It must have been this movie that the makers of Airplane (1980) knew well. There is so much Zero Hour! in Airplane - it was spooky. The characters, names, spoken lines, plot, food ilness.
Airplane (1980) is just Zero Hour! (1957) made into a comedy.
Posted on 05/22/2026 9:49:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
(The Daily Caller)—A United Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Thursday after an incident involving an unruly passenger.
The individual attempted to open a plane door at 36,000 feet and assaulted another passenger, the New York Post reported. The flight took off from Newark Liberty International Airport and was headed to Guatemala City when it had to make an unanticipated landing less than two hours after departure.
United Airlines Flight 1551 landed safely at Washington Dulles International Airport around 8:30 p.m. local time Thursday after the crew reported a passenger disturbance, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight had 145 passengers and six crew members on board, and no injuries were reported in the incident, United Airlines said in a statement sent to the DCNF.
The flight was canceled, with a replacement flight added for Friday morning, and customers were provided overnight accommodations, United Airlines told the DCNF in a statement.
Additional details about what led to the incident have not been released, ABC reported.
Passengers who are unruly can face legal action and civil penalties up to $43,658 per violation. Passengers may face criminal charges for disruptive or violent behavior, the FAA told the DCNF in a statement.
Over 600 unruly passenger incidents have occurred so far in 2026, according to the FAA’s website.
The pressure inside the plane at seven miles altitude should be too much for human arm strength to budge an inwardly opening hatch.
Gotta get down to one mile, open it, and through the perp right out.
Then button up and resume the flight plan.
The new reality
It must have been this movie that the makers of Airplane (1980) knew well. There is so much Zero Hour! in Airplane - it was spooky. The characters, names, spoken lines, plot, food ilness.
Airplane (1980) is just Zero Hour! (1957) made into a comedy.
That’s pretty common knowledge that they based much of Airplane! on Zero Hour.
Now if you want a blatant rip-off, look at Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” vs “Sword of Gideon”.
Shatner really should be on the no-fly list by now.
Wait a minute...took off from Newark and took 2 hours to get to DC?
That is weird. But yesterday LaGuardia had a sinkhole in a runway so flights had to be diverted to other airports, so Newark and DC and all the others in the region were backed up. Flights were probably circling for an hour...That may be the cause.............
“Wait a minute...took off from Newark and took 2 hours to get to DC?”
They didn’t take the short route.
They may have been too heavy to land and circled to burn fuel.
Yep...........
Took the great circle route!😀
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