After just watching, for only the 3rd time & in a compilation, this brilliantly realized retelling of 1 of the most horrific battles for survival in the skies above - surpassing the struggles aboard United Airlines Flight 93 only in length of time - I had to insert a wee bit of Flintstonian humor in the subject line to offset some the still present fright at what this crew endured at the mitts of a madman. I wonder that a cinematic treatment - ye bigger budget, Big Name actors & such - could approach the edge-of-the-couch absorbing setup on this smaller:screen level. I count it among the very best of Air Disasters retellings, its superb visual effects - from the recreated plane including the original Federal Express paint job (I still call that outfit thus, from being of the old school as well as not happy at all with its truncated version insulting the Washington Redskins stadium & that corporate pig outfit putting the arm on the disgraceful "owner" to change our name) & the beyond belief fight to the death aboard that airplane. Knowing the happy outcome aside, it still is nearly as difficult to watch as the nightmares of September 11th - only, to misappropriate the lyrics of a heartbreaking tearjerker song decades past, "I ain't (cr)ying" about this one. The pounding heart, quickened near panicked breathing & popped eyes, though, are exactly the same. Recalling also the sadly different end to the hijacked Pacific Southwest Flight 1771, that one like with Tue, Sept 11, 2001 I sure wept over. These subjects are rarely of the "feel good" variety, & the retellings not "perfect" sometimes in certain, & critical details (I was absolutely outraged over the depiction of the 5/25/79 unspeakable tragedy of AA Flight 191 at O'Hare Airport as having "first slammed into an airport hangar" & "2 workers" therein also losing their lives), but the efforts of all concerned to inform the public are to be lauded & commended for their sincerity - & ability to wring pained scared tears out of their audience to leave what I've heard about & seen of depictions of old '50s soap operas wheels-up in the ditch in comparison. We cannot do anything about historical airborne events beyond wishing they could have been different (& I do not mean *worse* as some deviants among us would have it), & hope mightily for fewer such incidents hence - I was overjoyed at the news of that Air Bus outfit discontinuing their giant, amazing A380, which lessened the dread possibilities of 1 going down with enough souls onboard to surpass the Tenerife disaster by itself - & be info-edutained by the stories in this production, which ain't "long-running" from well-placed bribes & slick gift certificates. Safest & happiest air travel to all!
