Movie plane crashes

[Johnny L.A.]

Yeah, sucky title.

So I've got Airport 1975 on, which is a pretty poor follow-up to 1970's Airport. It's a bit past the scene where the Beechcraft Baron collides with the 747. As I often do, for whatever reason I do it, I decided to look up the Baron. Turns out it was involved in a collision with a Cessna 180 in 1989 and was destroyed (as was the Cessna).

So the aircraft that portrayed an aircraft in a mid-air collision was destroyed in a mid-air collision in real life.

And of course, Paul Mantz was killed when the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1 he was flying for Flight Of The Phoenix, a film about a plane that crashed in the desert, crashed in the desert.

[panamajack]

Are there specific planes that get used for movies? Or do they just find one that they need and hire it out for the time they need it?

I guess I'm asking if the Beechcraft was likely to have been used in many movies, or just one and then went on to a late life and eventual demise.

[Johnny L.A.]

Originally Posted by panamajack

Are there specific planes that get used for movies? Or do they just find one that they need and hire it out for the time they need it?

I don't know. Obviously there are aircraft that are used in several productions because of their rarity. For example, that T-38 Talon in Dragnet (the movie, not the series) was also used in a Pepsi commercial (along with an A-4 Skyhawk, which crashed at Mojave while filming another commercial), and the 'Zero' fighters (modified T-6s/SNJs) from Tora! Tora! Tora! were used in Baa Baa Black Sheep.

But as far as your typical General Aviation aircraft? I've always assumed that someone knows someone who has one, and the aircraft belonging to the producer/producer's friend/producer's friend's friend is the one that gets used in the movie. Kind of spoiled the effect for me in From The Earth To The Moon when one of the astronauts is flying a Cessna 172 in the late-'60s or early-'70s that wouldn't be built until two-to-eight years later.

[audit1]

There are companies that regularly rent their aircraft to movies. I've noticed the same lear jet belonging to Clay Lacy shows up all the time.

[Johnny L.A.]

Clay Lacy is well known for their business jet charters. They're also used for aerial photography. They'd be a logical choice for on-camera business jets. I'd put those into the 'rarity' category; not that Lear Jets are rare, but they are expensive. If I were making a film that required a Cessna, it would make more sense for me to just go to the local FBO and reserve a plane for the duration. (Unless, of course, I had my own or had a friend who had one.)

[GuanoLad]

The older and rarer the plane, the more likely they are to be used repeatedly.

Though these days you can build a partial plane, and use models or CG to fill in the flying shots, so the practise is probably dying out faster than wild west horse riding.

[Robot Arm]

According to IMDb, the Concorde used in Airport '79 is the same one that crashed in Paris in 2000.

[Jack Batty]

I ran across this in another morbid Wikipedia search.

Ormer Locklear and Skeets Elliot were killed in a plane crash while filming an aerial stunt for the movie The Skywayman. According to the linked article: "The movie showed the crash and its aftermath in gruesome detail."

[Ranchoth]

The real-life Airwolf crashed in 1992, while operating as an air-ambulance (long after the show was canceled, and the helicopter demodified and sold off).

And as an odd fact...remember when the Serbs managed to shoot down the F-117 over Kosovo, about ten years back, and then broadcast pictures from the crash site? IIRC, they had a shot of one of the vertical stabilizers, which was intact enough to read the ID numbers on. At the same time, CNN, commenting on the news, showed a few old stock photos of F-117s on the tarmac (from a demonstration or an air show or some such).

One of the fighters in the photo seemed to have the same tail number as the downed one.

[Mogle]

Originally Posted by Ranchoth

One of the fighters in the photo seemed to have the same tail number as the downed one.

Not that surprising when you consider that only 64 F-117s were ever built.

[Ranchoth]

Originally Posted by Mogle

Not that surprising when you consider that only 64 F-117s were ever built.

Sure, sure. Stomp on Ran. Thanksaheap.

True enough, of course. But still a little eerie; and it's not like it was an exceptionally small pool.

[Stephe96]

Also according to IMDb, the 747 featured in the 1980 movie Nine to Five was the doomed TWA 800, which exploded off of Long Island 16 years later.