Continuity mistake: When Robin crashes the plane at the end of the film, it appears that she crashes it about 1/4 mile off shore. But when everyone runs out to the wrecked plane, it's just a few feet from the shoreline.
Continuity mistake: When Harrison Ford and Anne Heche come out of the cave they fell into, Anne has a scorpion on her head. If you look closely you will see that it is just a toy and much smaller than the real one we see in the next shot.
Continuity mistake: When Robin is changing her clothes, after the scene in the water where "something swam up her shorts", she is actually changing out of the clothes she was wearing when the plane crashed, not the clothes she was wearing in the water.
Plot hole: After running from the pirates, the two castaways almost stumble off a cliff. Unless they were running backwards, I'm sure they would have seen the cliff coming for a while, because when the camera zooms out you can see clear terrain for at least 20 metres until the edge of the cliff.
Other mistake: When Quin is cutting the plane that's stuck in a tree, he uses a saw, that looks brand new. He's just been chased by pirates and jumped off a cliff - where did he get the saw from? Anything in the plane would be rusty by this point.
Continuity mistake: When Anne Heche is standing in the water and Harrison Ford is trying to dig the "creature" out of her shorts, the mud on Anne's face keeps changing. In some shots it is gone, in some there is a little and in some there is quite a bit.
Factual error: When the aircraft crashes on the island, the front of the aircraft strikes the ground which would have bent the propeller. They would have never been able to fly it again with that prop.
Continuity mistake: The water and mud stains on Quinn's shirt change quite a bit between shots in the lagoon scene where Quinn is trying to get the snake out of Robin's shorts.
Continuity mistake: Robin is walking through the offices of Dazzle magazine and stops at a photo shoot where a female model is standing at a desk with a male model. The immediate next shot, the female model is sitting on the other side of the desk.
Continuity mistake: When the plane crashes on the beach, the right landing gear is damaged, the aircraft does a ground loop to the right and stops. The left landing gear is plainly visible on the beach. The next morning the left gear is in a deep rut in the sand.
Continuity mistake: When Frank is seated at the nightclub where Angelica performs, watch the light and flowers on the table. When he is seated the light is sitting in the center of a bunch of flowers. Next shot, the flowers are almost gone and the light has moved a good foot or so.
Factual error: Ford and Heche are supposedly on an island in the middle of nowhere, but in some shots you can see the tall buildings of a city off in the distance.
Continuity mistake: When Robin stumbles upon a wild pig, she is pretty close to wading in to the water in the lagoon. Yet in the next shot, she stumbles down a little hill for quite a way before she gets to the water.
Factual error: As Robin and her fiancee are heading off to Macatea, there is a quick shot of an Aloha Airlines plane as it is landing. Aloha Airlines does not operate there or anywhere near there, but the movie was filmed in Hawaii so they apparently used what they had.
Continuity mistake: When Angelica is doing her sexy dance for the tourists, her anklet changes legs between the close up shots of her feet and the far away shots of her.
Continuity mistake: When Quinn and Robin are flying off the island in the DeHavilland Beaver, after replacing the Wheels with Japanese WWII floats found on the island, you can clearly see the brace wires in between the floats. These wires shouldn't be there, since they used bamboo to attach and brace the floats.
Other mistake: Watch Harrison Ford's hair throughout the film. When they are making the rafts out of the plane, you can see that he has had his hair cut. I never knew that they had a barber's on that island.
Continuity mistake: When Robin and Quinn are standing on the cliff she is afraid to jump, he kisses her and in the shot facing him he has his hands on her face while he is kissing her, but in the reverse shot his hands are not on her face. He didn't have time to move them between shots.
Continuity mistake: Angelica and Frank get in a helicopter to join the search of Robin and Quinn. In the meantime, a day has passed on the island. We come back to Angelica & Frank who are in the helicopter wearing the same perfectly neat clothes as the prior day.
Deliberate mistake: The drug smuggler's boat is moving ahead quickly when they are shooting at the repaired plane. But when the shell returns to earth, the boat is stationary.
Answer: Once they were in the air, Quinn would be able to navigate by sight. He was an experienced pilot and and was familiar with the territory and the different islands' configurations. He would also be looking for ship traffic, and he had a general idea which of several islands they were on. Once in the air, he would easily know which direction he was heading based on the position of the sun.
raywest ★
But he passed out. And the ocean is a big expanse, not a lot of landmarks to navigate by.