The Flight That Fought Back

There were a lot of interviews with...

...family members and others who had cell phone conversations with the passengers as this was happening. One that I found particularly interresting was a woman, who talked as if her husband was the big leader of the rebellion. She said that when he told her that they were going to try to regain control of the plane, she told him to stay out of it and not get involved. :chairshot

Oh, by the way, one would get the impression that Todd Beamer's only contribution to the whole effort was to say "Let's Roll!". But he was in contact with a telephone operator or someone like that. Everyone else seems to have been in contact with a family member, every one of whom talked as if it was their relative who was the leader.

Also, from the cockpit voice recorder, we find out just how ignorant the terrorists were. After the passengers had gotten past the guy outside the cockpit door and were at work trying to break it down, the leader of the terrorists told them to hold the fire axe up in front of the peep hole so they would see it and be afraid, not realizing that it would not appear very threatening when viewed from the other side. (as if anyone was looking through the peep hole while they were trying to break down the door, anyway). From the recording, they determined that the passengers did get into the cockpit.

One thing in the movie that is known to be factual is that a few minutes after the transmission was made to all aircraft to be aware that a takeover attempt was possible, and about 2 minutes before they believe the actual takeover began, the pilot (or perhaps co-pilot) requested a clarification. Seems like condition white mentality and indicates to me that even if they had been armed, it might not have helped.

As far as writer's "filling in the blanks" from their own imagination, I get the impression that that would be limited to creating dialog from statements family members made. For example, someone's wife might say that her husband said that the terrorists took over the plane. The writer then turns that into the character of the husband saying, "Some terrorists just took over the plane". This didn't seem to be done in the standard docudrama style of telling a story with a plot and a love interest and all of the "based on a true story" nonsense. They presented a piece of information, such as the use of the food cart as a battering ram and then showing the passengers pushing a food card town the aisle.

The only way I can visualize inaccuracy is if the writers made up things that were claimed by the narrator as known facts or the recollection of the ear-witnesses.