flight the movie true story

Is flight movie 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.

What happened to the plane in the movie Flight?

Like in the film, the pilots of Alaska 261 rolled the airplane to an inverted position to try to stabilize the flight. The root cause of the crash was found to be inadequate maintenance of the airplane's stabilizer "jackscrew," which caused its threads to wear down excessively and eventually jam the jackscrew. What is the movie flight about?

Is flight an R rated movie?

Flight was the first live-action film directed by Zemeckis since Cast Away and What Lies Beneath in 2000, and his first R-rated film since Used Cars in 1980.

Is flight a good movie Denzel Washington?

The Hollywood Reporter ' s Todd McCarthy wrote that the film "provides Denzel Washington with one of his meatiest, most complex roles, and he flies with it". 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.

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 the movie The 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.

Was Whip Whitaker real?

Robert Zemeckis' 2012 drama Flight is a riveting character study of an alcoholic pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), who miraculously crash-lands a malfunctioning plane, and though the movie's marketing insists it was inspired by true events, that's really not the case.

What caused the plane crash in Flight movie?

As in the film, the cause of the crash was fatigue of a jackscrew due to overuse and poor maintenance. Unlike 'Flight' though, the heroism of the pilots was not in doubt. They were posthumously awarded the Airline Pilots Association Gold Medal for Heroism. 'Flight' is in cinemas now.

Who died while making the movie 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.

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.

Is inverted flight possible?

“An airplane cannot stay in the air with just one wing. Both wings are necessary to provide enough lifting power for the plane to stay in the air. Flying upside down, on the other hand, is theoretically possible, but the settings that protect a passenger plane would make it awkward and unnecessary.”

Did Alaska Airlines Flight 261 fly upside down?

Just before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, the crew of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 flew upside down while desperately trying to regain control of the passenger jet, investigators confirmed Thursday.

Is it possible to fly a plane upside down?

“The MD-80 cannot sustain inverted flight. The MD-80, as with all commercial airliners, was designed to fly upright. Commercial airliners are only tested and certified for upright flight.” But there is one case where an airliner flew inverted in real life.

How much do pilots earn?

According to The Occupational Outlook Handbook, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the salary for commercial pilots is $93,300 per year, which was the the median annual wage in May 2020. The median annual wage for airline pilots, copilots and flight engineers is $160,970.

What happens at the end of flight?

The film ends with Whiaker in jail, recounting his story to a prison counciling group. Whitaker has reconnected with Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a heroin addict that has decided to clean up her act, and he also reconnects with his family.

Is Angel flight down based on a true story?

Drama based on a true story, starring Patricia Kalember, David Charvet and Christopher Atkins. When an emergency flight transporting a seriously ill two-year-old girl to hospital crashes in the Rocky Mountains, the five people on board face a fight for survival as a rescue team searches for them in blizzard conditions.

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.

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.

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.

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’.

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, ...

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.".

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.

Did Alaska Airlines have survivors?

The Alaska Airlines 261 crash had no survivors. The airplane in Flight, a two-engine T-tail jet airliner, appears to be from the same model family as was the plane involved in the Alaska Airlines 261 disaster, a variant of the MD-80.

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.

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.

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 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?)

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.

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.

Who was the pilot arrested for a rum flight?

Prouse was one of three Northwest Airlines pilots arrested one morning in Minnesota in 1990. All three had spent the previous evening’s layover at a bar in Fargo, N.D., downing as many as 19 rum and Cokes. Tests showed their blood-alcohol levels far beyond the legal limit.

How many pilots have been treated by HIMS?

HIMS has treated more than 4,000 pilots, with only 10 percent to 12 percent of participants suffering relapse. It has kept alcohol out of the cockpit and has helped prevent the issue from being driven underground, where it’s more likely to be a safety problem.

Was Lyle Shelton a stunt pilot?

Wikipedia tells us that the late Lyle Shelton, a former stunt pilot, worked as a technical adviser. Perhaps Shelton could have told us more about that upside-down business, but he wasn’t an airline pilot, and it’s the cockpit details—the dramatization of airline SOP—where things fall short.

Overview

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