Continuity mistake: In the bar before the crew go on their fatal mission, Mark Walberg's character is drinking with his girlfriend. His goatee is thick and dark around his chin. When they are upstairs in their bedroom later that night, it is very light and slight. The next morning, when he is leaving to get on the boat and saying goodbye to her, it is thick and dark at the bottom again. (00:15:00 - 00:16:10)
Continuity mistake: When the crew all are in the bar, Bobby Shatford gives the boy of one of his shipmates his hat before following his girlfriend upstairs. The next morning, he comes down the stairs wearing the same hat. (00:15:50 - 00:21:20)
Continuity mistake: The note from Chris to Bobby includes a section which reads "pillows I secretly bought at Penny's." In Chris's voice over, she says "pillows that I secretly bought for us at Penny's." (00:34:30)
Revealing mistake: When the shark is on the deck of the Andrea Gail, you can see the equipment underneath it that is making it move. (00:47:30)
Continuity mistake: When the crew pull the hook out of the man's hand, he puts a spoon in his mouth - its facing right, but when he's done it's facing left. (00:55:15)
Factual error: In the rescue scene where the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa is picking up the downed helicopter crew, the Tamaroa is shown as a modern day cutter. The real Tamaroa is an old ship, which is about to be decommissioned. The real Tamaroa and the one shown in the movie are nothing alike. While the ships only differ by 5 feet (Tamaroa was 205' and the other 210'), the differences are more substantial because Tamaroa was built with a substantially lower center of gravity, which helped Tamoroa remain upright during the storm despite rolls of 55° in each direction (110°). The other cutter would likely have never have survived that storm. (01:22:00)
Continuity mistake: When the Sea Hawk Helicopter ditches into the sea, the pilot's night vision goggles fall off yet as the cockpit starts to fill with water they are still there and remain there for several scenes. (01:33:25)
Continuity mistake: During the storm when the Andrea Gail is making its way through the numerous giant waves, we see Captain Billy Tyne and Bobby Shatford in the steering room being soaked and smashed around as the boat was basically going straight up and then straight down crashing into the water over and over again. Yet when the camera cut to the crew below, they are all sitting very calmly in their chairs or bunks with cups of coffee and other things sitting perfectly still on the table (which goes against the nailed down TV theory). It looks as if they are not even on a boat. Practically nothing in the whole room is moving. (01:45:00)
Factual error: The movie was set in 1991, but there is a newspaper with a Kia advertisement. Kia's first U.S. cars arrived in 1994.
Continuity mistake: As the Coast Guard cutter is making the second attempt to rescue the helicopter pilot and the injured para-rescuer, in one overhead shot we see the crew on the foredeck holding the cargo net. After the two men are swept off the net, another shot shows the foredeck empty, though the ship's crew is still at the cargo net attempting the rescue.
Revealing mistake: When Capt. Billy Tyne climbs up the boom to free the loose anchor, instead of a real flame on his cutting torch, there is what appears to be a piece of illuminated glass.
Continuity mistake: When the weather forecaster is showing the woman what would happen if the storms collided, we see a third person shot of him pointing to the computer screen with just his middle finger. The next shot (which takes place at the exact same time) is a shot from the guy's perspective. Now he's using both his middle finger AND his pointer to show her the storms.
Factual error: When the men are watching movies, there's a copy of Blade Runner (Director's Cut) on the table. The director's cut was released in 1992, but this movie is set in 1991.
Revealing mistake: Towards the end when the boat is going up the huge wave, notice Billy and Bobby are keeping their balance although the boat is straight up and down.
Continuity mistake: Irene closes her umbrella twice. Once when she arrives at the Crows Nest and again after she enters.
Continuity mistake: In the scene after the helicopter goes down and the captain swims to the injured rescue diver, when the camera first shows the injured diver, he doesn't have a bloody mouth. But when the camera cuts to the captain and then cuts back to the injured rescue diver, he then has blood coming out of his mouth.
Factual error: The rough wave is going the wrong way. When they left the eye and entered the "Eye Wall" (the most powerful part of hurricanes), they suddenly meet that massive rogue. The problem is, the powerful rotating Eye Wall's forces push massive waves AWAY from the rotating center. The rogue in the movie was headed toward the hurricane's center, but the Eye Wall would have broken it down, demolished it and sucked into the rotating momentum of hurricane. It never happened.
Factual error: At the very beginning of the movie it says "Gloucester, Massachusetts 1991" and shows boats in the harbour including the Leisure Casino Cruises ship. Casino cruises did not start in Gloucester until 1997 or 1998.
Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where they are getting ready to leave, it's dark and George Clooney is in the wheelhouse - you can clearly see a face of a crew member in the depth finder.
Answer: That's not how the refueling line works; it would only dispense fuel if the helicopter's line was attached. Even if it didn't, the fuel they released would have been immediately swept away by the gale, diluted with the rainwater, so any minute amount that miraculously entered the helicopter's line would have been completely negligible and wouldn't have made a difference.