The Towering Inferno

Plot hole: There are numerous problems with the final solution to putting out multiple burning floors of a skyscraper by blowing the water tanks under the roof. Blowing the floor under the tanks only channels the water into the Promanade Room. From there it cascades out the windows and - as we see in the film - falls to the ground without touching the fires on the lower floors. A tiny percentage makes it into the stairwell door and elevator shaft, despite the fact that the elevator doors were closed. All of the stairwell and elevator doors in the building were shut; none of this water makes it to the fire. Also, as we see the flames going out from all the floors no water is coming out of any of those windows, proving that the fires are going out without any water.

BocaDavie

Plot hole: The roof of the building is fully engulfed in flames (from the helicopter explosion) right up to the point where they blow the water tanks. When they explode the water tanks the whole building is put out. It would have been impossible for the water tanks to put out the roof fire; it was above the tanks. Although all of the building shots at the end of the film are looking up at the structure you can see flames shooting off the roof before the tank explosions, then no roof flames whatsoever after.

BocaDavie

Plot hole: By the time O'Halloran phones Roberts, who is in the promenade room, and tells him of their plan to blow the water tanks, over 50 of the floors below the promenade room, along with the roof which is also ablaze, have been destroyed by the fire. So surely the phone lines would have been destroyed as well, making a phone call to the promenade room impossible.

mightymick

Revealing mistake: Watch carefully as the statue falls on the bartender. It barely touches his chest and rests on his left thigh. As the bartender slumps dead you can see a wide open gap between his whole upper body and the statue. Even if it crushed his thigh it would not have killed him so quickly. When the bartender slumps down the statue rocks freely as he brushes against it; obviously a styrofoam replica.

BocaDavie

More mistakes in The Towering Inferno

Dan Bigelow: I'll be back, with the whole fire department.

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More trivia for The Towering Inferno

Question: In the end after all the tower is extinguished, I wonder how the remaining people on the promenade room got back to the ground floor since the stairs have blown out, the external elevator got broken and there is no electricity for use the other elevators? Maybe they used helicopters?

Answer: Where the stairs were blown out they could have crossed over to the adjacent stairwell and back.

Answer: Exactly, the same helicopter that took Steve McQueen to the roof was most likely the one that picked everyone up.

Maybe not. A helicopter crashed on the roof, setting it on fire and destroying the helipad.

wavyedd

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