Orage sur la tour de contrôle

It is intelligent, engaging, well-acted, and mostly believable. At the end, I wanted more. The cast is good. On the whole, this was a great movie - great enough for me to go through the IMDb's registration process just so as to give this movie a just review. On a scale of 10, I will give 9 points to the TV version that I saw on USA movies (TV usually edits out any foul language and slackness).

The technical, procedural, and behavioral aspects of what really happens within an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) is NOT what is depicted in this movie... Not even close!

First, the movie shows the controllers in a cramped low ceiling room with standard overhead lighting. In a real ARTCC, the ceiling is more than 20 feet high and the lighting is provided only at the M1 consoles (low lighting conditions).

There are multiple and separate backup systems within the ARTCCs, including radar systems and radio systems. As of the making of this movie, the ARTCCs had already been upgraded to a newly developed Voice Switch and Control System (VSCS) by Harris Corp., which has 4 levels of radio communication redundancy.

There are no overhead water pipes that could leak and cause lower floors to develop subsequent equipment failures or a mass outage as depicted in this movie. That's Hollywood for you!

This movie would have you believe that the ARTCCs are inadequate and have no backup systems if there is a failure... Absolutely ridicules!

Air traffic controllers are proffessionals doing a high pressure job where other people would buckle under the pressure. They are higly trained coping with massive responsibility and do a great job. This movie does no justice to these hard working folks.

The writing team have no idea how air traffic controllers work, otherwise they would never have made so many mistakes. The head controller starts bawling her eyes out when she finds out her husband is on the flight, talk about being cool under pressure. And then she leaves her post to greet her husband at the runway (dont forget there are other planes stacked up in the sky at this time). How unproffessional and selfish is this woman?!

The pilots are asking the husband (an air traffic controller) what to do (pilots are trained for emergencies). Also the husbands hair must be covered with buckets of gel for his hair to stay in place during the ordeal.

The passengers on this plane are very calm when they see the wing on fire - surprisingly there is no "Airplane" style mass hysteria in this movie!

The plane lands, aquaplanes and does a 360 spin - The passengers make an emergency exit and then stand a few metres away from the plane gawping - the plane was on fire - it could still blow up!

The really awful aspect of this movies is that eight members have given this movie a ten star rating!! They probably believe that this is how Air Traffic controllers and pilots do their jobs - the writer of this movie should do us a favour and strap himself onto the wing of the plane and say a prayer.

Arrrgh! This is one of the cheesiest Shlock films I've ever seen. Even Skipping through all of the unbelievable crud that makes up the body of this turkey, They save the Topper for last - The Plane Lands ON FIRE, and the passengers mill about like zombies in a George Romero movie, sauntering off the aircraft, and then moving no more than TEN FEET from the burning jetliner. Aw sure folks, take your time... The Aircraft is only in Danger of

BLOWING UP...

Claudia Christian is the Only redeeming factor in this movie, it looks like She, at least, memorized the script, and didn't learn Her lines in-between takes. Avoid, Avoid, Avoid.

This was an interesting movie, but laughable if you're trying to learn more about how air traffic controllers actually operate. They work in the dark (not in a well-lit room as in the movie) for one. Up until recently, they did have sub-standard equipment dating back to the Dark Ages. Lots of smaller, towered airports still have old equipment to this day...scary. One funny thing that I noted in the movie was during some of the outdoor scenes in the "rain"...you could see a reflection of the crew aiming water hoses up in the air to create the effect of rain. The ending was a complete joke. I like Claudia Christian a lot, but even she doesn't make this movie very watchable...avoid it except when in desperate need of entertainment.