I got my DVD yesterday and watched it a few times already. I am a pilot and have talked with air traffic control hundreds of times. When the controller noticed two airplanes on a collision course, he should have immediately directed both aircraft to turn right 30 degrees. The airliner never should have been told to descend.
shareI saw it for the first time this morning on TCM and that's the first thing I thought of because of their predicament!! (lol)
Sheldon:"Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? Because you might have been watching Nickelodeon."
You're dealing with a 1960 ATC system, and a non-radar enroute environment. Airplanes were separated by time and distance rules, calculated in pencil on a flight strip by the controller. The weak point of the method was the reliance on accurate position reports by the pilots.
There are several high profile mid-airs in that era, that are similar to the collision in the film. No doubt, the film is based in part on those accidents.