Chevy Chase (Deke - Channel 4 News Director) could not be credited because he was under contract with Warner Brothers at the time. Columbia Pictures was allowed to hire Chase as long as he would go uncredited so he would not violate his contract.
The idea for the film was born when producer Laura Ziskin and story co-writer Alvin Sargent were watching the 1988 presidential primaries. They became intrigued by television's power to instantly create identity and reputation with a single act or image. When Ziskin later saw television news reports of a plane crash, in which people were rescued by "a man who came out of nowhere", she gave the scenario a comic spin: "What if a truly wonderful act were performed by a person who's actually pretty crummy, a lowlife, a criminal, a Bernie LaPlante?" Director Stephen Frears added: "The press are treated as a fact of contemporary life--powerful, pervasive, and often highly amusing in their feverish pursuit of a story."
Reportedly, Dustin Hoffman didn't get along with director Stephen Frears, to the point where, on one occasion, Hoffman yelled for everyone to hear, "Directors who listen to my advice win Oscars, and those who don't go direct Havana (1990)", a jab at Sydney Pollack, who directed Hoffman in Tootsie (1982), another director with whom he didn't get along. However, whatever happened between Frears and Hoffman was probably forgotten. They got back together many years later on The Program (2015).
To create the volatile aftermath of the plane crash, the film company transported a retired 25-year-old Boeing 727 from an aircraft graveyard in Northern California to the Lake Piru area, north of Los Angeles. Here, aircraft engineering specialists reassembled the 25-ton, 160-foot plane and lowered it onto an unused bridge over the Piru River bed. On this location, in an arduous week of complex night shooting, Bernie LaPlante (Dustin Hoffman) carries out his improvised rescue of injured reporter Gale Gayley (Geena Davis), pinned in the wreckage, and 53 other desperate passengers amidst fire, rain, and smoke, punctuated by increasingly large explosions. Claustrophobic, smoke-filled interiors of the plane during and after the crash were filmed in another Boeing 727 airplane on a soundstage at Sony Pictures Studios. Pre-crash interior scenes were shot in a pristine airliner mock-up set at Universal Studios.
Mariah Carey originally recorded her number one hit single, "Hero", for this movie, but Tommy Mottola of Sony Records did not think the power ballad was a good fit.