Yup, another cheesy 'disaster movie'...true, it wasn't made in the 70s, but it's all here, including we the viewer being able to hear the victims' thoughts! There's the quick biographical nonsense that doesn't really matter cos we don't really care about the people going through this terror in the sky. We also have Mariette Hartley and Gloria Carlin exchanging gossip...Coffee Morning Woman is alive and well, and on the ground!! I don't know why they bother with the scenes involving this pair...just obvious padding.
possible spoiler There's a curious anomaly with the ground radar...174 drops off the screen after the engines die of fuel starvation because the transponder has no juice. The snappy radar man announces that he's switching to primary- which SHOULD show an unidentified blip on his screen...but it doesn't...as if the big jet liner had stealth properties! How to hide a 150 ton Boeing...silent running (!) AND radar invisibility...wow! Yet through all the cheesy scenes and oh so cheesy dialogue, I still found the film has a charm. Perhaps its nod towards the 70s disaster movie fad. Also, that this happened for real gives it a gravitas it would otherwise have lacked. Fans of Gerry Anderson shows might like to note Jeremy Wilkin as the old RAF pilot who shows stiff upper lip as the plane falls out of the sky.
The end credits tell the viewer that our snappy radar man finished his shift and was at work the next day...err...why should it be otherwise? he didn't bring the plane down, it was the flight deck crew!
possible spoiler There's a curious anomaly with the ground radar...174 drops off the screen after the engines die of fuel starvation because the transponder has no juice. The snappy radar man announces that he's switching to primary- which SHOULD show an unidentified blip on his screen...but it doesn't...as if the big jet liner had stealth properties! How to hide a 150 ton Boeing...silent running (!) AND radar invisibility...wow! Yet through all the cheesy scenes and oh so cheesy dialogue, I still found the film has a charm. Perhaps its nod towards the 70s disaster movie fad. Also, that this happened for real gives it a gravitas it would otherwise have lacked. Fans of Gerry Anderson shows might like to note Jeremy Wilkin as the old RAF pilot who shows stiff upper lip as the plane falls out of the sky.
The end credits tell the viewer that our snappy radar man finished his shift and was at work the next day...err...why should it be otherwise? he didn't bring the plane down, it was the flight deck crew!