While serving in the United States Army Special Forces in 2007, John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Staff Sergeant, is lying on the ground after being shot multiple times in the neck and body, with his comrades gathered around him. In a voiceover, he recalls a childhood trip to the U.S. Mint and compares himself to a coin in the United States Military before stating that the last thing he thought of before he blacked out was "you".
Casey Ryback has retired from the United States Navy and is a chef at the Mile High Cafe in Denver, Colorado. Casey is taking his estranged niece Sarah to Los Angeles to visit the grave of Sarah's father. Sarah and Casey board the Grand Continental, a train traveling from Denver to Los Angeles through the Rocky Mountains. Armed mercenaries, led by former U.S. government computer hacker and computer genius Travis Dane and mercenary leader Marcus Penn, hijack the train. Dane worked on Grazer One, a top-secret military satellite particle weapon designed to destroy underground targets. The military fired Dane because of his mental instability; Dane later faked his suicide.
Chicago is paralyzed by a snowstorm affecting Lincoln International Airport. A Trans Global Airlines (TGA) Boeing 707 flight crew misjudge their turn off of Runway 29 on to the taxiway, becoming stuck in the snow and closing Runway 29, forcing airport manager Mel Bakersfield (Burt Lancaster) to work overtime. This causes tension with his wife, Cindy (Dana Wynter). Divorce is looming as he nurtures a closer relationship with a co-worker, TGA customer relations agent Tanya Livingston (Jean Seberg). Bakersfield's brother-in-law, Vernon Demarest (Dean Martin), is a TGA captain scheduled to be the checkride captain for TGA to evaluate Captain Anson Harris (Barry Nelson) during TGA's Flight 2 to Rome. Flight 2 is aboard TGA's flagship service craft, a Boeing 707 known as The Golden Argosy. Although Demarest is married to Bakersfield's sister, Sarah (Barbara Hale), he is secretly having an affair with Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset), chief stewardess on Flight 2, who informs him before the flight that she is pregnant with his child.
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The film begins with commentary by passenger Detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) having suffered a car accident with his partner Ria (Jennifer Esposito). He mentions that the denizens of Los Angeles have lost their "sense of touch." Ria and the driver of the other car, Kim Lee, exchange racially charged insults. When Waters exits the car, he arrives at a police investigation crime scene concerning the discovery of "a dead kid."
Ex-fighter pilot and taxi driver Ted Striker (Robert Hays) became traumatized during an unnamed war, leading to a pathological fear of flying. As a result, he is unable to hold a responsible job. His wartime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty), now a flight attendant, leaves him. Striker nervously boards a Boeing 707 (Trans American Flight 209) from Los Angeles to Chicago on which she is serving, hoping to win her back, but she rebuffs him.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, four al-Qaeda terrorists Ziad Jarrah, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Ahmed al-Haznawi pray in their respective hotel rooms before arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport. The quartet wait at a gate after getting through security to board San Francisco-bound United 93. After 40 minutes of delay due to traffic the plane takes off, flown by captain Jason Dahl and first officer Leroy Homer, with all four terrorists on board.
Après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, une équipe composée d'agents de la CIA et des forces spéciales américaines, menées par le capitaine Mitch Nelson, est envoyée en Afghanistan. Ils collaborent avec le général afghan Abdul Rachid Dostom pour tenter de démanteler les talibans.
After witnessing gangster Eddie Kim brutally beat U.S. Prosecutor Daniel Hayes to death in Hawaii, Sean Jones is escorted by FBI agents Neville Flynn and John Sanders on a Boeing 747-400 to testify in a trial in Los Angeles. Despite increased security for the flight, Kim arranges for a time-release crate full of venomous snakes to be placed in the cargo hold in an attempt to bring down the plane before it reaches Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). To ensure the snakes attack the passengers without being provoked, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes highly aggressive. The crate opens midway through the flight and the snakes make their way through the cabin. A couple having sex in the bathroom, and a man using the bathroom are the first killed. The plane's captain, Sam McKeon, investigates and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick, unaware of the snake, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX.
Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) arrives at the airport to take a red-eye flight from Texas back to Miami after attending her grandmother's funeral. While waiting in the check-in line, she meets Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), who is boarding the same plane. After their flight is delayed due to bad weather concerns, they meet again at an airport bar and engage in small talk while they wait. When boarding, Lisa discovers to her surprise that Jackson is seated beside her.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is the son of German American Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks). Thomas would often send Oskar on missions to do something involving one of his riddles. The last riddle he ever gives Oskar is proof that New York City once possessed a Sixth Borough. In a flashback, Thomas and Oskar play a scavenger hunt to find objects throughout New York City. The game requires communication with other people and is not easy for the socially awkward Oskar who is told "If things were easy to find, they wouldn't be worth finding".
Columbia Air Lines' Flight 409 is a Boeing 747-100 on a red-eye route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. Scott Freeman, meanwhile, is a New Mexican businessman flying his private Beechcraft Baron to an urgent sales meeting in Boise, Idaho. However, an occluded front has the entire West Coast socked in, with Los Angeles reporting zero visibility. Columbia 409 and Freeman's Beechcraft are both diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport.
International psychopath terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne), known as "The Rane of Terror", is caught by the FBI and local authorities just as he is about to receive plastic surgery to alter his features. The FBI make plans to return Rane to Los Angeles aboard a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar passenger aircraft for him to stand trial.
Rizwan Khan is a Muslim child who grew up with his brother Zakir and his mother Razia Khan in a middle-class family in the section of Mumbai. Rizwan is different from other children, however. He has certain gifts, particularly a special ability to repair mechanical things. His difference leads to special tutoring from a reclusive scholar and extra attention from his mother, both of which lead to heightened jealousy from his brother Zakir, who eventually leaves his family for a life in the United States.
Mobster Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) drives away from court and an angry mob after being acquitted on a technicality. An unseen SFPD motorcycle cop stops Ricca’s limo for a minor traffic violation. Suddenly, the patrolman pulls his service revolver (a Colt Python .357 Magnum), shoots all four men in the car, then rides away.
A privately owned luxury Boeing 747-100, Stevens' Flight 23, flies invited guests to an estate in Palm Beach, Florida, owned by wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens, who also owns the jetliner. Valuable artwork from Stevens's private collection is also on board the jetliner, to be eventually displayed in his new museum. Such a collection motivates a group of thieves led by co-pilot Bob Chambers to hijack the aircraft.