of the surgery window at the beginning of the film, he falls through a table umbrella, the quick shot after the umbrella shows the landing mat Rane falls onto. It is covered in a sheet the same colour as the ground.

When the plane lands and the boarding stairs are shown being put up against the plane, either the cameraman or a crewman are reflected on the bottom of the plane, to the right of screen.

At the beginning of the movie, the banner reads "Lake Lucille County Fair". The scene takes place in Louisiana, which has parishes, not counties.

Early in the movie, just before the plane lands in Lake Lucille, Louisiana, there are two exterior shots of the plane. In the first, the plane is flying over Long Key, in the Florida Keys, then a few minutes later it is over the Upper Florida Keys, over 600 miles from Louisiana.

Although Cutter is being hired as VP of security for the airline, he is still forced to sit in coach as Passenger 57. No airline VP would be forced to fly coach on his own airline.

When Cutter escapes the two police officers custody he steals a motorcycle and heads straight towards the fairground in pursuit of Rane. However, he never actually witnesses Rane or his men leaving the plane, so how does he instinctively know to pursue Rane at the fairground?

While Cutter is in the bathroom when the terrorists take control of the plane, the first thing Cutter hears from what is happening, is a terrorist yelling "sit down". Yet somehow he does not hear the previous sounds of the gun-shots or screaming passengers.

When the officers arrest Cutter after finding him on the tarmac they are clearly arresting him and placing him in handcuffs. They bring him to the tower where it appears Cutter is still in handcuffs. When escorting Cutter from the tower Cutter's handcuffs disappear and he is free to subdue the officers. There is no reason for the officers to remove Cutter's handcuffs at any time as they considered him a threat.

When the police break-up the fight between Cutter and Rane at the fair, Cutter tells them Vincent, one of Rane's men and wearing a tan jacket, is also on the fair grounds. But Cutter never saw or confronted Vincent at the fair and did not see him leave the plane. So how could Cutter know Vincent was at the fair and also wearing a tan jacket, given he was not wearing it when he last saw him?

After being apprehended by the Lake Lucille police, Cutter identifies himself as the "former head of security" for the airline. Since he has just taken the job, he should be saying "the new head of security" or something of that nature.

[possibly done by the filmmakers] Cutter tells Marti that Rane is a dangerous guy who already killed two people on the plane. In fact, five were killed and Cutter would be able to see at least four of them (two FBI agents on their seats; one passenger and Rane's own crew member) but somehow he only noticed two dead people.