"Is everything all right?" the flight attendant asks the little boy in the window seat. "I don't think so," the boy says, pointing. "Up there."
Up there? Up there is a quickly expanding crack in the ceiling. It gets much, much worse. In another moment, a 20-foot section of the fuselage rips off and disintegrates, turning the Boeing 737 into a convertible and pelting the passengers and crew with roaring wind and flying debris.One person died and scores were injured in the incident, rivetingly re-enacted in Miracle Landing (Sunday at 8 p.m., Ch. 5). This being the February Sweeps, it airs opposite another hot-ticket item, part one of the miniseries "Blind Faith" on NBC.
Pictures of the aircraft with part of its top torn away flashed around the world in April, 1988, causing a nearly universal boost in the fear of flying - one of the most reasonable fears known to the human race. Metal fatigue was blamed for the mishap; inspection and maintenance procedures were supposedly stepped up worldwide in the aftermath.
"Miracle Landing" is a no-nonsense, high-tension TV movie about a calamity that, obviously, could have had a much more tragic ending. It tells the story in a straightforward way with little gingerbread or folderol, and watching it, you may feel as immobilized as the helpless, strapped-in passengers were.
Many of the real names of people involved are used: Wayne Rogers plays Capt. Bob Schornstheimer, and the beautiful Connie Selleca is the copilot, Mimi Tompkins. As if having the roof blow off wasn't enough, the pilots lost an engine, were unable to contact their own flight attendants, and thought they were facing a landing without use of the plane's nose gear.
As they heard from the control tower in Maui, the nose gear was down after all. But emergency rescue workers and air-traffic controllers waiting at the airport feared that on landing, the limping plane, loaded with fuel, might cartwheel and become a spinning fireball.
The brave, resourceful flight attendants are played by Ana-Alicia, Nancy Kwan and Jane Sato-Tomita. One name that has been changed for the film is the name of the airline. Aloha Airlines flight 243 has become Paradise Airlines flight 243. But the plane is still identified as a Boeing 737.
In a strange way, the story might have the effect of boosting confidence in the aircraft, because it was able to fly (albeit for a short distance) and land even though it had literally come apart at the seams.
About 35 minutes into the film, all hell - and the top of the plane - break loose during the otherwise routine commuter flight from Hilo to Honolulu. The special effects for the film are very good; even when the preview tape was rewound and played back in slow motion, it really did look like the plane had blown its top.
Suddenly, many of the passengers are right out there amongst the clouds. In some shots they look more like survivors in a lifeboat than passengers on a jet plane. Many of the details are grimly true-to-life; yes, one man did complete the flight with a portion of the fuselage stapled to the side of his head.
"Miracle Landing" will make almost every traveler's most-horrible-flight look like a stroll along the beach by comparison.
Partly because the actual crisis in the sky lasted only about 15 minutes, the filmmakers do have to pad things out a bit. Unfortunately they fall back on the flashback, that cinematic antique used in such classic Hollywood disaster pictures as "The High and the Mighty."
So, soon after the rupture of the fuselage, Rogers drifts into a reverie about his experiences as an Air Force flight instructor in 1972. Later, Selleca daydreams of a time in Port Arthur, Texas, 20 years earlier when she was piloting a Piper Cub.
Good grief, we don't want to go down memory lanes. We want to know what happened in that plane at those moments. At least most other cliches are avoided. When passengers get hysterical - and who can blame them? - no one slaps them in the face to straighten them up.
Rogers and Selleca are first-rate, as are the actresses playing the flight attendants. The passengers are just little sketches and outlines, but they seem believable. One is a big fat guy (Albert Lee) who needs a seatbelt extension and greets people by saying, "Hi, I'm Tui. Dance at the Leekee-Leekee. Ever see me?"
It's only a matter of time before Tui will find himself riveted to his seat.
And so, most likely, will you.
(c) 1990, Washington Post Writers Group