Plot hole: This film is set in 2004. The thought that no search and rescue operations would be put in place after an aircraft disappeared from radar during a routine flight is absurd. The Chinese are paranoid about intrusion on their territory and the downed aircraft would have been located by a simple satellite search within hours of it crashing. Chinese military satellites crisscross the Gobi and they are equipped with optical cameras, microwave and infrared detectors and radar, so spotting a metal aircraft on the ground would be simple even if it was hundreds of kilometres off course. The crew would have been visited by Chinese military helicopters (and probably arrested!) as soon as the storm had died down.
Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
Plot summary
Directed by: John Moore
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Hugh Laurie, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibson, Miranda Otto, Tyrese
Dennis Quaid and Tyrese Gibson(The Fast and Furious 2) run an airline transport company, when they are assigned to transport an oil crew out of a site, to another location. When they are flying out, Quaid runs into a sand storm and it causes the plane to crash into the desert, far away from civilation. They try to survive, but with water and supplies dwendling down, things start getting hard for the crew & passengers, especially when a local sand-people gang, threaten to harm them. Then one of the corky, but arrogant passengers, decides that he can rebuild the plane out of the other spare parts, as so they can fly out to safety. So, they start rebuilding the plane, and in the mean time keeping an eye on the sand people gang while doing so. But then, they all find out something interesting about the person that says that he can rebuild the plane!
More mistakes in Flight of the Phoenix
Sammi: I thought you weren't religious, Rady?
Rady: Spirituality is not religion. Religion divides people. Belief in something unites them.
Question: What are cowl flaps? What is their purpose?
Answer: Cowl flaps are used to adjust to volume of air that passes over the cooling fins of an aircraft piston engine. Under takeoff and landing these flaps are open to allow maximum airflow and under normal flight they are closed to maintain normal engine temperature.
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Suggested correction: The Chinese government, for whatever reason, may have denied there was any crash at all if it suited their purposes, and the oil company that owned the plane would have little recourse. The Chinese have done this before. For the purpose of the plot, the survivors decided that they had to save themselves rather than wait for rescue and that was completely plausible.
Suggested correction: It's now 2021, and we still can't find Malaysian Airlines MH370. So this suggestion of planes always being found is laughable.
stiiggy
MH370 crashed into the ocean, and in fact some wreckage has been found. The Chinese military does not have the south Indian Ocean under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unlike the Gobi desert where a crashed plane would be spotted within hours of it going missing.