When in Istanbul, agent Tony Mendez enters the Blue Mosque to meet up with a fellow agent, but the next scene with their conversation takes place in the Hagia Sophia, a former Orthodox Church. There are even close-up frames with Byzantine frescoes of saints.
As Tony Mendez writes his son a happy birthday post card the word "so" jumps down a line between shots.
At least three versions of the postcard Tony Mendez writes his son for his birthday are visible. While writing the postcard the layout of the writing changes, and finally when his son reads the postcard another writing layout is visible.
During the flight leaving Iran, the flight attendant opens a regular size bottle of champagne and starts pouring it. In the second angle, she is holding a small size bottle.
When Tony Mendez is issued his airline ticket he's given seat 1C. This is first class aisle bulkhead seat. When he boards the plane he's in a coach window seat.
It is stated that the British and New Zealand embassies refused to help staff from the American embassy. This was not true. Both the British and the New Zealand embassies sheltered the Americans, then helped to pass them on to the Canadians. Britain's Arthur Wyatt was later awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for the risks that he took.
As the Swissair Boeing 747 is taking off, police cars are keeping up alongside as it rolls, even though the take-off speed of this aircraft is between 160 and 180 knots. The vehicles also drive directly behind the number four engine without being affected by jet blast.
The insignia outside the Canadian Ambassador's residence is a maple leaf. This is not used by Canadian diplomatic missions. The royal Canadian coat of arms (implemented in 1921) would have been used instead.
Early in the film there is a reference to the Canadian "Foreign Secretary". This is a British title, not Canadian. The Canadian cabinet member is "Minister of External Affairs", and this title is correctly referenced (in a TV clip) near the end of the film.
The opening narration states that, in 1953, the U.K. and the C.I.A. engineered a coup d'etat to depose Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and install Reza Pahlavi as the Shah. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was already the Shah at the time of the coup. The coup began when the Shah dismissed Mossadegh and appointed Fazlollah Zahedi as the prime minister.
During the final sequence between Tony and his sleeping son Ian, a toy of the Star Wars character Boba Fett can be seen on the shelf. While many believe that the character of Boba Fett was not introduced until Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), he actually first appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) (and had appeared in a parade a few weeks earlier still) and even the regular-sized figure originally came out in 1979 (as a special mail away offer).
Joe Stafford's glasses are plain glass: they do not distort what is behind them.
In closing credits, they misspell "Battlestar Gallactica" (sic)
Early in the movie, when Tony Mendez visits the headquarters of the US State Department, he passes a window containing a row of flags. Of these flags, several belong to countries that did not exist in 1980, most notably the flag of Russia.
When Tony Mendez first arrives in Tehran, there is a significant shot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. Although K.F.C. was present in Iran during the 1970s, the restaurants were closed permanently during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, thus they wouldn't have existed there in 1980.
In the establishing shot when Tony Mendez goes to Hollywood to seek help is the dilapidated HOLLYWOOD sign, which was indeed how the sign appeared in the mid-1970s after years of neglect. Since that sign was originally built in the 1920s, it was only planned as a temporary structure. However, the sign was refurbished and rebuilt with new letters in November 1978, which was a full year before the Iranian hostage crisis began.
There is a British TV advertisement for Cillit Bang in the background. Cillit Bang was first launched in Hungary in 2003, before being rolled out across mainland Europe, and finally arriving in the U.K. in November 2004.
When Sahar crosses the border into Iraq, the flag at the border station has "Allahu Akbar" in traditional kufic Arabic script between the three black stars. Saddam Hussein added this phrase in 1991 in what was supposed to be his handwriting. The kufic variant was added in 2004 following the American invasion. The flag in 1978 would have just displayed the stars.
The safety glass at the Swissair gate when broken by the Iranian guards sounded like a regular (nonsafety) pane of glass when it hit the ground.
While Mendez is going to the Canadian Embassy in Iran, you can clearly see the logo of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality behind a traffic sign.
In 1980, Swissair had only two Boeing 747s, each assigned to a specific route: Zurich-New York and Geneva-New York. Except for special assignments (which this wasn't - Swissair was not informed who they were to fly out), they never flew to Iran or any other country.
Most of the cars shown in the film were Volkswagen, Peugeot 504, Mercedes, or some other Turkish or German, or French vehicles, while more than 70 percent of vehicles in Iran in that era was PAYKAN (a British-designed car that was produced in Iran). There wasn't even one in the movie.
The time difference between Tehran and Washington, D.C., is 8.5 hours, and the difference between Washington and Los Aangeles is another three (i.e. 8:30 a.m. in Tehran is midnight in D.C, and 9:00 p.m. in L.A.). On the day of the escape, when Tony confirms to the CIA that he is going ahead with the mission, it appears to be dawn in Tehran and the scenes which follow over the next several hours are difficult to reconcile with these time zone differences.
When the Swissair flight takes off at the end, the view sees it's headed toward snow-capped mountains. The international airport's runways are on a roughly east-west orientation and there are no snow capped mountains in either direction. The snowy Alborz Mountains lie to the north of Tehran.
The Swissair boarding passes, which are printed in English, French and German, incorrectly translate "Please present at each door" as "A presenter a chaq a la porte". The correct French wording would be "A présenter à chaque porte".
On Kathy Stafford's passport, under the fake identity of Rachel Dewart, a stamp is misspelled as "Affaires extérieure" (External Affairs), when it should read "Affaires extérieures".
In the closing credits, when the camera pans over the Star Wars toys, the Jawa and Sand People figurines are under each other's label.
There's a line "some guy in Scranton is planting a flag a day", but this actually happened on the other side of Pennsylvania near Sharon, PA. The flags can still be seen there today.