But notice that she doesn’t really “lift” the plane so much as “decrease it’s glide slope.” That’s a lot less force than would be used to literally pick up a plane, which seems to be the thrust of the Superman discussion.
I doubt that the producers put in the effort to get the right type of aircraft for the route it was supposed to be on. I think they told the SFX folks “she saves an airliner.”
Then they don’t know the internet, do they? 
Well, in this case “lift the plane” doesn’t mean pick it up off the ground like a barbell, but to slow its descent.
I seem to recall in one case, Superman just taking the place of the missing engine. Which certainly answers the problem of the support problem, because obviously there was structure in place to hold the engine (right up until it fell off :smack:)
I assume that the flight crew then stations a flight attendant at the window making water skiing “go faster/slow down” signals until the plane is on the ground.
Had a computer problem - this is what I meant to post:
Well, in this case “lift the plane” doesn’t mean pick it up off the ground like a barbell, but to slow its descent.
In any case, me trying to identify the type of plane was just to get some idea of the weight involved. It was a four engine jet, and though it was bound for Europe, it had been in an emergency state for some time when Supergirl found out about it, so while it may have started with a full fuel load, it’s possible it had dumped some or most of it before she intervened.
I have to figure the only plausible approach is to simulate normal flight as much as possible - try to stabilize the plane’s path and keep its speed above stall to let it make a halfway-smooth landing. Supergirl doesn’t do this - she makes the plane roll ninety degrees to keep it from crashing into the towers of a suspension bridge - named for Otto Binder, incidentally - before leveling it out again for a water landing. “Catching” it in any sense would be disastrous.
That was depicted in the 1978 Superman movie and the plane was Air Force One. He stabilized the plane, but how it managed to land was not shown.
Why, because Superman forgot he has X-Ray Vision?
Bonus points if he hears a Supertramp song first.
Like Roger Ebert always said, nothing makes for more compelling cinema than a superhero discussing phenomenology with a falling jetliner
Oddly enough, Jimmy Carter never discussed that incident in his memoirs.
He should grab a large, flat slab of rock or metal, then fly under the plane and support the weight using the distributed volume of the flat material
OK, I guess that airliner just flew right overhead. 
It would have to be a material that can rest on two hands, support its own weight, and a couple hundred thousand more pounds. Not sure where you’d get something like that on short notice.