It's hard to imagine a movie about a real-life airline disaster that claimed the lives of 112 people could be uplifting and inspiring, but that's exactly what "Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232" is.
Because as horrible as the 1989 accident in Sioux City, Iowa was, it could have been much worse. Through the heroic efforts of emergency personnel in Sioux City and the flight crew, 194 people were rescued from the wreckage of the broken and burning DC-10."The significant part of the whole event was not the people who died, but the people who were saved. And the people who saved them. That's what the movie is about," said Charlton Heston, who stars as the pilot of the ill-fated flight, Al Haynes.
"We drew on resources from 40 communities. We estimate about a thousand people initially responded to the emergency, including the military resources that were available to us," said Gary Brown, the man who oversaw the rescue effort.
As a matter of fact, the original title of the movie (before some network executives took a meeting), was "A Thousand Heroes."
"I still like that title an awful lot better," Heston said.
"Hear, hear," chimed in James Coburn, who plays Jim Hathaway, the chief of the Sioux City airport fire department.
Briefly, what happened was this - a United flight en route to Chicago lost its engine and all of its hydraulic systems, making it virtually impossible to maneuver the plane. Haynes managed to bring the DC-10 to a small airport in Sioux City, but it cart-wheeled, broke into pieces and burned on impact. (The movie combines actual news footage of the crash with a re-creation.)
Initially, it appeared no one could have survived the disaster. But because of long years of preparedness and drilling, emergency services managed to save more than 60 percent of those on board.
"This particular event galvanized that community and cemented it in a way that was uncommon," Coburn said. "The emotional impact of having had to deal with as much death and as much injury as there was was still marked on people's faces.
"And many people, as they talked about it with us, had tears in their eyes, or couldn't talk or had to move away. And that was something that kept us from wallowing or exploiting the otherwise morbid possibilities of the situation."
Not surprisingly, almost immediately movie producers began vying for the rights to film a movie about the crash.
"The smoke hadn't hardly settled from the crash when we got the first call from a Hollywood movie producer," Brown said.
What convinced the locals to go with this particular set of producers was the decision to concentrate on the rescue, rather than on the crash. And as a continued symbol of the community's solidarity, individuals were not paid for their participation - all the rights fees went toward funding rescue operations in the Sioux City area.
"Crash Landing" was filmed in Sioux City, and the cast and crew found themselves with more than just cooperation from the locals.
"For every actor we had on the set, there was a real person standing not more than a few yards away, which could be a daunting experience at first," said Richard Thomas, who portrays Brown in the movie. "And yet, the extraordinary thing about it was that not only was it not an obstacle, but it became an extraordinary support team."
Many of those who actually assisted in the rescue are in the movie. For example, of the three men who drag Heston out of the mock-up of the cockpit, two dragged Haynes out of the actual cockpit. And in another scene, clergymen who were on the scene of the accident returned for the filming.
"And in between takes of one scene, as I was walking by, an Episcopal priest who was performing last rites over the body of a child looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, `This is an extraordinary experience for us, because we did not have the opportunity to grieve ourselves over this. We were so busy helping people deal with their own grief,' " Thomas said. "And he said he thought it was a very healing experience for him."
That theme of healing is one that was played out again and again during the making of the movie, according to the actors and producers.
Even crusty Jim Hathaway himself found some measure of healing. During the course of the rescue, one of his tanker trucks broke down. The fire chief was convinced that the breakdown cost several lives - and he blamed himself for the failure.
In a letter to the producers, Hathaway wrote, "You will never know how much working with you and reliving the 232 events has helped. It is like a great weight has been lifted from our shoulders. I'm proud to have known and worked with you all."