Skyjacked (Movie review)

It’s a scenario that’s played out countless times before: a madman hijacks an airliner and threatens the crew and passengers with a bomb if his demands are not met. Skyjacked, released in 1972, takes this idea and runs with it by placing an all-star cast

Forgotten Classics (3 mini movie reviews)

There are many well-known air disaster movies. Airport and its sequels come instantly to mind, as does the Abrahams/Zucker Brothers genre parody Airplane! Here are three lesser known movies from earlier decades, when the air disaster genre was considered still to be in its infancy.

A Thousand Heroes (Movie review)

This is the story of a city fully prepared for any disaster, a commercial airliner which lost all hydraulic systems, an experienced Captain, with almost 300 people on board... brought together on a beautiful day, July 19, 1989.

The High and the Mighty (Movie review)

Considered by many to be the first "true" air disaster movie (predating Airport by a good sixteen years), William A. Wellman's The High and the Mighty is a genuine classic. Written by renowned aviation scribe and former pilot Ernest K. Gann and starring such greats as John Wayne

Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (Movie review)

There are many films that start off well and seem promising, only to let you down halfway through as they fall into the same clichés and stereotypes we know all so well. Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 is one such movie. There are some aspects of the story that are accurate

The Concorde… Airport ’79 (Movie review)

The Concorde… Airport '79 is the fourth and last film in the Airport series. It is the only Airport film that has a supersonic airliner, a series of armed air attacks, a decompression, a lot of screaming and panicking, all with a 1980s feel... and a lot of camp value!

Airport '77 (Movie review)

Most people I have spoken to agree to say that from all four Airport movies, Airport '77 is the best one, with most action and excitement. Find out more in this amazing story of a private Boeing 747 crashing in the Bermuda triangle.

Pandora’s Clock (Movie review)

Imagine if a deadly virus could be onboard a commercial flight right before Christmas. The passengers are to be quarantined. Nobody is to get off the plane, or the planet would be faced with an epidemic with proportions never seen before.

Airplane! (Movie review)

Surely you have seen (and loved) the Airport movies from the 1970s. But this is, according to Wikipedia, the movie that ended in beauty this decade of air disaster movies by making fun of them: Airplane! It's a composite spoof of pretty much everything you remember from the 1970s...

Free Fall (Movie review)

At long last, I have been able to see this movie, not because it's good, but because it is quite mediocre. Even a news service, giving descriptions and ratings to movies in my province, gave this movie a 6 (1 being a masterpiece and 7 being an extremely poor movie.)

The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (Movie review)

"Ladies and gentlemen, the plane is being hijacked. The Captain has agreed to cooperate with the hijackers and take them wherever they wish to go. So please, for the sake of everyone's safety, just do exactly as you are told."

Airport 1975 (Movie review)

After the movie Airport was thought to be the only one comes a sequel that marks the beginning of the air disaster movie saga. Based on a totally fictional story comes, in 1974, what is meant to become yet another classic: Airport 1975.

Final Descent and The Glass Cockpit: movie and book

The book The Glass Cockpit was written by Robert P. Davis and first published in 1991. I first read The Glass Cockpit in 1995 when it was published as a condensed book by Reader's Digest, here in Australia. The condensed version featured a few great illustrations

Tailspin: Behind the Korean Airliner Tragedy (Movie review)

Movies based on true stories are always tricky. Sometimes, the true story is used simply as a base, other times the entire movie corresponds to reality, but always, there are some slight changes for dramatic purposes. Also known as Coded Hostile, this is a gem

Panic in the Skies! (Movie review)

I have seen up to now nothing but bad comments about the movie I'm about to review. I first read the small summary and it brought my attention. A plane being struck by lightning, leaving the plane pilotless. An unbelievable story.

Airport (Movie review)

This is the movie that started it... The trend of the 1970s disaster movies. It was at the time when the Boeing 707 was king of the airports, and a lot of drama and an all-start cast made movies great. This is what Airport, based on Arthur Hailey's excellent novel of the same name, is all about.

Peter Benchley’s Amazon (Movie review)

You've heard stories when the plane crashes in the city or the village, and leaves many dead, including those on the ground. The planes crash into civilisation. But what if the passengers are stranded in a hostile environment, such as a jungle?

Miracle Landing (Movie review)

The disaster that occurred on April 28, 1988 is quite memorable. An Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 lost an 18 ft. section of its fuselage at 24,000 feet, due to metal fatigue. Miraculously, only one occupant, a flight attendant, perished during the sudden decompression.

Crash: The Mystery of Flight 1501 (Movie review)

Air disasters can be very painful for the friends and relatives of the victims, particularly for the wife of a pilot who is quickly blamed for the disaster and the casualties. This is the subject of this made-for-TV movie, also known as Aftermath.

Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771 (Movie review)

Imagine you've been flying for over 14 hours non-stop over the Pacific Ocean. You see nothing but the ocean around you. You try to contact your destination airport but get no answer. You then realize you are lost in the middle of nowhere... on a Cessna airplane.