Let’s stick with fiction. In the run-up to Halloween there’s several stories where aviation and horror overlap. Not real-life dramas but concoctions of the imagination. Even with the coolest, most experienced passengers there’s moments of apprehension when encountering strong turbulence or unexpected diversions. We know that the risks are well managed but there’s the unforgiving nature of flying. Too many things going wrong at the same time and fate takes a hand.
There are far more action movies with aviation scenes than there are horror movies. So, forgive me if I step over the boundary between the two for a couple of this collections.
Who can forget the expression of a young William Shatner as he looks out of a window to see a large gremlin on the wing of his aircraft[1]. Panic sets in but no one sees what he sees. He becomes a hysterical. Grabs a gun. Opens a window and starts shooting at the gremlin. Everyone thinks he’s gone mad. Carried off in a straitjacket. Then in the last shot there is a view of the aircraft’s damaged engine cowling. Shatner had saved the day, only no one will ever believe him.
Again, in the category of iconic is Cray Grant being chased by a low flying aircraft in a cornfield. Running from machine gun fire he hides. Then in a spectacular explosion the aircraft crashes into a petrol tanker. Hitchcock pulls out all the stops. The film “North by Northwest[2]” will always be recalled for the crop duster scene. Grant’s character, Roger Thornhill gets away with his life.
There’s the in-flight abduction scene in the X-Files[3]. Aliens attempt to abduct character called Max Fenig from a commercial flight. He’s then found dead following a fatal crash. Agent Mulder theorises that the aircraft was forced down by aliens. The NTSB accident investigator is not buying it. Then there’s the mystery of the nine lost minutes between the aircraft crash and the time on the victims’ wristwatches. Yes, it gets a bit ridiculous. All in the vein of a good X-Files story.
Scary realism in science fiction qualifies. In this case 21st century technology as imagined in 1997. First to come to mind is the cab driver Bruce Willis driving his flying taxi. The Fifth Element[4] is a polished English-language French science fiction action movie. The flying taxicabs are terrifying. Weaving chaotically through the cityscape. Not something we will see with the current plans for urban air mobility – I hope.
The telling of the drama is a frightening fiction, but the events were real. This survival film is based on a crash in the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972[5]. A Uruguayan rugby team is faced with a terrible situation. Starving passengers debate how to stay alive. Pushed to the limit they eat the flesh of their dead relatives and friends. 29 died but 16 survived. More than one movie has been made of this awful tragedy. It speaks of the human instinct to survive as much as the catastrophe.
That’s five scary movies scenes with a commercial aviation theme. I’m sure there are more – what’s your favourite?
[1] 1963 episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/plotsummary/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempus_Fugit_%28The_X-Files%29
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element
[5] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106246/
John Vincent 