The Concorde... Airport '79

The Concorde featured in the film was the seventh one built. It first flew as F-WTSC on January 31, 1975, as part of the fleet of the aircraft company Aérospatiale. In May 1975, the registration number was changed to F-BTSC, with its serial number being No. 203. The plane was leased from Aerospatiale (France) for the movie, leased to Air France in 1976, and sold to them in October 1980. Pope John Paul II flew on the plane in 1989.

The actual plane used in this film crashed in Gonesse, France, on July 25, 2000, while trying to make an emergency landing at Le Bourget Airport (the same airport as in the movie). A metallic strip on the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport had fallen from a Continental Airlines DC-10 (that had taken off minutes earlier) and punctured a tire on the Concorde's left main wheel, rupturing a fuel tank, with the leaking fuel catching fire and causing the plane to lose power. All 107 passengers and crew on-board, plus four people on the ground were killed.

The Concorde was not designed to perform a loop-the-loop, but it could do a barrel-roll. Considering the power available, if the plane were below mach speeds and the loop were large enough, it is possible for such a maneuver to work.

José Ferrer appears in the footage added to the film when it was shown on ABC-TV. He does not appear in the theatrical release.

Featured in Sneak Previews: Sunburn, Americathon, Hot Stuff, Meatballs, The Concorde: Airport '79 (1979)