Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232

Compared to all the disaster movies released over the years, "Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232" is surprisingly well done and gripping. The fact that it is a true story makes it all the more appealing.

The movie details the heroic efforts of both the flight crew and the emergency responders on the ground at Sioux City.

The movie begins by showing the people at the Sioux City airport engaging in a disaster simulation and shows how they learned how to better prepare for a real crash.

When the flight crew of flight 232 lose all hydraulic control they start flying in circles and have to learn how to control the direction of the plane by adjusting the amount of thrust in each engine.

We see many interesting details like the fact that as the crippled plane was coming in for a landing, the control tower realized they were lined up on the wrong runway - which happened to be the same runway where all the emergency vehicles were sitting. Dozens of firetrucks and ambulances had to quickly scramble to get out of the way of the jetliner.

Overall, despite the fact that this was a made-for-TV movie, I thought it was far superior to most any disaster flick I have ever seen.

Although I scored this film as a "6" because it suffered some from lack of character development and pedestrian acting, it is a powerful viewing experience. A skilled United Airlines crew and unprecedented community organization saved many. In fact, the emergency workers in the Sioux City area achieved, on a smaller scale, what those in New York did in 2001. Charlton Heston was ideal in the role of Captain Al Haynes.

I worked in the city government at Sioux City and then at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center years before these events. I participated in some of the very early planning that paid off in 1998. What I saw in the film rings true.

This is just a TV film with no cinematography, no character development, thronged with technical details about which most audiences would understand nothing, and in poor TV quality as well, and yet it is an amazing film well worth spending some time following for an hour and a half and every second of it, so many people being involved, and every detail being true to meticulous accuracy. It happened for real, it was an impossible situation, the entire hydraulic system being put of order by an accidental explosion in the tail, and still the pilots did their best to manage the plane with 300 passengers manually and get it down with an unavoidable crash for a result, leaving 110 dead but 186 survivors, which actually was a miracle, managed by the skill of the pilots, the captain being Charlton Heston here, and he is perfect for the role. The most impressing thing about the film is its documentary value as a detailed reconstruction of a tremendous air plane emergency and accident, actually involving a thousand heroes in the very extensive rescue operations. The incident has become a legend, and the film succeeds brilliantly well in immortalizing the epic occurrence. If you often go travelling by flight, this film is recommended for a warning and important information of the consequences of a possible accident.

First having aired on TV in 1992, CRASH LANDING is a highly well-made dramatization of the saga of United Airlines Flight 232 which, while enroute from Denver to Chicago on July 19, 1989, suffered a catastrophic explosion in its tail engine which severed all the plane's hydraulic lines. This meant that the crew, led by Captain Al Haynes, had almost no control over the aircraft, and that they would have to come in for an extremely difficult landing at Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa. With no way to stop, the plane broke up on impact, scattering debris across the runway and into nearby cornfields. But miraculously, of the 296 people onboard, including Haynes and his crew, 184 managed to survive the horrific ordeal.

Utilizing some of the actual TV footage of UAL 232 coming in for landing and breaking apart upon touchdown, CRASH LANDING details how Haynes and his crew managed to keep the plane in the air long enough to attempt the landing in Sioux City, and how the Sioux City ground crew was prepared for the ultimate emergency. Charlton Heston does his usual professional job in his portrayal of Al Haynes, and James Coburn is equally commanding as Jim Hathaway, the chief emergency coordinator at Sioux City. Richard Thomas, though he does not necessarily escape his "John boy" image from "The Waltons", also scores as the green rookie on Coburn's ground crew.

Although it is a TV movie, the story and cast are all ably directed by veteran Lamont Johnson, with a good script by Harve Bennett (STAR TREK III). CRASH LANDING (later retitled A THOUSAND HEROES) is one of the best true-life airline disaster survival stories ever put on TV, and is well worth seeing.

I am an airline employee. After seeing this movie, I studied the things that happened and how they controlled the aircraft. To turn this aircraft only to the right in a "fugoid" and to arrive exactly on course to land on runway 22 was absolutely brilliant!! Especially doing the math in his head to figure out the headings. Capt. Al Haynes was truly a great and incredibly intelligent pilot. If it wasn't for his great flying, a lot more people would have been killed. I applaud him, Denny Finch, and his whole crew on a very well job done. I hope they all will enjoy retirement and remember that a lot of people are alive today because of them.