()

Submitted by Steve

The last movie in the Airport series.  George Kennedy is the only actor to appear in all four movies.  The plane used in the filming of this movie is the same one that crashed in France in July 2000.

POOPER
The Concorde lands on a mountain in the Austrian Alps, and everyone survives the hard landing, including Maggie.  She reports from the crash site, and gives details of a major story she is about to break.  Kevin hears Maggie’s newscast and commits suicide.  Just after the last of the passengers and crew evacuates the aircraft, it explodes.

LONG VERSION
Maggie Whalen (Susan Blakely) is a television news anchor who has just received documents detailing the sales of arms to Communist countries during the Cold War by Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner), an international arms dealer, who is also her boyfriend.  She intends to broadcast a report on his illegal dealings, so he decides to kill her before she can do so.  He will do it while she flies on the maiden voyage of Federation World Airlines newest aircraft, the Concorde.  The plane will fly from Washington, D.C. to Paris, then on to Moscow as a goodwell gesture for the upcoming Moscow Olympics.  The Concorde is piloted by Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), who will fly the plane from Washington to Paris, and Paul Metrand (Alain Delon), who will fly it from Paris to Moscow.

A test firing of one of Kevin’s missiles is scheduled to occur during the flight, and he arranges to have it reprogrammed to shoot down the Concorde instead of an unmanned aircraft.  After the launch of the missile, Kevin feigns surprise and calls the government for help.  Patroni uses evasive maneuvers, including barrel rolls and shooting flares out of the cockpit window, to evade the missile before it’s blown up by F-15 fighters.   Kevin then calls in a favor and has one of his French contacts hire a mercenary pilot to fly a F-4 Phantom jet to shoot down the Concorde.  Again, Patroni uses evasive maneuvers to avoid being shot down before the French Air Force shoots down the Phantom.  During this time, the Concorde suffers hydraulic system damage, but is able to land safely in Paris.

During the layover, Kevin meets with Maggie and admits to his misdeeds.  He intends to go public himself, but he tries to bribe Maggie into “polishing” his statement.  She refuses and breaks up with him.  Later, Kevin bribes Rollie, a member of the Concorde’s grounds crew, to sabotage the plane.  He will install a device that will automatically open the cargo door in mid-flight.  This will cause the plane to break apart and crash.  Rollie is caught by airport security with the bribe money, and he attempts to escape across the runway just as the Concorde is about to take off.  Metrand is forced to take off early, and the jet’s wake is strong enough to kill Rollie.

Shortly after takeoff, Metrand is forced to change course and will now fly the Concorde over the Alps to avoid bad weather.  The device then activates, opening the cargo door, which causes explosive decompression and the plane begins to break apart.  Because the fuel lines were damaged, there’s not enough fuel to reach the airport in Innsbruck, Austria, so Metrand and Petroni decide to attempt a wheels-up landing on a snow covered mountain.  After the local ski patrol marks a makeshift runway, the Concorde lands hard on the mountain.  Several passengers are injured, but no one is killed.  A local news reporter is on site, and Maggie tells him what happened on the plane and that she has a major news story she will be breaking soon.  Kevin, who is watching the news report, knows that life as he knows it is about to end, so he commits suicide.  As the last of the passengers and crew are evacuating the aircraft, the smell of jet fuel gets everyone away from the plane.  The movie ends with the plane collapsing onto it’s fuel tanks and explodes.