Zemeckis added that the crash in "Flight" was based on an actual Alaska Airlines accident in 2000 that killed all 88 people on board. Things turn out much differently in his fictional version. It's not a spoiler to reveal that most passengers survive thanks to the bold manoeuvres of a veteran pilot, played by Denzel Washington.
Is Denzel Washington in the movie Flight?
Zemeckis then entered negotiations to direct Flight in April 2011, and by early June had accepted, with Denzel Washington about to finalize his own deal. It was the first time that Zemeckis and Washington had worked together on a motion picture.
Is flight based on a true story?
Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which was caused by a broken jackscrew.
Did Denzel Washington really fly a plane while drunk?
Alcoholic pilot Whip Whittaker (Denzel Washington) does a miraculous job crash-landing a plane that has suffered a severe mechanical breakdown in midair, however the mandated investigation into the incident will inevitably lead to the discovery that he was flying the plane while drunk and on cocaine.
How did Denzel Washington land the plane upside down?
After steering the plane through a particularly nasty bout of turbulence, Denzel Washington’s half-cut captain Whip has a nap, only to wake up with the plane nose-diving. To land the knackered aircraft, he rolls it upside down to stop it plummeting to the ground, before flipping it the right side up and crash landing in a field.
What plane crashed in the movie?
What happened on February 1 2013?
Is the crash in Flight realistic?
About this website
Was Flight with Denzel Washington a true story?
The film is loosely inspired by the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261. Principal photography began in October 2011 near Atlanta, Georgia and lasted over 45 days. It was largely shot on location, with visual effects and computer-generated imagery used to create the plane crash.
Was Flight 227 a true story?
United Airlines Flight 227 (N7030U), a scheduled passenger flight from LaGuardia Airport New York City to San Francisco International Airport, California, crashed short of the runway while attempting a scheduled landing at Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah, on Thursday, November 11, 1965.
Was Flight of the Phoenix a true story?
The Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich & Blake, 1965; Aldrich et al., 2004; Dudley-Smith, 1964) is based on a real-life event from World War II in which a twin-engine cargo plane crashed in the desert.
Is the Ghost of Flight 401 a true story?
The television film The Ghost of Flight 401, which aired on NBC in February 1978, offers a fictionalized depiction of the crash and alleged ghost sightings. The flight is referenced as part of the Bob Welch song "The Ghost of Flight 401" on his 1979 album Three Hearts.
Can a plane really fly inverted?
Depending on the aerofoil this could restore level flight and even allow the plane to climb. But wings on aerobatic planes are curved on both the upper and lower sides. With this symmetric design, the plane can fly either normally or inverted. The pilot can flip from one to the other by altering the angle of attack.
Is Last flight Out a true story?
A television movie based on a true story. A group of Americans risk their lives to take 500 Vietnamese civilians to safety aboard the last commercial flight out of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Who died during the filming of Flight of the Phoenix?
Mantz died on July 8, 1965 while working on the movie The Flight of the Phoenix, which was produced and directed by Robert Aldrich. Flying a very unusual aircraft, the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1 built especially for the film, Mantz struck a small hillock while skimming over a desert site in Arizona for a second take.
Where was the original Flight of the Phoenix?
Locations. Principal photography started April 26, 1965, at the 20th Century-Fox Studios and 20th Century-Fox Ranch, California. Other filming locations, simulating the desert, were Buttercup Valley, Arizona and Pilot Knob Mesa, California.
Where did they film The Flight of the Phoenix?
the Namib DesertFlight of the Phoenix was filmed on location in the Namib Desert, and was released in the United States on December 17, 2004, by 20th Century Fox.
Who survived Flight 401?
Survivors - Crew and Eastern Employees Angelo Donadeo, Patricia R Georgia, Adrianne Ann Hamilton, Jennifer Larsen, Thomas Mulcahy, Mercedes V Ruiz, Beverly Jean Raposa, Trudy J Smith, Sue F. Tibbs, Sharon R Transue, Dorothy M Warnock. Top Left: The girls of Flight 401.
What caused the plane crash in the Everglades?
The cause of the Valujet crash The outside company's employees saw volatile chemical oxygen generators, yanked out of another plane because they had passed their expiration date, and presumed they were empty.
What caused Miami Plane Crash?
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident, which resulted from the airplane being misloaded to produce a more aft center of gravity and a correspondingly incorrect stabilizer trim setting that precipitated an extreme pitch-up at rotation, was (1) the failure of Fine Air ...
