Aviation accidents and incidents, particularly civilian airplane crashes or incidents threatening a crash or requiring an emergency landing, are a common theme in fiction. Films centered on such incidents make up a substantial subset of the disaster film genre, and influence how other stories within the genre are told. Works in this genre encompass both fictional depictions of the incidents themselves, and depictions of consequences such as investigations, lawsuits, and the effect on the lives of persons involved. A subgenre, the "plane crash survival movie", involves characters placed in a dangerous environment by an initial airplane crash. Airplane crashes have been described as "the easy and obvious device" for dramatically incorporating an airplane into the plot of a film, and as "a Hollywood staple", with various levels of praise or criticism directed to the realism of specific depictions.
Development of the genre
A review of the genre by The Guardian following the release of the film, Sully, found that film to be "simply the next logical step in the long line of movies portraying with ever greater grim authenticity the waking nightmare of a plane going down". The Guardian noted that "in the age of mass air travel, the plane crash is one of the last great levellers", where everyone is equally at risk regardless of social status, but also found that "the thing about plane-crash movies is they come with happy endings, or at least the promise of one", and that the message is often "have faith in pilots". Notably, in some instances controversies have arisen from the release of films involving air crashes in proximity to unpredictably timed real-life air crashes. Another review assessing the 2012 film, Flight, also centered on a fictional airplane crash, stated that "when it comes to planes and pilots, Hollywood never gets it right", noting that contrary to some fictional accounts, pilots are almost never inebriated, and co-pilots are equally as qualified and capable as the assigned pilot for the flight.
Origins
Early films involving aircraft tended to focus on military air battles, or professional stunt flying activities, rather than depictions of civilian air incidents. An early example of the latter is seen in the events of the 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, which was precipitated by a group of boys being marooned on an island in a plane crash. Harold Bloom writes that "[t]hrough the boys' dialogue... we learn that these boys and others were in a plane crash. The nose of the plane went down in flames, but the cabin crashed through the jungle trees, landing near enough to water to be pulled out to sea, perhaps with some boys still aboard". Bloom notes that the account provided has been deemed implausible by critics, as the story describes the child characters as having survived with no injuries, while leaving no adult survivors, and with the crash leaving a "long scar" in the jungle, but with no debris from the airplane.
Also in 1954, John Wayne starred in the film, The High and the Mighty, in which a veteran airline first officer, flying as a passenger on an airplane that has a catastrophic engine failure while crossing the Pacific Ocean, must help fly the plane to a safe landing. The High and the Mighty was one of the first films centered on a potential air disaster. This was shortly followed by Flight into Danger, a 1956 Canadian live television play written by Arthur Hailey and starring James Doohan, depicting the pilots at the controls of a Canadair North Star, a large commercial airliner, falling victim to food poisoning, leaving it to an ex-Second World War Spitfire fighter pilot among the passengers, to take over and safely land the unfamiliar aircraft. Hailey, a former British pilot in the Second World War, wrote the teleplay in only nine days and shopped it about as a screenplay. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, barely four years old, bought the script for $600.
Influence of Flight into Danger
When Flight into Danger was broadcast live-to-air on April 3, 1956, on the network's General Motors Theatre, it was seen by two million people and received a resounding positive reaction. "In the words of one journalist, it was 'probably the most successful TV play ever written anywhere'." A kinescope of the live production was broadcast in August 1956 due to viewer demand.