In the final stages of the Bosnian War in December 1995, United States Navy flight officer Lieutenant Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and pilot Lieutenant Jeremy Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), who are stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, are assigned a reconnaissance mission by their commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman). The mission goes smoothly until they spot suspicious activity in the demilitarized zone where NATO aircraft and the warring factions are prohibited from engaging in military activity. Burnett persuades Stackhouse to fly their F/A-18 Hornet off-course to get a close look and photograph the target. They are unaware that they photographed mass graves, and Serb soldiers see the jet. The local Bosnian Serb paramilitary commander, General Miroslav Lokar (modelled on Arkan and his Tiger militia, and played by Olek Krupa), is conducting a secret genocidal campaign against the local Bosniak population. Not wanting the mass graves to be discovered, Lokar orders the jet be shot down.
Major Cleve "Iceman" Saville (Robert Mitchum), a veteran World War II fighter ace, returns to combat, eager to fly an F-86 Sabre fighter. His commanding officer, Colonel "Dutch" Imil (Richard Egan), assigns him command of a flight.
Four employees on an oil company crash-land in the desert and face a slow death, until they discover a German Panzer from World War II buried in the sand.
In Hawaii, during World War II, U.S. Navy pilot Alec Brooke (Van Johnson) commands a flying boat, named the "High Barbaree". During a bombing mission against a Japanese submarine, his PBY Catalina is shot down with all but one of his crew killed, but still able to stay afloat, adrift far from Allied territory. While the crippled aircraft is slowly floating, the two survivors hear the voice of "Tokyo Rose" (Audrey Totter) invoking memories of their past. Alec shares a series of recollections with fellow survivor, Lt. Joe Moore (Cameron Mitchell). His memories concern his boyhood sweetheart, Nancy Fraser (June Allyson), now a Navy nurse serving on a ship in the Pacific theater, commanded by his uncle, Capt. Thad Vail (Thomas Mitchell).
In 1906, a young Baron Manfred von Richthofen (Tomáš Koutník) is out hunting deer, with his younger brother and younger cousin, Lothar and Wolfram, when they hear an aeroplane overhead. Enchanted, he follows it on horseback, waving his arms.
First officer LeRoy Homer Jr. gets dressed in his F.A.A. official uniform, kisses his wife and leaves for work. The terrorist ringleader Ziad Jarrah shaves in his hotel room and then leaves for Newark International Airport.
Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster), a U.S. aircraft engineer employed in Berlin, Germany, is widowed with a six-year-old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) after her husband David (John Benjamin Hickey) falls off the roof of their building to his death. Kyle decides to bury him in their hometown back in the U.S., on Long Island, NY. They fly aboard a passenger aircraft, the engines of which Kyle helped design. After falling asleep, Kyle wakes to find that Julia is missing. She begins to panic, and Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean) is forced to conduct a search. None of the passengers remember seeing her daughter, Julia has no register in either the Berlin airport or the passenger manifest, and Kyle cannot find Julia's boarding pass. Marcus and the other crew members suspect that Kyle has become unhinged by her husband's death, and has imagined bringing her daughter aboard. One flight attendant Stephanie (Kate Beahan) is particularly unsympathetic. Faced with the crew's growing skepticism regarding her daughter's existence, Kyle becomes more and more desperate. Because of her increasingly erratic, panicked behavior, air marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) is ordered to guard and handcuff her.
1940 in Paris, Michele de la Becque (Joan Crawford) is a career woman in love with industrial designer Robert Cortot (Philip Dorn). Together they enjoy a luxurious lifestyle unfazed by the approach of World War II. After the Battle of France and subsequent German occupation, Michele discovers her lover is socializing with German officers and his plants are manufacturing weapons for them. She confronts him and he does not deny her evidence. She is outraged. She aids a downed American in the Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force bomber pilot Pat Talbot (John Wayne) from Pennsylvania and finds herself falling in love with him. Later, she discovers Cortot is turning out defective weapons for the Germans and organizing a French fighting force. Michele is happily reunited with Cortot.
Aspiring RAF pilot Pilot Officer Rawlings (Ralph Michael) fails to make the grade in training, and grudgingly accepts the alternative of joining the crew of Launch 183, an air-sea rescue craft skippered by Flight Lieutenant Murray (David Farrar). Rawlings is initially resentful and bored by the apparent mundanity and lack of excitement of the life, until the vessel is called on to rescue the crew of an RAF bomber shot down in mid-Channel.
At Portland, Oregon, playboy pilot Len Kendrick (Vinton Haworth) lands at the end of a cross-country record flight, met by his father J.P. Kendrick (Charley Grapewin) who owns Amalgamated Air Lines. Len is a media darling, adored by fans for his daring flights. He is in love with Amalgamated stewardess Kay Armstrong (Sally Eilers) who is dating veteran pilot "Wad" Madison (Robert Armstrong). Len dates her sister Penny (Frances Sage) who learns that his hard-drinking and recklessness has caused the death of his co-pilot. Penny knows that he was drinking before the fateful flight and only escaped prosecution by bribing a bartender. She leaves Len who ends up at Amalgamated as a line pilot, being tutored by Wad.
Airline pilot Jack Gordon (Fred MacMurray) on a flight from New York to San Francisco, is immediately attracted to beautiful passenger Felice Rollins (Joan Bennett). Known as a "lady's man", he betting stewardess Vi Johnson (Ruth Donnelly) that he will take Felice out to dinner that evening. A jewel robbery is in the news and a beautiful blonde is implicated, with Jack suspecting that Felice may be the culprit. On a stop over in Chicago, Jack learns instead that his passenger is a wealthy socialite at odds with another passenger, Count Stephani (Fred Keating). Jack worries that he may have a crisis involving the Count when he finds Stephani has a gun aboard. Other passengers include Dr. Evarts (Brian Donlevy) and Curtis Palmer (Alan Baxter, both of whom seem to be harboring a secret.