Airport '77 is a 1977 disaster film and second sequel in the Airport franchise.
The film starred a number of veteran actors, including Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, Christopher Lee and Olivia de Havilland. Like its predecessors, Airport '77 was a box office hit earning US$30 million[1]. The film marked the series' progression into unrealistic story events.
Plot
A privately owned luxury Boeing 747, Stevens' Flight 23 (call sign two-three sierra heavy) complete with piano bar, office, and bedroom, is used to ferry invited guests to an estate owned by wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens (James Stewart). Valuable artwork of the Stevens' private collection is also onboard the jetliner, to be eventually displayed in his new museum. Such a collection motivates a group of thieves led by co-pilot Bob Chambers (Robert Foxworth) to hijack the aircraft in the hopes of landing it on an abandoned airfield on St. George Island.
Once Captain Don Gallagher (Jack Lemmon) leaves the cockpit, the hijacker's plans go into motion. A sleeping gas is released into the cabin and the passengers lose consciousness. Knocking out the flight engineer, Chambers puts the plan in motion, and Stevens' Flight 23 "disappears" into the Bermuda Triangle. Descending to virtual wave-top altitude, Flight 23 heads into a fog bank, reducing visibility to less than a mile. Minutes later, a large offshore drilling platform emerges from the haze, Flight 23 heading straight for it at close to 600 knots.
Chambers pulls back on the yoke in a banking left turn but the engine number 4 clips the derrick, causing the engine to catch fire. Chambers immediately hits the fire extinguishing button and flames are momentarily extinguished. However, because the aircraft is at such a low altitude, the sudden loss of airspeed threatens to stall the airplane. As the engine reignites, Chambers is forced to use another fire-suppression bottle. But by this time, the aircraft stall alarm goes off and the aircraft's tail hits the water.By this time all the passengers wake up, and most start to scream and panic. Chambers is able to pull up, but soon the plane's right wing hits the water again, and the plane lifts into the air for another moment, then hitting the water again. Because of the impact being so hard, the plane becomes grounded in the ocean. Eventually the plane begins to slip beneath the waves.
The ocean bottom is fortunately above the crush-depth of the fuselage. Many of the passengers are injured with some seriously. Two of the would-be thieves are killed in the initial crash. Banker (Monte Markham) is in the hold securing the art for the transfer when a cargo container causes a breach of the outer skin, drowning him. The second fatality is Wilson (Michael Pataki), who is killed when he is slammed into the flight panel on impact.
Since the aircraft was off course, search and rescue efforts are focused in the wrong area. Involved in these efforts are Phillip Stevens and Joe Patroni (George Kennedy, who appears in all Airport movies). The only way to signal rescue efforts to the proper region is to get a signal buoy to the surface in a small dinghy. Captain Gallagher and diver Martin Wallace (Christopher Lee) enter the main cargo in the attempt, but an unexpected triggering of the hatch crushes Wallace. Gallagher, out of oxygen provided by the dive gear, makes it to the surface, and activates the beacon after he climbs into the dinghy. Getting a fix on the new signal, an S-3 Viking overflies the crash site, confirming the location of Flight 23.
The navy then dispatches a sub-recovery ship, the USS Cayuga (LST-1186) with a flotilla of other vessels. The aircraft is ringed with balloons and once inflated, the aircraft rises from the bottom of the seafloor. Once on the surface, the passengers are evacuated. First Officer Chambers is killed on the way up when he is pinned under a sofa. With the survivors on their way to waiting ships, Captain Gallagher and the head stewardess (Brenda Vaccaro) are the last to evacuate from the aircraft as it slips under the waves for the last time.
Cast
A casualty in the aftermath of the disaster (played by Lee Grant).
Awards
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards:[2]
Sequels
Trivia
- During this film's developmental stages, Alfred Hitchcock was considered to direct it; the climax in Hitchcock's film Foreign Correspondent features a plane that is shot down by enemy fire, ditches in the ocean and quickly floods.
- This film's story is very loosely based on the novel and 1965 film adaptation of The Flight of the Phoenix in which a military aircraft is accidentally ditched into the Sahara Desert (instead of the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean); actors James Stewart and George Kennedy appear in both films.
- Footage of Airport '77 was used in an episode of the television program Airwolf.[3]
- Footage of Airport '77 was also used in an episode of the short lived James Arness TV series McClain's Law.
- The scene of the 747 crash landing in the ocean was also used on two episodes of Days of our Lives in 2005. One female passenger looks through a window, and it cuts to a clip from the film showing water rising outside (the plane sinking).
- A water landing, especially the hard "tail strike" landing depicted in the film, would certainly break up the fuselage of a 747, or at least heavily fracture it, making the pressurized cabin theory moot.
- When NBC-TV first aired Airport '77 in September 1978, 70 mins of deleted footage was added to the broadcast. Most of the deleted footage consisted of the main characters having flash backs to previous events in their lives prior to boarding their ill fated flight, as well as additional footage on the submerged plane while awaiting rescue. The first 3 minutes of the television version was newly filmed footage (using the three original actors who played the terrorists in the film) showing how the terrorists broke into a government warehouse and stole the sleeping gas used to knock out the passengers and crew on the 747. Because of this extended version the film ran a little over 183 minutes as a result NBC aired aired the movie as a 4 hour two-night event.
- Although Turner Broadcasting Service (TBS) frequently aired the "long version" during the 1990s, subsequent broadcasts on cable television and all VHS and DVD releases have been the original 113 min theatrical version.
- Airport '77 is often shown on Sky Movies Modern Greats.
References
External links
