Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur: I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.
Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.
Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?
Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.
Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?
When Striker unlocks the automatic pilot, you can see strings at the top left corner to lift him up. See more...
At the end, the plane hits a radio station antenna. The radio station is WZAZ. That's because this was a Zucker Abrams Zucker movie. See more...
Directed by Jim Abrahams, starring Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Hays, Robert Stack (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
Even though the fantasy beach scene looks very similar to the one in From Here To Eternity (1953), the directors of Airplane insist that they never saw that movie. [Thats not true. When watching the movie on DVD with the trivia track playing it does suggest that they never saw the movie, but then the trivia messages get more and more silly suggesting they knew all along.]
Corrected by GalahadFairlight
After the father vomits into the bag the first time and we hear the familiar sound of it pouring in, he tilts the bag towards the camera, revealing that it is empty. [Duplicate entry.]
Corrected by GalahadFairlight
When Rex Kramer is entering the airport and being bombarded by donation seekers, it's the same five people over and over again, but each time they speak they have a different voice and a new cause. [This is done DELIBERATELY due to the comedic nature of the movie. Absolutely NOT a mistake.]
Corrected by GalahadFairlight
At the end of the film when Otto (the inflatable pilot) is saluting you can see a wire making his his arm salute. [So? He's supposed to be a mechanical dummy of some sort. That's how his arm works.]
When we see all the passengers clapping to Randy's song Striker is missing. [It might help if you specified when he was there and went missing as the song is long enough he went to the bathroom or moved seats etc.]
Corrected by Lummie
In the disco scene when Ted throws his jacket and it comes back to him, a hand can be seen to the left throwing his jacket back at him. [That's not a mistake. It may have been unintentional by the film makers, but whether the hand had been there or not, it's obvious that someone threw the jacket back (spoofing classic disco movies where the hero throws his jacket off screen). That we can actually see them do it ruins the joke a little, but there's no reason why they should not be there.]
Corrected by Twotall
Look for the scene when the airline employee picks up Kramer (Robert Stack) to take him to the airport. As Kramer is talking to his wife in the full-length mirror (before he walks through it), you can see the tip of a boom mic in the top left of the frame. [There was no boom mike in the top left screen. There was a ceiling fan in that area which resembled a mike, but wasn't.]
Corrected by SAZOO1975
Elaine says that they should think about the plans they made before the war. Elaine and Ted met in the bar during the war when Ted was a pilot (and broke up after it). [She isn't referring to plans "they made together" before the war, she just says "plans before" the war. She is meaning that they had plans before the war seperately, such as falling in love, career choices, etc...she simply means she is ready to start doing things she wanted to do before she met him, and before the war started.]
Corrected by Jazetopher
When everyone comes to ask questions about the plane, at the bottom someone holds up ice cream - the ice cream melts more between shots. [This was a deliberate joke. Ice cream cones look like microphones. This is even pointed out during the movie on the DVD'S trivia track feature.]
It is obvious that the two girl scouts who have the fight are stuntmen dressed as women. [That's the gag. Over half of the "special" effects in the whole film are deliberately cheesy and poorly done. For example, the sound of the springboard that Ted jumps off of in the disco, or the sound of propellers on a jet when viewed from outside.]
Corrected by Jazetopher
When Captain Oveur is summoned to the white courtesy phone, he picks up the red one at first and is told "No - the white phone." He replies "Oh." Just after his response and just before he hangs up the phone, a small higher-pitched sound is heard. According to Peter Graves in the commentary, that's the script supervisor stifling a laugh. [If you have to listen to the commentary to find out the sound is a laugh then its not really a mistake but a sound at an busy airport.]
Corrected by Lummie
Throughout the movie, the number of seats in each row change and the number of aisles change. [There are three seats on one side and two on the other. Also, there is more than one area of seats (first class, coach, etc), and the number of rows vary between them.]
In the shot when the stewardess first approaches Dr. Rumack, he has a stethoscope hanging around his neck. In the next shot, it's gone. [That's the joke. The woman calling the stewardess says "I think the man sitting next to me is a doctor," and he is sitting there with a stethoscope on. Once that gag is complete, the doctor returns looking like a normal passenger, sans stethoscope.]
Corrected by Zwn Annwn
When the passengers start getting sick, the pilot radios to Chicago and says, "We're in trouble." Then, they find out that the fish is causing the sickness and the pilot passes out. Elaine then radios Chicago and says "We're in terrible trouble." The man at Chicago then says "suspend all food service out of Los Angeles." No one told him that the fish was causing the problems. [It could well be that Elaine's entire conversation with McCrosky (the "man at Chicago")was not revealed to us. There is a break between the scene where Elaine radios Chicago and the scene where McCrosky gives orders to suspend food service, so it is perfectly reasonable to assume that Elaine did indeed tell McCrosky about the food poisoning.]
When one of the two African Americans ordered his dinner, he said, "Drink side, run me the java." Even though there's no such thing as "Jive" language, it's pretty clear that he is asking for coffee to drink ("drink...java"). The caption says nothing about coffee. [This is a comedy. There are no written rules that says the captions have to translate exactly what the person is saying. If I remember right he even says a cuss word and the caption says 'GOLLY.']
Why on earth does Stryker land the plane with the wheels up? [He doesn't. He puts the landing gear down before landing, but the harsh impact causes the wheels to collapse.]
Corrected by Matty Blast
Mrs. Hammen (Joey's mother) eats the fish, but she never suffered any ill effects. [She may have had a natural immunity to the food poisoning.]
At the very end of the movie, Stryker is seen on the plane in a very sweat-soaked shirt. A couple of shots later, after Stryker is off the plane, the auto pilot waves to him as he takes off and now Stryker's shirt is completely dry. [This "mistake" was intended, since the sweat-soaked shirt was a joke, and to continue it into another scene would be in violation of one of our comedy rules, which is "Can you live with it?" Once a joke is done, it is not continued into the next scene. ]
One of the black characters orders a steak, but later in the movie, he is sick from eating the fish. [There are two Jive characters, the right one gets sick]
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