Is flight movie based on a true story? - AskingLot.com
Click to see full answer. Also, can you fly a passenger plane upside down? The answer is yes for a “little” bit! Unlike military fighters, commercial planes do not have the engine power for sustained inverted flight and rely on lift from the wings. Commercial airliners are only tested and certified for upright flight.”However, one Boeing aircraft has flown upside down – twice!
Who was the real pilot in the movie flight? - AskingLot.com
Airplane engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is heading home from Germany to New York on a double-decker Elgin 474 to bury her husband. But three hours into the flight, she awakens to find her young daughter missing -- and the entire flight crew, including Capt. Rich (Sean Bean) and Air Marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard), claims that the child was never on board.
Is the film "Flight" based on a true story? - Movies & TV Stack Exchange
The film took elements from a true story, including the plane flying inverted, which did actually happen.. Source WIkipedia. Screenwriter John Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which was caused by a broken jackscrew.
Do commercial planes have inverted wings?
The answer is yes for a “little” bit! Unlike military fighters, commercial planes do not have the engine power for sustained inverted flight and rely on lift from the wings. Commercial airliners are only tested and certified for upright flight.”.
Is Flight based on a true story?
Is flight movie based on a true story? Screenwriter John Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which was caused by a broken jackscrew. That crash had no survivors.
Who wrote Flight segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington?
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four, writing " Flight segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington—one of his very best. Not often does a movie character make such a harrowing personal journey that keeps us in deep sympathy all of the way.".
Who is the actor who plays the pilot in Flight?
Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, Steve Starkey, Zemeckis and Jack Rapke. It stars Denzel Washington as William "Whip" Whitaker Sr., an alcoholic airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mechanical failure, ...
What was the crash in Flight 261?
Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which was caused by a broken jackscrew.
How much did Flight make in 2012?
Flight opened in 1,884 theaters across the US and Canada on November 2, 2012. In its first week, the film ranked second in the American box office, grossing US$24,900,566 with an average of US$13,217 per theater. Flight earned US$93,772,375 in the US and an additional US$68,000,000 in other countries for a total of US$161,772,375, well above its US$31 million production budget.
When was the Polar Express animated?
Motion capture was to be used, as with Zemeckis' previous animated films The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009). Variety also indicated that Disney hoped to release the film in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Where was the movie The Captain of Alaska Airlines filmed?
This film is loosely inspired by the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 . Principal photography began in October 2011 near Atlanta, Georgia and lasted over 45 days.
Who is Whip's friend?
Whip awakens in an Atlanta hospital with moderate injuries and is greeted by his old friend Charlie Anderson, who represents the airline's pilots union. He tells Whip that he managed to save 96 out of 102 lives on the flight, losing two crew members and four passengers, but mentions his copilot is in a coma.
Why does Denzel Washington turn his plane upside down?
In the new movie Flight, the pilot portrayed by Denzel Washington turns his airliner upside down to save it from an uncontrolled descent. Is that really possible? (And how would the pilot's drug abuse affect him?)
Who plays Whip Whitaker in Flight?
In Robert Zemeckis's latest movie Flight, out Nov. 2, Denzel Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a regional-airline pilot who heroically rolls the airplane he's flying to rescue it from an uncontrolled descent. The inversion sequence—especially an extreme long shot of the aircraft soaring, engines up, over a suburban Atlanta apartment building—stuns.
Why is inversion bad for airplanes?
Inversion risks engine failure, because fuel pickup tubes draw from the tank's bottom. But if your airplane had a broken jackscrew and dysfunctional horizontal stabilizer, like Whitaker's, inversion could help it regain altitude and slow down; its nose would remain stuck pitched down—but now "down" means up, toward the sky.
What did Haynes use to guide the plane?
Haynes and his flight crew used the power of the wing-mounted engines to guide the airplane's descent. (On approach, Haynes stayed calm and collected—he even kept his sense of humor. After air traffic control cleared Flight 232 for an emergency landing at Sioux City, he quipped: "Roger.
Why do airplanes stay aloft?
They stay aloft thanks to engine propulsion, which overpowers air resistance, or drag, and the way air streams over their aerodynamically shaped wings to generate lift. The wing flaps, structures that supplement lift but create drag, would be retracted.
Who was the first pilot to fly a 707?
The sight certainly would be unusual, but it wouldn't make for a groundbreaking stunt: In 1955, Boeing chief test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnson executed two barrel rolls in a Dash 80, the 707 prototype, over Seattle's Lake Washington as part of the company's U.S. tour to promote jets as the future mode of air travel.
Do flaps deploy at high speeds?
Flaps do the same, though they're not designed to deploy at such high speeds. It'd be better to pull back the throttle to power idle while losing altitude, he says. So now—theoretically—you're piloting an upside-down airliner. Normally, you'd just keep rolling over until you completed a full 360 degrees, Williams says.
