Goofs

When Joe "hits the switch" to open the 727's cargo door, you see the cargo door start to open up behind him, and clearly see the light start to come in from the outside. In the next shot of the exterior of the plane, the cargo door is still closed, and only begins to move after a few seconds have elapsed.

When Gene Hackman slides from the roof of the van to the front seat, the door is open. When next seen, Hackman opens the door and jumps in.

The New Zealand passport that Joe is handed, which he refers to as "good work", is the wrong color.

The wire Fran yanks off to "disable" the van is the power wire for the heater fan.

The airport ground controller directs the Pan Genève aircraft to taxi to "runway alpha". Runways are always denoted by numbers - taxiways are denoted by letters.

Which is where the plane went - to a taxiway.

The B-727 requires three flight crew members to operate, a pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer. While the pilot and co-pilot are shown, a flight engineer is nowhere to be seen in any of the shots. Unlike some models of the B-747, all B-737s, B-757s, and B-767s, no two pilot 727's have ever been made.

The Massachusetts State Police Troopers are seen wearing Glock Pistols and wielding Mossberg 500 shotguns, neither of which have ever been used by the Mass State Police.

24 Karat gold, the gold that was hijacked, is almost 100% pure and is very soft. It cannot be shaped into long rods, but only comparable sized ingots. Additionally, the amount of gold that Joe and Bobby stole would take weeks to melt down and reshape.

Because it is very soft, it is also very malleable. It can be shaped into paper-thin sheets or extruded into very thin wire. Long rods is a snap. Instead of weeks, an Induction Melting Furnace can do it in hours or days.

At (01:43:20), when Joe covers the load in the pick-up with a tarp and places a casting on top of the tarp, he handling it as if it was quite light. A solid gold casting of that length and diameter would be quite heavy.

Even though the van is supposedly loaded down with thousands of pounds of gold, there is no sagging of the suspension or any other indication that there is any substantial weight actually in the van.

When the 727 Captain pushes the power levers up to begin his taxi, the three yellow lights you see in the upper right hand part of the shot are low engine oil pressure or filter bypass lights. Since all three are not illuminated, it would indicate the engines are not actually running. Also, the flap handle is shown in the flaps 15 position. The flap position is selected during taxi, and not before the aircraft starts to move.

After Joe pops the gas grenade in the 727, he shoves a wedge under the cockpit door to "trap" the crew in the cockpit. On the 727, the two cockpit side widows open, allowing the flight crew to escape out of the aircraft using escape ropes in the event of an emergency.

It wasn't so much "trapping the crew" as keeping the door shut to trap the gas. The flight crew was already sleeping seconds later (01:03:30) before they could escape on a rope.

While Joe might be able to make ingots or bars, he would not have to facilities to make pipes.

(01:23:24) The mold was shown with molten gold in it. He wasn't making pipes, he was making rods.

1:18: 0 When the van swerves to avoid the semi,i t is shown in front obviously driving opposite lane. But when the girl is picked up by same semi, the semi is in front of the van, which doesn't make sense. When the van served, it would have traveled opposite the semi, a distance.

There were two different trucks. The first at 01:16:35, was a tanker and the second one, that Fran thumbed down at 01:18:15, was a log hauler.

During the first robbery, the people in the jewelry shop are supposed to have passed out because of the spiked capuccinos. But Joe notices that one lady, obviously very light headed and groggy, has started to wake up, like she had only momentarily passed out. This implies that she hasn't drank much of her capuccino, therefore only slightly sleepy. But we see that her coffee is still in the carrier box, with the lid on, unopened, so she hadn't drank any of it.

(around 40:42) After Joe catches Jimmy silk snooping around, he pushes him and roughs him up a little bit. When he first pushes him and Silk falls down, the actor is quite clearly not Gene Hackman, but a stand-in.

(at exactly 1:06:34) During the robbery, a white wan and two crew members are seen on the other side of the plane.

The boxes in the airplane containing the gold come from the "Bank of Geneva" and have the image of a bear. The animal of Geneva is the eagle, not the bear, which belongs to Berne, the Swiss capital.

The New Zealand passports have "New Castle, New Zealand" printed in the issuing office section of the passport. There is no New Castle in New Zealand.

Newcastle, NZ changed its name to Albert Town.

When the Captain of the 727 checks in with the tower, he states that he is "now taking the active" for takeoff, without ever being being given permission to go into position on the runway. The last instructions he received was to "Taxi to runway Alpha India", (which is non-existent anyway as all runways are numbered in accordance with the headings on a compass). Simply taking the active without receiving a clearance to do so is a severe violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations.

(0:28:15) The Massachusetts State Trooper who pulls over to inspect the phony "work site", asks Joe Moore if he called "K Barracks" to receive a police detail for the job. There are no "K Barracks" in the Massachusetts State Police.