Factual error: Whenever the fire extinguisher is activated for a jet engine, that engine becomes inoperable. In the movie, the co-pilot first activates the extinguisher for the left engine, and 30 seconds later, for the right engine. At that point, both engines should be shut down. However, the engines are still operating (and revving up) and Whitaker even asks Margaret to apply full power, which is also audible. (00:23:00)
Character mistake: When Whip is in the hospital, standing straight in front of the camera is a ridiculous nurse; she takes down the empty IV bag and pulls the bag away from the IV line, she drops the bag on the floor, a big no-no, but try as she might she can't seem to get the spike to go into the new bag. While she's doing all this, she's waving that sterile spike everywhere, touching everything she can, including herself, and picking up germs that will go straight into Whip's IV line, and into his body, when, finally she gets that infected spike into the infected new bag.
Factual error: When flight 227 departs Orlando, the thrust increases for 3 minutes. It should have increased for 30 seconds.
Factual error: During the emergency, Whip instructs Ken to dump fuel, and fuel is seen spraying out of the nozzle on the wing. MD-80 family aircraft are not equipped with fuel dump capabilities.
Suggested correction: The aircraft is a fictional Jackson Ridgefield JR-88 according to a slide shown during the NTSB hearing scene. This can also explain why it has winglets, another feature McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series aircraft do not have.
Character mistake: When Whip is in hospital, a nurse comes in with the others but what she does with the IV is all wrong. First: she tosses the empty IV bag onto the floor - you never do that - and then she proceeds to tug continually on the base of another IV bag, trying to get the IV line out of the bag - this she does not succeed in doing.
Factual error: During the pre-flight scene, in the exterior shot panning from the control tower down to the aircraft parked at the gate, the sign on the jetway indicates gate A27, when there is in fact no such gate at Orlando International Airport.
Continuity mistake: When the plane has come out of flying upside down, Whip tells Departure that he sees a road and a field and he will try to land there. The field is brown until they crash-land, where it is now green.
Other mistake: Before the plane goes berserk, Whip decides to level off, to reach good air, but the altimeter keeps rising and the co-pilot is sitting at an angle, as he would if the were still climbing, but Whip is sitting in a level position, as he would if they were levelling off.
Continuity mistake: When Whip goes to Nicole's place, he stops his car past her street. When he sees Nicole he turns into her street, but he couldn't - his car is too far past her street; he should have reversed first before driving into her street, which he did not do.
Continuity mistake: When the movie starts, in the wide shot there is no cellphone on the night table on the left at Whip's side. In the close-up a cell phone appears.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Katerina Marquez puts on a g-string kind of pantie, then when she is sitting on Whip Whitaker and moves it shows she is wearing a totally different kind of underwear. (00:04:00 - 00:08:00)
Continuity mistake: When Harling picks Whip up from the hospital, he says he couldn't find any suitcases at Whip's place, so he puts his clothes and stuff in garbage bags, but when Whip arrives at the farm, there are no garbage bags in sight, just a small suitcase and a small plastic bag.
Suggested correction: The suitcase is probably in Whip's car - no reason why he couldn't have shoved everything in there.
Continuity mistake: When Whip goes to see his ex-wife and son, he parks with a fire hydrant by the front right fender. He takes a drink, gets out of the car, and the fire hydrant has vanished.
Continuity mistake: When we first see Nicole, she has a "bruise" on her left inner elbow, but, later, when she's injecting, the "bruise" has gone.
Factual error: When Denzel checks his iphone, the lock screen shows a date of October 20 and the time is 1:17. After unlocking the screen, the calendar icon on the phone shows the 8th as the date, and the time as 8:52. The battery remaining also changes.
Continuity mistake: When Whip is watching the crash on TV, the (CGI) plane seems big while flying against the church, but when it lands and it's seen in comparison with the people on the field, it is awkwardly small.
Continuity mistake: In the beginning, when Nick tells Kip, her drug dealer, that she hasn't used needles in weeks, she's lying as she has a track mark on her left arm that is definitely not weeks old. When she does inject, that track mark disappears.
Continuity mistake: When Nicole knocks the box with the syringe and all the drug-stuff, the syringe falls far away from the box, but it appears very close to it in the next shot.
Factual error: When the plane's altitude decreases from 28,000 to 27,000 ft on the altimeter, the digits to the right of the 8/7 do not change.
Continuity mistake: When Whip wakes up in hospital, his right eye is partially bloodshot, but seconds later the blood is gone.