Who directed Flight forrest gum?
Zemeckis, an Oscar-winner for directing "Forrest Gump," says he's hoping there's no eye-rolling over his latest big screen catastrophe in "Flight.". He said he strove for as much realism as possible. "We have real pilots and experts vet all these ideas so we don't have anyone doing that," he said of picky eye-rollers.
What airline crashed in Flight?
Zemeckis added that the crash in "Flight" was based on an actual Alaska Airlines accident in 2000 that killed all 88 people on board. Things turn out much differently in his fictional version.
Storyline
Whip Whitaker is a commuter airline pilot. While on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta something goes wrong and the plane starts to fly erratically. With little choice Whip crashes the plane and saves almost all on board.
Did you know
The accident in the film was inspired by a real-life disaster, the crash of Alaska Airlines 261 on January 31, 2000. Some dialogue in the film closely resembles the CVR transcript. Like in the film, the pilots of Alaska 261 rolled the airplane to an inverted position to try to stabilize the flight.
What was the crash in Flight 261?
Screenwriter John Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which was caused by a broken jackscrew. That crash had no survivors.
How fast did the X-Men go down?
At one point, unable to raise the nose, they attempted to fly the aircraft "upside-down". However the aircraft was beyond recovery; it descended inverted and nose-down about 18,000 feet in 81 seconds, a descent rate exceeding 13,300 feet per minute (approx. 151.1 mph), before hitting the ocean at high speed. Share.
What aircraft was involved in the Alaska Airlines crash?
A very similar accident was Alaska Airline Flight 261 accident in January 31, 2000 on a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft (in the movie it was MD-88): The CVR transcript reveals the pilots' continuous attempts for the duration of the dive to regain control of the aircraft.
Is Flight based on a book?
It was great, great screenplay. MM: It's unique -- it's at least for Hollywood today -- that it's not based on a book or a comic book or TV show.
What plane crashed in the movie?
Writer John Gatins based the scene loosely on Alaska Airlines Flight 261 , which crashed into the Pacific Ocean en route to San Francisco in 2000. As in the film, pilot Ted Thompson amazingly rolled the stricken craft upside down to try and slow its descent.
What happened on February 1 2013?
1 February 2013, 0:48 pm. The plane crash sequence ‘Flight’ is jaw-dropping, but bonkers. After steering the plane through a particularly nasty bout of turbulence, Denzel Washington’s half-cut captain Whip has a nap, only to wake up with the plane nose-diving.
Is the crash in Flight realistic?
The crash in ‘Flight’ is one of the most realistic ever captured on film, though director Zemeckis has had some practice after helming a similar scene in ‘Cast Away’.
Overview
Reception
Flight opened in 1,884 theaters across the US and Canada on November 2, 2012. In its first week, the film ranked second in the American box office, grossing US$24,900,566 with an average of US$13,217 per theater. Flight earned US$93,772,375 in the US and an additional US$68,000,000 in other countries for a total of US$161,772,375, well above its US$31 million production budget.
Flight received mostly positive reviews, and has an approval rating of 78% based on a sample of …
Flight opened in 1,884 theaters across the US and Canada on November 2, 2012. In its first week, the film ranked second in the American box office, grossing US$24,900,566 with an average of US$13,217 per theater. Flight earned US$93,772,375 in the US and an additional US$68,000,000 in other countries for a total of US$161,772,375, well above its US$31 million production budget.
Flight received mostly positive reviews, and has an approval rating of 78% based on a sample of …
Plot
Airline pilot Captain Whip Whitaker (Washington) uses cocaine to wake up after a sleepless night in his Orlando hotel room. He pilots SouthJet Flight 227 to Atlanta, which experiences severe turbulence at takeoff. Co-pilot Ken Evans takes over while Whip discreetly mixes vodka in his orange juice and takes a nap. He is jolted awake as the plane goes into a steep dive. Unable to regain control, Whip is forced to make a controlled crash landing in an open field, hitting his hea…
Cast
• Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker
• Don Cheadle as Hugh Lang
• Kelly Reilly as Nicole
• Bruce Greenwood as Charlie Anderson
Production
Zemeckis entered negotiations to direct Flight in April 2011, and by early June had accepted, with Denzel Washington about to finalize his own deal. It was the first time that Zemeckis and Washington had worked together on a motion picture.
By mid-September 2011, Kelly Reilly was in negotiations to play the female lead, with Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, and John Goodman joining later in the month, and Melissa Leo and James Bad…
See also
• Alaska Airlines Flight 261
• The Pilot (1980 film)
External links
• Flight at IMDb
• Flight at AllMovie