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Best Plane Crashes In Movie History


closetojumping

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Sorry if this is already a subject, but for fuck’s sake if it is, I can’t sort or search to it. 

I don’t know why, probably because of how much I wind up in the air both public and private, I’ve always been fascinated by plane disasters. We had a great thread on Shaggy about the 25th anniversary of the DFW Delta crash in August of 1985. I was up there for a family visit when it happened and maybe that mattered to me.

Anyway, on that same thread, I followed up with how I was on the plane for Labor Day of 2010 in which we almost crashed in Houston during a tropical storm because of air traffic/pilot arrogance but fuck, that was disturbing. Flightaware proved the track that was nearly fatal. 

Anyway, what are the greatest plane crashes in movie history? I have 3 nominations and I have a 4th that I cannot fucking remember that I figure you all will bring up and fix my glitch. I’ll start:

1) Cast Away - I watched this a few nights ago, again, and ... fuck. It’s a great set-up for Hanks’ character, for sure. The crash is long and bonkers. The aftermath is basically the movie. I’ve always felt this was grim and well done. 

2) Knowing - many people hate Cage movies by default and I get it. That said, if you know nothing about this movie and just watch it, it’s fucking disturbing. In the mix of that is the plane crash scene. I won’t spoiler it more and I only watched it on the big screen, but fuck that. We’ve all actually faced that hero-fantasy and it happens in this movie. Spoiler alert, we’d probably all shit the bed if we witnessed a place crash during a local traffic jam. 

3) Flight - another Zemeckis gift. This is based on a flight that happened but ended horribly compared to the movie. Denzel is amazing in it and the scene is fucking long and bonkers, but extremely well done. This scene makes the movie. The rest is well done, but about addiction. 

I know of a few others that I dig. I know there are plenty that aren’t on my radar. Figured it might be fun for enough of us. 

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Die Hard 2 and Alive. My dad and I went to see Die Hard 2 in the theater when he was traveling every week for work. He was white knuckling it the whole time after that scene. On the way home he kept saying how angry he was that they put that scene in the movie. I thought it was badass that a villain would kill that many innocent people to prove a point. 

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16 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i immediately thought of "flight".  i'll add the aviator (i think there were a couple crash scenes).

 

another flying movie i haven't seen very recently, but has a couple decent crash/explosion/close landing types was the spielberg hidden gem "always" with richard dreyfuss and holly hunter.

The landing gear ripping through the ceramic roof tiles is one hell of an image.

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I was 1 exit down 114 huddled in a phone booth calling dispatch when 191 went down. That was a serious thunderstorm. 

Flight is probably the best crash on film. It's long and fairly detailed. The Aviator is great, too.

Smaller planes, but great action in The Great Waldo Pepper. Love the final dogfight between Waldo and Ernst Kessler. Some older WW1 films like Hell's Angels and The Dawn Patrol have some big crashes and none are CGI (but there are some obvious models/miniatures used at times). Wonder how many men were killed/seriously injured making those early films.

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18 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

another flying movie i haven't seen very recently, but has a couple decent crash/explosion/close landing types was the spielberg hidden gem "always" with richard dreyfuss and holly hunter.

The original, "A Guy Named Joe" with Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Irene Dunn is pretty good, too. 

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Flight is probably the best imo. When the plane is gliding and hits the church was just crazy.

A memorable one for me is the Indiana Jones Last Crusade plane crash. When the plane shears off its wings as it crashes in the tunnel and the body slides past the Indy and his dad in the car.

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13 hours ago, HornPhD said:

The crash scene in Fearless was pretty good

This is another one based on a real crash. I think it was the Sioux City crash in the late 80's. 

Not exactly a plane crash movie, but the documentary about the sole survivors of various commercial plane crashes on Netflix is also a pretty interesting and complex viewing. 

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Wrong link, they used this split plane photo in a movie though.  Nevermind, just delete it.  I've never been able to properly insert clips on the site.  Sorry to bother you sir.  

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