Continuity mistake: When Pinball is fighting the female guard on the plane they are struggling, and from one angle her hat has fallen off and from another angle she is still wearing it. It jumps between scenes like this with her hat being on and off. (00:24:03)
Continuity mistake: When Pinball is looking for the three convicts who are to get off at Carson City, Cyrus and Billy Bedlam are standing near the front of the plane. Cyrus says, "The pilot's white," which prompts a laugh from Billy Bedlam. When Billy smiles his teeth are perfectly white - in the rest of the movie they are yellow and stained. (00:32:10)
Continuity mistake: When the plane is at Carson City for exchange of prisoners, the guards have jackets with 'Dept of Prisons' printed on the back, but there is a bus with 'Bureau of Prisons' written on the side. (00:35:50)
Continuity mistake: When Pinball leaves the plane, he opens a door under the cargo hold, and he never makes it back on the plane, but when the plane is taking off, that door is now closed. (00:43:00)
Continuity mistake: When Diamond Dog puts the hat on in the plane after it's hijacked, he puts it on backwards.A second later, it's on straight without him turning it around. (00:43:55)
Continuity mistake: Coe releases Pinball's dead body from the forward landing gear bay and pushes it out of the aircraft. The landing gear then starts to retract. Cut to a wide shot of the aircraft with Pinball's body falling away, and the forward landing gear is retracted, and the landing bay doors fully closed. Cut to Poe in the landing gear bay, and the gear is still retracting, and the bay doors are wide open. (00:52:00)
Continuity mistake: When Diamond Dog opens the door in the floor and tells Poe to go down to take care of the landing-gear problem, he has plenty of sweat in his face (downright wet and reflecting). In the next shot he has barely a trace of sweat in his face. (00:52:55)
Continuity mistake: When Larkin is in the tower, the C-123 heads straight to the tower. When the shot cuts away, the plane flies right over it. In the next shot, from the side, the plane flies past the tower next to it. And in the next shot it's even banked in a curve, again next to the tower, although the camera is on the tower. (01:05:50)
Continuity mistake: While landing at Lerner, the C-123 has to lift and fly over the Cessna to avoid a crash. As it touches down again, the pilot of the Cessna has to duck to avoid being hit. Given the landing speed of the C-123 it would be a very long way down the runway at touchdown and no where near were the pilot jumped from the Cessna. (01:06:15)
Continuity mistake: When the C-123 lands at Lerner it stops with its nose down in the dirt which would have done serious damage to the thin skin. Later as it heads toward Las Vegas, there is no visible damage to the nose. (01:06:55 - 01:27:45)
Continuity mistake: When we see the close-up shot of Steve Buscemi grabbing the doll, he is picking it up with his right hand. But in the next shot, when you see a wider view of him picking it up, it is now in his left hand. (01:12:55)
Continuity mistake: Cameron Poe's stubble length changes noticeably while they are on the plane. At one point when him, the guard and Baby-O are about to jump off the plane after taking off from Lerner Airfield it has almost disappeared. (01:13:25 - 01:28:10)
Continuity mistake: When Steve Buscemi and the little girl are sitting at the table in the swimming pool, right before they start to sing, the fruit on the plate changes position. (01:17:10)
Continuity mistake: When Sandino is getting ready to leave the others behind, Larkin opens the tarp to the garage and is blown backwards by the engines. He then runs from the garage, the plane then comes from the garage nose first facing Larkin after it's engines were just facing Larkin. How could it turn around in that small of space? (01:18:20)
Continuity mistake: At the air field there is a scene when Cyrus is loading his gun. If you look closely at the clip you will see that it is hollow. You can see right through it. (01:22:05)
Continuity mistake: After Nicolas Cage pries open the door on the fire truck there is no damage to the door. (01:23:10)
Continuity mistake: The plane began its flight in the desert just outside Las Vegas in broad daylight (the sun was still shining). But when they reach the strip it is late at night. (01:28:00 - 01:34:50)
Continuity mistake: When the car crashes into the tower, you can clearly see when it goes through that the car is not attached to anything, the rope that was pulling the car has gone, yet when the car lands on the ground you can see the rope still attached to the car. (01:28:30)
Continuity mistake: When Malloy's car comes crashing to the ground, not only do Larkin's arms rapidly change position, his sunglasses seem to rapidly jump onto, and off, his face. (01:28:35)
Continuity mistake: Colm's car gets hooked up to the plane and then, after crashing into the watchtower, falls to the ground. If you watch the shots of the car falling you can see John Cusack's arms go from folded to at his side multiple times. You never see him move them, they just appear to have changed positions. (01:28:35)
Chosen answer: Zero. As you said, he was attacked and there are witnesses that he tried to avoid the fight and the killings were in self-defense. It is an extremely weak plot hammer to get Poe onto a plane full of criminals. It's foolish as well. The writers could have had Poe framed for a crime then exonerated and put in the same situation much more believably.
Grumpy Scot
It's in Alabama. People are put in prison here for much less.
First, Poe is a federal prisoner, not subject to State laws or legal procedures. Secondly, he is not in Alabama. During a conversation with Billy Bedlam we hear that he is incarcerated in the "Q" - prison slang for San Quentin in California. It makes you wonder why a Federal prisoner is in a State prison, but that's another type of mistake.
Would it really be considered self-defense, though? After he beat the guys to the ground he could have just stopped and walked away, but he didn't. He kept beating them until they died.
He is defending his wife against two armed assailants, and use of lethal force is allowable. No DA in the United States would even think about pressing charges, knowing full well a grand jury would throw them out in a second.