Italian Ice - S2-E15
Factual error: The bad guy is called "Marchese di Como", the Marquis of Como, but as perhaps it is more known internationally now than in the 80s, Como is at the very North of Italy and nowhere near Sicily. The Marquis/Marchese's henchman is called "Segundo" (pronounced as such and written in the credits), but it's a Spanish name, not an Italian one.
Italian Ice - S2-E15
Factual error: The Italian featured in the episode ranges from acceptable but still pronounced with a clear foreign accent and no understanding of the language, to utter garbage with mangled words, like the bit when the maid/cook is feeding the cats at the beginning.
Factual error: Magnum shoots a flare gun at a helicopter, and that brings it down making the heli's engine sputter and slowly lose altitude. That's Hollywood nonsense, as a projectile of that kind wouldn't do that sort of damage. (00:41:00)
Factual error: At the end of the episode, they bring flowers on the tomb at the Memorial cemetery, but given the crime committed, the vet would have been denied to be buried with those honors.
The Elmo Ziller Story - S2-E20
Factual error: At the beginning of the episode, the captions say; "Texas Hill Country." Later, Elmo explains the case and mentions to Magnum that it happened "outside El Paso." Very much outside, since El Paso is nowhere near Hill Country, hundreds off to the West. (00:01:35 - 00:15:40)
Factual error: Magnum gets to the airfield looking for TC the first time, at the very beginning of his drive you can see in the building in the background a modern window AC unit - that kind of device was available in 1936, but its cost certainly makes it unlikely, as it'd cost the equivalent of $8,000 today, not really something for the dingy shack it's mounted on. (00:16:55)
Factual error: At the movies, Magnum is watching a movie with Bette Davis, the first one she played in, "The Bad Sister" and comments "Keep it up, old girl, you just might have a future as an actress." Funny, but the dream is set in 1936, not 1931 when that movie came out. Implausibility of finding it in theaters aside, by 1936 young Bette Davis had already won her first Oscar. (00:30:30)
Factual error: The episode opens with a caption "Miami, 1955." However, as Salvatore Marchese sits in the barber's chair, he picks up as his reading of choice a copy of the National Geographic...the April 1982 edition. (00:02:20)
Factual error: Magnum shows the news of Dr. Karen Harmon on the newspaper to TC and Rick and tells them "She was with the 71st Evac Hospital at Binh Thuy, remember?", but the 71st Evac was at Pleiku, over 600km up north. (00:07:00)
Factual error: Higgins frightens the parrot with his peregrine falcon call, and the parrot flies away. The sky is a fairly big place though, and TC's helicopter is far away, so the fact that it'd be sucked in (that's not how helicopters work), maimed and somehow explode in a puff of (clean) feathers that instantly and calmly float down is borderline cartoon slapstick. (00:45:20)
Two Birds of a Feather - S3-E19
Factual error: In his 'Nam flashback at the beginning, Magnum has (another) fun encounter with a large macaw. Green macaws (or any macaw for that matter) are not something he would have found in a Vietnam war mission, unless he inadvertently crossed the Pacific Ocean and ended up in South America. (00:02:00)
Two Birds of a Feather - S3-E19
Factual error: When Sam climbs on the plane to give chase to the baddies, the tail number is N64CE. When he takes off though, the control tower announces the clearance for "Sixty-four Charlie Lima." Should have been Charlie Echo. (00:41:35 - 00:42:30)
Two Birds of a Feather - S3-E19
Factual error: No matter how good of a pilot Samuel is, he's chasing a Learjet 24 plane with a WWII design P-51 Mustang (that he does not even know how to start, but of course fictional pilots can just 'wing it' and do amazingly). Assuming that speed is not a factor since the bad guy is not flying at top speed just yet (but still he has a projected arrival time of 6 hours, meaning he'd fly around 700 kmh), they do the chase at high altitude (42,000 feet are mentioned), with Samuel not wearing a mask or anything in a non-pressurized plane! He'd have passed out.
Two Birds of a Feather - S3-E19
Factual error: Sam crashes the plane running out of gas, but just barely. His boss and the client are mad at him, but he actually worked some miracle, since from Van Nuys to Honolulu there's a distance of over 2,200 nautical miles, and even considering additional fuel tanks, that is over 3 times the range of the Cessna 172 plane he was flying, also considering it had headwind throughout the voyage (it's even a plot point).
Factual error: It is stated in the episode twice that Rod 'did time' in Camarillo, but Camarillo does not have a penitentiary, just a jail and (had at the time) a State mental hospital, neither compatible with his 18 months sentence for growing weed. (00:25:00)
Factual error: This episode is set during a party happening on the weekend of Spring equinox, which means end of March. but it's also happening during a devastating hurricane. No hurricane (not tropical storm) has ever occurred in Hawaii in that month or anytime close to that; hurricane season in the Pacific starts at its earliest in May, and used to begin towards July in the 1980s climate.
Factual error: In the flashback of 6 years-old Magnum paddling with his dad before he leaves for the war in Korea, Mr. Magnum is wearing a Rolex GMT Master with the Pepsi bezel, a model designed in 1955, well after the war. (00:12:05)
