Synopsis
Reviews (24)
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Not a bad dramatisation, although I could have just watched an episode of Air Crash Investigation instead.
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Nobody I follow has seen this, I am a pioneer! Made for TV disaster style with a plane up in Canada. I felt some tension. It did good for its drama with a side of cheese curds, and thankfully this true story had a Canadian ending… you KNOW, like when you go to the Ballet and have some Molsons. Small handful of faces you’ll recognize, but I wanted to hear, “what’s your vector, Victor” when they were talking emergency shop with the control tower, cuz they couldn’t stop saying vector. Molly Parker (#24 my damies!) you absolute babe. “I should have worked on loving. I never did love working.”
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This TV movie dramatizes a real 1983 incident in which the pilots of a brand-new Canada World Airways Boeing 767, en route from Montreal to Edmonton, run out of fuel nowhere near their destination and have to glide “dead stick” to somewhere, anywhere they can try to land. How’d this happen? The fuel techs effed up their pounds-to-liters conversation, and the plane’s fuel indicator was busted. Not kidding. Made for what looks like next to nothing, this production succeeds with quality direction, editing and some nice performances. William Devane evokes latter-day Glenn Ford as the veteran airline captain charged with keeping the big Boeing gliding while his first officer (Scott Hylands) and the company’s best mechanic (Winston Rekert) try to…
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YYago Carbato 8 月 25, 2026
Listened to my roommate babble on autistically about planes the whole time while watching it. Fun time.
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J
Inoffensive trash. It does so little I can’t even be mad, but I definitely don’t recommend it. But it’s not like you’d watch it anyway.
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„Schreckensflug der Boeing 767“ erzählt die wahre Geschichte des Air-Canada-Flugs 143, bei dem plötzlich mitten in der Luft der Treibstoff ausgeht. Ein typischer TV-Katastrophenfilm mit 90er-Jahre-Optik, der jedes erdenkliche Klischee bedient und der sich heute mitunter unfreiwillig wie eine Parodie im Stil von „Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug“ anfühlt. Interessierte sollten lieber zur „Mayday“-Folge „Jet im Gleitflug“ greifen, dort wird der Vorfall in nur 50 Minuten wesentlich akkurater dargestellt.
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Based on the famous Gimbli Glider incident, Freefall: Flight 174 recounts the events and it is a good, entertaining Made for TV film with a talented cast. The true story is incredible and of course it would make for an interesting film, and with Freefall, we have a film based on that event and the resulting film is an interesting, well crafted feature that considering its Made for TV feel still manages to be a good viewing for what it is. It’s certainly not the best TV film, yet it is a film that is much better than your usual made for TV fair. I quite enjoyed this film, and though it very much has a TV feel to the…
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Plane-a-thon #47: Amazing true story of the Gimli Glider! Switching to the metric system caused the wrong amount of fuel to be put in the plane. Enjoyable TV movie and William Devane was great as the lead. View my ranked list of Airplane disaster movies here. boxd.it/QxVH2
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L
I watched this again tonight because I couldn’t remember much about it. William Devane is absolutely fine as the pilot – he could probably do this sort of stuff in his sleep – and Shelley Hack makes an appearance some years after being, briefly, one of Charlie’s Angels. The story, loosely based on a true incident, involved a plane that left underfueled with a load of passengers, partly due to poor calculations and partly because the new craft had some unknown faults. The acting in general is disaster movie level, but the tension doesn’t really hit, making for an indifferent viewing experience. Having said that, there are worse TV movies out there and this is certainly watchable. I suspect I will quickly forget it again, though.
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U
Of all the airline disaster TV movies I’ve watched recently, this is the best so far by a comfortable margin. It finds the right mixture of scenes in the sky with scenes of those behind on ground, it realizes its limitations as a TV movie and doesn’t go overboard with subpar special effects and it introduces us to a number of characters and gives us just enough information to care about them. Devane makes a great captain, and Hack, when…
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Based on a true story, and pretty accurate if you research the real event this is a better than average flight disaster movie.
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MMatthew Davis 9 月 17, 2025
This mid-90s Canadian made-for-TV plane disaster flick literally has the same opening as Season 2 of The Rehearsal
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M
The true story behind this is pretty harrowing but there’s just not enough to work into a feature length film. The runtime is like 80 percent filler and it just ruins any tension as the plot progresses at a glacial pace. This would be 10x better if cut down to 45 minutes
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KKurt Smith 8 月 10, 2025
My first made-for-TV movie from north of the border and honestly they’re made-for-TV movies are as melodramatic as ours are. It’s just a boring TV movie that is based on something that was way more interesting to read about than to watch a dramatization of the events, it has hilariously bad effects, slumming actors and more cheese than there is in the state of Wisconsin. There really isn’t a lot to say about this one but if you’re looking for a cheesy made-for-TV movie from Canada then check this out!
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Der Film hat schwach angefangen und stark nachgelassen. Typischer ’90er Katastrophenfilm. Die Folge “Mayday” zum Flug ist vermutlich interessanter und weitaus realistischer.
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Based on a true story I myself enjoyed it.
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Free Fall from the Sky: Flight 174 is the true story of a Boeing 767 near-disaster in Canada when the plane runs out of fuel. It stars William Devane, Scott Hylands, Shelley Hack, Marietta Hartley, and Winston Reckert. The Canadian government changed the way fuel was measured to kilos, I guess, and some duffess on the ground measured wrong and sent this thing up with not enough fuel to get where it was going. The highlight for me was seeing…
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S
Good movie. Good cast. Mom and I really liked this one.
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G
Un téléfilm bien mauvais qui se laisse regarder malgré tout mais on ne sait pas pourquoi !
- Synopsis
- True story of a brand-new Canadian airliner running out of fuel in-flight and forced to glide to the nearest airfield.
- Director
- Jorge Montesi
- Writer
- Lionel Chetwynd
- Studio
- Pacific Motion Pictures, Hill/Fields Entertainment, ACI, Pearson Television International
- Country
- USA, Canada
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1995
- Runtime
- 93 mins
- USA10 Oct 1995
- UK26 Jun 2006
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