Crash script based on true events - more detail here...
I was researching a different tragedy when coming across this account by jerry schemmel. There is a personal account of the crash in the following link. (search for 'jerry' to find all of the segments)
http://www.thrivenet.com/articles/oprahsty.shtml
The producers apparently used parts of his crash experience as the script for max - he really did go back in and rescued an overlooked child before the cabin caught fire. I dont know about the rest. A boy was prominent in his story too, albeit different. He took the boy's seat when the boy's dad asked if he would trade with him, so the family could sit together. Good trade for him, but bad for the boy. Everyone in those seat rows, including his partner, died in the crash.
"On July 19, 1989, Jerry Schemmel was a passenger on a United Airlines DC-10 flying from Denver to Chicago when the rear engine of the plane blew up. The explosion caused complete failure of the plane's steering controls. The pilots, by increasing and decreasing power in the plane's two huge wing engines, managed to nurse the crippled plane with its 296 passengers through a series of slow right turns to Sioux City, Iowa, the nearest airport. The plane slammed into the runway at full speed and shattered apart. Large sections caught fire as they skidded and tumbled into an adjacent cornfield.
Jerry Schemmel and his best friend, Jay Ramsdell, had been on standby. They were the last two passengers given seats on the crowded flight. They wanted to sit together, but could not. Jay was given a seat in row 30, Jerry a seat in row 28. When Jerry found his seat, he saw a boy sitting in it. The man next to the boy said he and his eight year-old son had been split up. He asked Jerry to take his son's assigned seat. Jerry agreed and moved ahead to the boy's seat in row 23.
Jerry describes what happened when the plane smashed into the ground as "raw chaos." A fireball shot through the cabin from front to back. Many of the seats next to Jerry's ripped out of their fastenings and hurled forward, but his held. Back of him, the plane split apart killing Jay and others in the rows where Jerry was supposed to be sitting. 112 people died in the crash."
Schemmel writes a book about the accident and his life afterward. I haven't read it, but wonder how much of it got into the movie too?
(From what i just fast checked on amazon, its possible some of the author's religious biases may have filtered in as hints... Fortunately, the producer was careful not to ruin the movie by fully introducing a religious aspect to it. This was a better movie for sticking to real life experiences, like exhibitions of fearlessness from ptsd - things with some basis of fact rather than belief in what can be interpreted a million ways, but none of which can ever be proved.)
http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-Live-Inspiring-Survivor-Schemmel/product- reviews/0965208656/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&sh owViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending