Con Air

Plot hole: At the end of the film when Cyrus is handcuffed to the ladder of the fire truck, he crashes through a restaurant bridge and falls towards the road below, (the fire truck passes below him) but somehow he lands in a construction yard on a conveyer belt leading to a crusher. (01:39:43)

Factual error: They drive through a tunnel in Las Vegas underneath the Boulevard - Vegas doesn't have a tunnel there. (01:41:15)

Factual error: The type of fire pump that would be on the ladder truck that they're driving at the end can not pump water and drive at the same time. The transmission has to be moved from "drive" to "pump". Nor could the ladder operate while driving down the road. (01:41:35)

Factual error: In the final chase scene at the end of the film where Poe and Grissom are fighting on the ladder of the fire truck, and Poe handcuffs Cyrus to the ladder rail, Poe activates the ladder causing it to raise....this is not possible. The transmission of fire apparatus do not permit aerial ladders to be operational while the vehicle is moving. (01:43:20)

Continuity mistake: Near the end when Cyrus is about to get his head crushed, he falls from the carousel head first and as he falls his legs are facing the stone crusher but for some reason his head lands under the crusher not his legs. (01:44:20)

Con Air mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the plane has crashed in Las Vegas, Cameron Poe rescues the bunny (his daughter's birthday gift) from the sewer/gutter. The bunny is obviously soaking wet since it had just been floating down the street in a stream of water. Later, when he gives the bunny to his daughter, it is dirty, but dry. It is clear because the ears are sticking up and bouncing, and the fur is fluffy. (01:44:50 - 01:46:35)

Plot hole: The convicts remove the radar transponder from the Conair aircraft and put it aboard a tour plane to distract their pursuers. That won't work. By law the tour plane will have a working radar transponder of its own, and two working transponders that close together will show up on radar as a collision. Air traffic controllers would immediately alert emergency services who would, obviously, wonder how two aircraft that had collided had managed to stay in the air. Nobody disconnects the first transponder - Pinball carelessly tosses the second transponder under the rear seat of the aircraft (the implication being that it continues to operate, perhaps on backup battery power). He doesn't disconnect the original transponder either - Swamp Thing, a skilled pilot, does that. There is no time for him to do any of this before he is stopped by the female security guard anyway.

Factual error: The whole basis of the trial and conviction of Cameron Poe is a crock. The judge can not arbitrarily mete out a sentence that is harsher based on the ability of someone to defend him/herself. In justifying the harsher sentence because of Poe's military skills, the judge effectively says that Poe is more guilty than an average person due to his honorable and decorated service in uniform to his country. In my entire time in law school, I never read one out of the literally hundreds of cases I was assigned in which a judge issued a harsher sentence because of someone's innate or learned abilities to defend themselves. But since this was a movie court room proceeding, the fact that Poe had a witness to the fight (his wife), the fact that he was injured in the fight, and the fact that his uniform was torn and otherwise ruined as a result of the fight are never examined. A D.A. wouldn't have taken this to a grand jury on a bet, because they would have never returned an indictment or "true bill."

Plot hole: All pilots are carefully trained and have the technology to secretly transmit a code that tells air traffic control there is a hijacking in progress, without having to say a word. They also have a hijack code, something that sounds completely innocuous to you or me, but would be instantly recognisable to the airport authorities.

Factual error: In full view of police officers Cyrus murders a Federal Marshall, then he boards an aircraft which takes off despite being refused clearance. This would result in the immediate closure of the airport. It would be locked down until cleared as a crime scene which could take three or four days. All incoming flights would be diverted to their alternates and all planned outgoing flights would be grounded. How, then, does Uncle Bob's Scenic flight get clearance for takeoff?

Plot hole: Removing the radar transponder from the C123 would not render it invisible to radar – it's a huge aircraft with a large radar signature. It would be easily tracked by airport radar, and anyone who wanted to know would know exactly where it was going. How to identify which radar track is theirs? Easy. It's the one without the transponder signal.

Factual error: When the plane is flying down the strip in Las Vegas it crashes through the guitar of the Hard Rock Cafe (or possibly the hotel). Neither are located on the Strip.

Continuity mistake: During the battle at Lerner field, Poe drives a burning police car from the boneyard and leaves it right at the ramp at the rear of the plane, and then ties the plane up to the post. When the plane goes to take off and Cyrus sees the plane is tied up, the burning police car is nowhere to be seen.

Steve Kozak

Plot hole: Cyrus takes over the plane and tells the pilot not to radio anyone and then leaves the cockpit, no one is watching the pilot why doesn't he report the take over on the radio?

Con Air mistake picture Video

Continuity mistake: When the Poe family is reunited, Trisha can be seen holding on to Casey in the close-up. When Casey hugs Cameron in the wide shot, Trisha is not holding her.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: She pulled away from her mom and went to her dad.

lartaker1975

Continuity mistake: When Cameron and Diamond Dog go into the belly to inspect what's wrong with the landing gear, Cameron flips a switch to turn on the lights on the floor of the belly. When he does this, you can see a lot of boxes between the landing gear and the ladder that him and Diamond Dog climbed down. But, as they head to the back to look at the landing gear, all the boxes are now gone.

Character mistake: When they decide to crash land the plane and touch down on the road the pilot either doesn't cut power to the engines or doesn't shut them off. Towards the end, it looks like the engine is still at full power.

Continuity mistake: In the extended edition, after Johnny attacks Guard Bishop and is stopped by Cameron, the cons run back to the plane to escape, and all of a sudden Johnny appears from nowhere with a gun and is shot, when he was just on the plane being beaten up by Cameron, and is then shown being put in chains by Cameron back on board the plane.

[Poe is looking out of the back of the plane at the DEA agent's car tethered to it, flapping about.]
Cameron Poe: On any other day, that might seem strange.

More quotes from Con Air

Trivia: At the end of the movie, the plane is crashing into the front of a casino. This building is actually The Sands hotel. The scene was done a few weeks/months before the hotel was demolished, this way the damages to the hotels entrance as the plane was launched into it didn't matter.

More trivia for Con Air

Question: Why is there a cache of weapons in the belly of the plane? Is there some reason in US Marshall rules?

Answer: If there was ever an emergency landing the weapons would be needed with the prisoners as they most likely will have to exit the plane at some point. There doesn't seem to be any information around that says that every prisoner transport plane would have the same amount of weapons or in the same spot but it seems likely most would have backup weapons for situations like that.

Lummie

More questions & answers from Con Air

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