Planes don't takeoff with only enough fuel to get to the destination. Generally, you'll have an extra hour and a half to two hours for just in case shit happens. Including military bases, there were probably 50 places these planes could of and would of diverted to. And if every single one of those alternate landing airports were closed, no way in hell would DC remain open. You would be risking every life on those planes on the hope that nothing goes tits up at the one remaining airfield
Furthermore, no pilot is going to keep circling until they are on fumes just because one asshole on the radio told them to. Once they got down to having an hour of fuel left and no solid response from ATC, they'd declare an emergency, divert to the closest airfield and get priority landing.
The plot of this movie is silly as hell!
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Clapstick (116)
a year ago
Exactly, I’ve worked in aviation for 20+ years and this movie makes absolutely no sense in the real world. I get that it’s just a movie but it’s at a real airport.
The scene where all the aircraft just say hey we can see flames, we can land now is ridiculous. The amount of lives in jeopardy and $$$ involved in lawsuits would destroy the airline industry. They would’ve diverted and landed. BWI wouldn’t just close and leave the aircraft stranded or circling around 1 airport lol.
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BOandBarbecue (2264)
a year ago
"They would’ve diverted and landed"
no. the planes cannot divert. they say dullus is only airport open in that regions. the planes circle because they are told by colonel stuart (who is posing as real tower) that it is just small delay and will be online soon.
by the time the real tower get through to planes, most of them do not have enough fuels to reach alternate airport destination.
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