# Movie plane crashes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157 "2009-03-29T04:18:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/1 "2009-03-29T04:18:14Z")
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](http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001213X29141&key=2) 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. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/2 "2009-03-29T04:23:40Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/3 "2009-03-29T04:32:23Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![audit1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/4 "2009-03-29T04:50:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/5 "2009-03-29T05:13:27Z")
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.) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/6 "2009-03-29T06:32:14Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/7 "2009-03-29T08:13:07Z")
According to IMDb, the Concorde used in _Airport '79_ is the same one that crashed in Paris in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/8 "2009-03-29T12:12:34Z")
I ran across this in another morbid Wikipedia search. [Ormer Locklear](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.” ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/9 "2009-03-29T12:24:27Z")
The real-life [Airwolf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwolf_(helicopter)#Bell_222) 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. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mogle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mogle/32/12021_2.png) [@Mogle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mogle)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/10 "2009-03-29T13:50:16Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > One of the fighters in the photo seemed to have the same tail number as the downed one. :eek: Not that surprising when you consider that only 64 F-117s were ever built. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/11 "2009-03-29T15:57:15Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-plane-crashes/491157/12 "2009-03-29T21:24:52Z")
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.