Mid-Air Crash (TV)

Mid-Air Crash was a film made for the US TV produced in 1975. Although another one of these airport disaster style movies rather popular in the middle of the 70s, it concentrates on the stress involved in Air Traffic Control. The environment used is the LA Terminal Area/Approach Radar Control. (TRACON) and many shots are coming from inside the real working places that the actors are known to have studied before the shooting.

Production

*Producer Roger Lewis
*Director of photography John Nickolaus
*Script by Sean Baine
*Art Director Walter Grauman
*Music Bob Drasnin

Cast

*George Peppard as Air Traffic Controller Nick Galver
*Denise du Barry as his wife Betsy
*Desi Arnaz, Jr. - son of Lucille Ball - as young Air Traffic Controller Donovan
*Dana Elcar as the Head of the Civil Aviation Authority in LA TRACON

*Martin Milner as Dr Denver

Plot

The film starts with Nick Galver in the middle of a nightmare: a military pilot intentionally switching off his transponder signal is intruding into the controlled airspace of civilian flights Nick is controlling causing an air collision. He wakes up in sweat and his worried wife Betsy advises him to see a doctor. She complains and asks him to find a job with less stress.

The dialogue is indicative of the situation. Nick, an LA Air Traffic Controller, at his late 50s , is trapped in the jaws of his particular job. The constant stress is derailing his mental balance and near the far end of his career his physical strength betrays him. Yet, the lot of experience he has and his self-confidence push him to prove he can still make it.His nightmare is, however, a piece of reality as he is involved in the accident he was dreaming but while the civilian flight passengers are dead the military pilot has finally bailed out and survived but he tells lies during the inquiry. In few days the final hearing will come and Nick’s career is in danger. He is smoking one cigarette after another he drinks tons of coffee and then takes pills to calm down his nerves.

There follows a confrontation with the authorities employee charged with the inquiry who is trying to frame him believing the accident was the Air Traffic Control’s mistake but Nick replies back to him that it is because this employee was a previously rejected Controller of the service that he tries to retaliate picking on him

The stress continues at work. A young Controller, Donovan, is posted to LA after some service in Chicago and he will be his instructor. The two generations clash each other strongly. The young is more relaxed and not conscious of the particular difficulties he may face while the older and experienced knows that any moment can produce a situation that pushes adrenaline to its highest. There is also a young lady cadet controller that is not fit for the job; she nearly arrives to produce a collision saved last minute by Nick who grabbed the microphone himself to save the situation while his face reflects his tremendous anxiety.

The climax of stress arrives with the psychologist Dr. Donovan who is instructed by the Head of the Civil Aviation Authority in LA to watch closely the controllers as some of them are reported to have problems and there is fear for consequences on the air safety. His presence increases the stress as everyone knows that if detected to be mentally unstable he will lose his job. Nick explains to him all the tricks of the trade and why even rules have to bend to allow traffic to keep on going instead of queuing for long periods on the ground.

The accumulated anxiety will push his wife to abandon their home while the hearing day approaches. In the mean time an aerodrome worker that became insane after a cab driver killed his child is searched by the police and while trying to escape armed in a bus he destroys the radar installations. In the operations room the Controllers will have to continue without radar using their memory and information on paper strips alone. At this crucial moment he works together with Donovan who does handle the case successfully supported by the strength of his youth. Nick is then informed that Betsy is on a flight already in the air at this moment that experiences an engine failure and has to land immediately. In the chaos created Nick trusts Donovan on the controlling position and he rushes himself in the airfield to provide help. The bus with the insane armed worker blocks the runway but he gets on the bus neutralizing him and drives the bus away clearing the landing area for the flight in danger.

Betsy returns to his arms after escaping the danger and at this moment the administration employee comes and tells him that after a technical check the pilot was blamed for switching off his device, therefore Nick is ‘off the hook’. Nick then turns to Betsy promising to quit his post and return to a normal wife

Features

Despite a number of films that have shown the inside of Air Traffic Control work, this one is the most distinctive ever in its realism and accuracy, when most of the others involve fictitious scenes of very often implausible and highly inaccurate content. Peppard is acting so genuinely that gives the impression he was a Controller himself before becoming an actor.