Airport 1975 (1974)

While flying his small private plane, businessman Scott Freeman (Dana Andrews) suffers a fatal heart attack and crashes into the cockpit of a commercial Boeing 747 airliner. With the flight crew either dead or dying, stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black) takes control of the plane with the help, over the radio, of chief training pilot Alan Murdock (Charlton Heston). As the time comes for the plane to attempt a landing, the risk of having Murdock board the plane midair is undertaken. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Dana Andrews played the pilot of the small plane that crashed into the 747, piloted by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. In The Crowded Sky (1961) , Dana Andrews is the pilot of a commercial airplane which collides with a smaller one piloted by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. The Boeing 747 used in the film was originally delivered to American Airlines in 1971. It was a 747-123, registration number N9675, serial number 20390; the 136th 747 off the production line. Its basic American Airlines color scheme was modified to the notional Columbia Airlines colors for filming of exterior sequences. The aircraft was flown by United Parcel Services as a freighter, re-registered N675UP until 2005. The aircraft, N9675, is now stored in Roswell aircraft storage facility, and has been withdrawn from active service with UPS. The Beech Baron in the film uses the callsign 232 Zulu, which implies that its registration would be N232Z. Exterior shots show the registration as N9750Y. In a tragic coincidence, N9750Y was involved in a fatal midair collision with a Cessna 180 near Stockton, California on August 24, 1989 killing both pilots.

If you are counting that is two airplanes involved in two movies about air disasters that have crashed in real life (The 707 used in Airport, crashed in March 1989 in Brazil, with 21 killed). The Airport Curse, as I am calling it, would tragically strike on more time. Okay, back to a little more lighthearted fare, the movie. This movie creeps ever closer to being full on Airplane! and is actually the one that originally includes the sick girl (Linda Blair, post Exorcist) traveling across the country for a transplant and the nun (Helen Reddy) who sings to her. It also includes Gloria Swanson in her first movie in 22 years and her last ever movie. She had a real stretch, she played herself. Other notable actors were Cid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Jerry Stiller, and Erik Estrada (Poncherello from CHiPs).

There seems to be a lack of reaction in this passenger list, maybe everyone was on tranquilizers or something. Here is the scenario, and if you don't want to see any spoilers, stop right here, a little twin engine airplane is flying when the pilot has a heart attack and his plane collides with a 747 on approach to Salt Lake City. The collision rips a hole in the cockpit of the 747 and the co-pilot is sucked out, the navigator is killed (bye Pounch) and the pilot is severely wounded, but is able to activate the auto pilot. The head stewardess goes to the cockpit to see if they need any coffee and find the carnage. She then contacts Salt Lake City and calmly shouts "We are going to die!!" or something like that. Salt Lake tells her to be calm, the plane (which was on approach to SLC) is actually 30 minutes away, so they would figure something out. Meanwhile, a passenger asks a stewardess what happened and she tells him the pilot is hurt and the other two are dead. He asks who is flying the plane, and she says the stewardess is, but asks him to be quite or he could upset everybody, he says okay, and doesn't mention it again, although anybody in the cabin could have heard her say that. They end up flying around mountains and stuff and fly past the airport and have to turn around and fly back, despite the fact that they were flying from Washington, D.C. to L.A. and diverted to Salt Lake City because of weather, but they still had plenty of fuel. Charlton Heston climbs onto a helicopter and is transferred to the 747 by hanging from a cable out of the back of the helicopter. The passengers are still very calm. Heston eventually is able to land the plane, safely, with no threat of fire or anything else. The passengers finally realise their lives are in danger and panic trying to get out of the plane and jump onto the rubber slide. They even literally throw the sink girl out of the door, as Charleton Heston and Nancy Black, calmly walk down the stairs located on the other side of the plane. Another thing about the sick girl, she needed a kidney transplant and couldn't be off of dialysis for very long or she would die. She was being flown to L.A. for a kidney. When she gets off the plane in Salt Lake City, our hero Joe Patroni tells the mother that they have a kidney at the hospital and everything was going to be fine. Where did that kidney come from? If the girl had to fly across the county for one, that would make it feel like they were hard to come by.

Next Up: Airport '77, Airport meets the Poseidon Adventure