The first time the camera shows him, there's a lot of snow on him. And, since the planes have been told not to listen to the towers regular frequency, Stuart would not be able to retaliate by downing another plane. At the end of the film, Richard Thornburg has been taken off the plane by person or persons unknown, still badly dazed and immobile from having been tasered, and left to lay on the snow-covered tarmac. The speed at which the fire raced forward wasn’t all that fast (I think I could have outrun it for at least a little bit). The camera flips away, and then back, and his jacket is cleared of snow. All other doors are welded shut and all windows are painted over. Question: Just watched "Die Hard 2" for the ten-thousandth time. The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport aircraft, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. Thornburg, the despicable journalist, mispronounces the most famous award in his profession. Any fuel dump is controlled from the cockpit and fuel is ejected from nozzles on the trailing edge of the wing, one on each wing just inboard of the aileron. "Oh, there's a burning plane crash down there! Esperanza's plane runs over the manhole grate on the runway just as McClane extricates himself. The general flies from the pilot's seat, even though the window is crazed from the gunshot. While it's possible that the mercenaries may have put extended fuses in the grenades, why would they, as McClane's escape illustrates exactly why a short burning fuse is desirable? And second, this proofs that even in the movie's universe handheld radios can reach aircraft in the airfield's vicinity. We clearly see that the NEA flight (Holly's plane) has air phones, so how was it that the ATCs were not able to reach that plane through the air phones? Memorable: 9. It is however entirely possible there is more than one Fuji Air flight. But in the next shot, as the plane climbs higher, it's the #2 (LEFT inboard) engine that blows up, triggering an explosion of the entire plane. Additionally, for larger aircraft, Baltimore, Richmond,VA and Philadelphia are all within easy diversion range as if Dover AFB in Delaware which is a major military transport installation.If the aircraft couldn't land at Dulles, there are numerous other options, rendering the mercenaries plans irrelevant. On a related physics question, how is it possible for Bruce Willis to fall off the wing of a 747 moving at near take-off speed onto a concrete runway and survive uninjured? The center cap on the engine Grant was sucked into was all silver, with no "spiral" on it. The Air Traffic Controllers decide to take over the transmitter for the Outer Marker and broadcast to the holding aircraft. The entire premise of the movie, is that shutting down the communications of an airport, will leave the overhead aircraft helpless and uninformed. Thornberg occasionally talks into the wrong end of the skyphone in the toilet. The map does not indicate a body of water adjacent to the church. While on the ground an ejection seat would not be able to eject the person high enough for the parachute to deploy. Jet fuel burns at a higher temperature than regular gasoline. At that altitude on the landing glide slope, the plane wouldn't yet be over the airport. Colonel Stuart was instrumental in the signing and execution of the military pact between the parties. The moment where McClane ejects from the exploding plane was never particularly believable; a sharp eye today can see that Willis is simply inserted over the footage of the explosion. Plus, I’m not sure the stream left by the fuel leak would be substantial enough to support a flame traveling along its length. Add to that the blast of the jet engines that would blow the fire backwards. The plane would have taxied to a gate or if entirely out of fuel, would have been towed to a gate with a tug. McClane impeding the aileron on the terrorists 747 wouldn't have prevented take off, since they are used to turn the plane. Colonel Stuart quotes Alexandre Dumas saying "I think Cardinal Richelieu said it best: 'Treason is merely a matter of dates'" however this quote is from The Count of Monte Cristo, not from The Three Musketeers and the quote goes "The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates". It is impossible for John McClane to hit Esperanza's face from the ground when he opens the door of his air transport after landing. This pistol is an Austrian-made Glock model 17. McClane climbs out the elevator escape hatch before the elevator stops and it is met by two airport police officers. The baseball style hand grenades used to blow up the military transport with McClane on board have a fuse burn of about 5-7 seconds before detonation. When John McClane enters the airport for the first time and shakes the snow off his jacket you can clearly see that it is sunny outside the doors he enters and you can even see green trees. He is the main antagonist of Die Hard 2. A 747 does not have a fuel dump valve in the pylon (engine mount). When the next SWAT Officer No 4 is killed, SWAT Officer No 3 is then seen still "alive" crouching on the right side of the switched off moving walkway shooting at the terrorist he just killed. Die Hard 2 is the action entertainment film taken to an art form. McClane ducks for cover as Leslie Barnes, Trudeau, and Carmine Lorenzo watch in horror. Physics of Plane Explosion in Die Hard 2. Nevertheless, any mechanism would have to be removed and the movie answer is merely to switch magazines which couldn't possibly work. This would serve to notify the crew that there was imminent danger. But as the elevator doors open, the two officers are already looking UP into the elevator, as if they knew McClane was gone, even before the doors opened. Throughout the outside scenes, there was no breath exhaust in what was obviously freezing weather with the snow falling. The decision to name a fake airline "Windsor" reveals a lack of awareness of British history. Then when John utters his famed expletive and lights the fuel trail ablaze, the line of fire that follows the plane down the runway is seen to follow the #3 (RIGHT inboard) engine. Colonel Stuart is almost unanimously regarded as the craziest of all the Die Hard terrorists. After McLane's airport shootout with the mercenaries, Lorenzo accuses him of violating five District of Columbia regulations. Given that high octane fuel is even less explosive than regular auto fuel I’d think it’d resist combustion even more. The outer marker is a beacon 5 to 7 miles