The original original "Zero Hour!"?

I don't know where I've been all these years. Only recently did I read that the creators of "Airplane!" based portions of their story and script on the 1957 theatrical film "Zero Hour!".

But then today I was further startled to learn, while reading the Wikipedia article on actor James "Scotty" Doohan, that HE played the original Striker-like character in Arthur Hailey's 1956 CBC drama, "Flight into Danger"--which was remade into "Zero Hour!" a year later.

Doohan's character was a former WWII fighter pilot who is called upon to land the airliner he's a passenger on, after the flight crew is incapacitated by food poisoning (it was the fish). His wife joins him at the controls. In the meantime, he's suffering war flashbacks and also worrying about his ill son.

Who KNEW? I certainly didn't.

And by the way, Doohan himself actually WAS a pilot during WWII.