Other mistake: Jack says: "Did I meet him when Bush came over?" The German subtitles read: "Ich traf ihn, als Busch vorbeikam." Busch is German for bush... (00:20:35)
Revealing mistake: When Jack breaks into the Albert Dock Road building where the hijackers have their hideout, he enters through a wire-mesh-reinforced roof window. From below you see that he hits it once, causing a huge shower of big glass pieces (as if there were no wire mesh), and then the whole, almost intact pane comes down as if the mesh hadn't been connected to the frame. (00:29:55)
Continuity mistake: During the stop-over at Limassol a maintenance guy places a fully-zipped clothes bag full of, as we will see later see, weapons in a cabin wardrobe. Before the plane takes off a stewardess happens to see the bag, which is now zipped down half with a gun sticking out. The wardrobe is a different one too, since a large sign with seat directions, which was placed next to the wardrobe, isn't there anymore. (00:07:35)
Continuity mistake: In the shoot-out in the train a lady gets hit right into her left breast. In the next shot the bullet hole has shifted to the collarbone. (01:22:00)
Continuity mistake: When Jack is in the Albert Dock Road building hiding in a toilet, one of the hijackers shoots a fast round at the door, perforating it all over. You hear 11 shots but count 14 holes. This may be explained by the fact that they used two takes for the scene with different patterns of bullet holes. Then the door opens, Jack jumps out and shoots the bad guy, and all tiles on the wall behind the door are as good as new. (00:33:50)
Continuity mistake: Jack's wife and daughters run away from the plane holding each other's hands, while the hijackers shoot into the crowd. When they get hit in the back you see slow motions of all three individually, with no-one else in the rather wide shot, as if they hadn't been holding on to each other. (00:12:40)
Revealing mistake: When one of the hijackers shoots at the truck that pulls the gangway with the police marksmen, the windshield cracks all over at the first shot but there is no hole. However, a big splash of blood hits the glass from the inside. The second shot makes a big hole in the windshield on the passenger's side, but the broken glass falls on the hood, against the momentum of the bullet. (00:14:55)
Revealing mistake: Jack executes Maldic, who is sitting in a Taxi, by shooting at him about a dozen times. While there is blood all over the taxi Maldic doesn't suffer any visible injury. (00:51:25)
Continuity mistake: In the shoot-out in the train Bernard hits the bad guy with the gas mask so that he is thrown back. In the next shot he hits the guy, who is upright again, a second time, now into his eye, and he is thrown back again. (01:22:05)
Audio problem: Mike Sarne who plays Leo Hasse, one of the bad guys and supposedly German (you hear some German bits when the hijackers come back to their hideout and speak an almost incomprehensible mix of Serbian, English, and German), has a pretty strong English accent. (00:32:15)
Continuity mistake: When Jack shows Kate the print-out of the Economist web page with the write-up on Mr. Tarnower, the articles in the adjacent column are completely different from what he had downloaded. (00:25:05)
Other mistake: Jack is sitting in his office doing some research on one Mr. Tarnower, one of the casualties of the hijacking. He finds a page referring to him in the Economist website. He zooms on a picture captioned 'F. Tarnower, Foreign Office Posting'. Then the caption gets blurry (only the caption, not the other text), then focused again and now it reads 'Tarnworth' instead of 'Tarnower'. I guess they used a real page of The Economist and goofed up the editing. (00:22:55)
Continuity mistake: When the plane prepares for take-off after the emergency stop-over at Limassol, Jack is sitting next to his wife, while his son and one of his daughters are sitting across the aisle. Then the plane gets hijacked, passengers are told to remain in their seats, and the negotiations start. When the camera cuts to the cabin again Jack's son is sitting with his mom, first on her lap, then in the seat next to her where his sister was sitting before. Too much of seat-swapping under the circumstances, with trigger-happy hijackers watching over them. (00:09:10)
Plot hole: Jack is observing Maldic, one of the hijackers, while he is checking in at a London hotel. Maldic receives a message, and after he has read it he throws it into a garbage bin. However, at this particular moment Jack is looking discreetly into the opposite direction and should have no reason to look for the message in the garbage bin later. (00:48:00)
