Airport 1975 - Mid Air Collision

In this 1974 disaster movie Columbia Airlines flight 409 is on its way to LA, but is directed to Salt Lake City due to weather conditions. Then the unthinkable happens, the 747 is struck in mid-air by a small private plane with its pilot suffering a heart attack, kllling the co-pilot and flight engineer and injuring the captain. Now it's up to one of the stewardesses to take over the planes control

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• airport
• 1975
• disaster
• 747
• charlton
• heston
• karen
• black
• george
• kennedy

[Autostade67]

It's almost impossible to explain to younger people today the hold this film had on people (particularly children and adolescents) back in '74. Even today, camp as it is, it still grabs me with something primal. And, though, a cult favourite, yes, Karen Black's Nancy Pryor remains one of the most underrated performances of the 70s. She still gives me chills; one can't imagine any other actress in the part and I shudder to think who may have been considered by the studio.

[roquefortfiles]

@feb67ruary Cheesy effects? The original Airport movie uses a model of a 707 for almost the entire film. The movie AIRPLANE is basically the same thing. AP 75 shot a real 747 for the entire film. Of course they had to do the collision on the sound stage with Rear Projection. But the rest of it is some of the best aerial photography put on film.

[MEATYOKERRable]

Despite the usual: Nuns on a plane, the sick little girl, the actress, three old guys going stag to Cali.... this is the best of the series.

[aggalston]

where was superman

[roquefortfiles]

@DgzM67  They were going to do it with a real guy but thought it a bit too dangerous with the shit flying around so opted for the dummy. But they should have shot it like the Foster Farms chicken going out the window. Just showing his feet whip around the corner. A dummy would have worked for that.

[roquefortfiles]

@DEP717 The aerials in this film are without peer. The 747 in the Heber Canyon is stunning. Its airline porn for plane nuts. They didn't cheap out with models and crap. They did it for real and it shows.

Only complaint is i wish the collision was just a BIT better. The FX guys got a bit lazy with the rear screen angles. Its ok for the time but i would love to see it done just a little better. Faster and more deadly. And in one shot.

[DEP717]

@roquefortfiles Oh yes, these movies so destroy modern CGI it isn't even funny, the shots of the 747 in the mountains in this one are some of the best 747 images ever put on film. Plus in 1975, as Autostade67 points out, Karen Black's character doing what she did was huge.

[DgzM67]

my god, we were innocent back in the day... at 1:21 the use of a mennequin is so crude that any contemporary self-respecting director would have edited that mess right off; in 1975 it was a "superproduction"

[ConstructionCentral]

that's not true. if there was a hole in the plane the plane would rip apart

[petclark1]

Something sort of similar REALLY happened in the mid 80's- a small plane hit a big AeroMexico passenger jet coming into land at LAX. It crashed into a nearby suburb-as did the small plane that had ripped off the passenger jet's tail/rudder -no survivors. The incident happened because another small plane strayed into the high traffic corridor of LAX. The mid-air collision happened just after the distracted air traffic controller had warned the meandering pilot of the other small plane to leave.

[jerico641]

@upiluften

Really; I never knew about that one. Weird. I guess anything's possible given the right set of circumstances; Hollywood sure knows that!

[jerico641]

@roquefortfiles

Okay, I'll take your word for it; and thank god Charlton Heston and George Kennedy were around for all these flights, I guess...and Burt Lancaster, and Jack Lemmon, and so on and so on...