off the end of the runway. | Early on during his extradition when Esperanza speaks to the soldier guarding him, they converse in Spanish as do the pilots, however later on when Esperanza is hijacking the plane they mysteriously converse in English. In the Annex Sky-Walk shoot out a SWAT Officer No 3 kills a terrorist next to the payphones, he himself is then killed and falls backwards into the switched off moving walkway. With the door opening inward, the door is pressed up against the frame so it is impossible for the door to open in-flight. Dulles Airport is actually in Loudon County, Va., about 25 miles West of Washington D.C. The terrorists board their 747 via an airstair. Prior to the Windsor flight crash, the airport runway seems to be completely covered with snow due to the storm, however, the view outside cockpit window immediately before the plane "crashes into the concrete" clearly shows the runway markings. The aircraft depicted in the film does not exist. Glock pistols were the first with a polymer frame to be widely marketed, and this was a common misconception at the time. Wait, wrong series again. so its possible. To show that it's loaded with blanks, McClane shoots the Heckler & Koch MP5A3 at Chief Lorenzo The next time it's seen, during the end credits, it's a Boeing 747. After Grant is sucked into the plane engine, subsequent shots show it clean of any blood or gore. (Though Nero is Italian by birth, he was raised in Northern Italy near the boarder France, which explains why an Italian might have French inflections in his speech). Wager's novel was adapted for the film by American screenwriters Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson. On the incredibly remote chance that the fuel did light, the stream of fuel would burn far too slowly to ever catch up to a 747 traveling at take off speed (roughly 155 knots or 180 mph). I believe I read that unlike gasoline, liquid jet fuel needs to be pressurized to explode. When the first flight is brought down at 200 foot lower when approaching the runway the view from the pilots windows show tarmac while outer shots its clear that the runway is covered in snow. are either semiautomatic or fully automatic, must be blank adapted in order to cycle. The 'Die Hard' Films - Part 2 : Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) d. Renny Harlin, 124 minutes . And since Esperanza's plane is coming in from the sea this discrepancy can't be explained by that runway simply being closer to the airport than that which the plane from London comes in on. It is night outside, and the light from the landing lights wouldn't shine directly down the manhole. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. In fact, any Flight Service station transmitter, airport, aircraft radio shop, or aircraft, within fifty miles, could have alerted those pilots of the situation. Connections Literally, there would be hundreds of radios in the area, that could be used to end the terrorist plot. The fire from the earlier crash couldn't be used the same way because there was no fire trail marking out the direction of runway. All firearms that 'autoload', i.e. When McClane enters the baggage handling area following the "bad guys", you see the conveyor belts moving luggage and interspersed are pipes with steam 'venting' sprays. First the aircraft's fuselage acts as a Faraday cage, which hampers such transmissions. Die Hard 2 might have a different setting from the first one, but it still was astonishing. Furthermore, it would make more sense for the Fuji Air plane to be a 747, because in real life, a Tristar could never fly nonstop to Dulles Airport from anywhere in Japan. When Barnes asks about contacting the planes through the air phones, one of the other ATCs informs him that of the 18 planes circling the airport, only 5 of them have air phones, and that they were able to get through to 3 of them through that means, leaving 2 others. The model used for the destruction of General Esperanza's plane is missing the door. There would be no reason to perform an evacuation considering there was no mechanical problem with the plane. As you look in the L-1011 of Northeast (Holly's plane), there is a Boeing 747-200 panel in it, so there are four throttles in the plane, but L-1011's have only three engines. Esperanza's aircraft is a Fairchild-Hiller C-123 Provider, a twin-piston-engined aircraft with NO jet engines. During the scene with McClane in the tower talking to the Air Traffic Controller and the Police Chief, there is an obvious overdub in TV versions with a completely separate voice and obvious audio/visual mismatch. Additionally, any manhole cover which could be lifted by one person would easily be crushed by a plane. When McClane shows Trudeau and Lorenzo the printout detailing Sgt. This is not possible because the ILS system uses antennas mounted on the ground around the runway which send out signals to the receiving plane. (at around 1h 45 mins) As McClane rolls along the tarmac after being kicked off the wing of the plane, there are tire tracks in the snow from the camera vehicle (and not, as would be expected, from the aircraft). In the Annex Sky-Walk shootout Mclane pushes scaffolding over killing a terrorist. If you look closely at the flight boards when the flight times are being changed to "Delayed", in the second scene of the flight board close-up, Auckland is misspelled as Aukland. When he main character ignites the trail of fuel, it would have been impossible for the fire to catch up to the plane which is going at full throttle down the runway. The camera flips away and back again, and this time there's snow on his jacket again. No professional paramedic, having known what Thornburg had been up to on his flight or not, would leave an injured man in the snow and attend to other people who do not require assistance. That's indicates that the holster is a US Army issue holster, something a Latin soldier should not have. HOWEVER, since this question is really about physics, I thought it should go here…. Such receivers are limited to a specific set of channels / frequencies and cannot be tuned to an airport band. While normal practice would have been to use an internal plug to get automatic rifles firing blanks to cycle, which would make the weapon explode when shifting to live ammo, Stuart's team could have devised another mechanism. Wireless microphones are channelized, and the receivers cannot be tuned around, much less would he know where to tune. 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