In the scene on board a Pan Am flight, when the pilot touches the stewardess' back, he's seen wearing a black cap. Pan Am flight crew's caps had always been white.
23 minutes into the movie is a clip of the Pan Am airplane in flight with port and starboard lights reversed.
The plaques and citations in Hebrew hanging on Ari's wall have glaring spelling mistakes and use of bad computer-generated translations to Hebrew.
The small "computer" on CIA Agent Bowen's desk is actually a TDD (Telecommunication Device for the Deaf). This model, Krown 200 LVD, wasn't introduced until the late 1980s.
At the CIA office, the desktop computers used by the staff are Apple II/II Plus/IIe with DuoDisk accessory. DuoDisk was introduced in 1983.
Notice the computers aren't plugged for power and for connecting with DuoDisk and monitors.
Notice the computers aren't plugged for power and for connecting with DuoDisk and monitors.
The movie takes place in 1979-80. At the resort, the guests are heard singing "Hungry Like the Wolf" from Duran Duran. This song was not released until the band's second album, in 1982.
In the Khartoum, he asks the border guard "What's the issue?" In the late 1970s, the misuse of the word "issue" to mean "problem" had not yet become in vogue (which wouldn't happen until the mid-1990s).
Pam Am only took delivery of the Boeing 737 shown in the movie in 1982.
When the Israeli officers are studying the maps of Africa at the beginning of the movie, one of them says that Ethiopia has no seashore. Ethiopia became a landlocked country only in 1993, when the coastal region of Eritrea gained her independence. Until then, Ethiopia had a coast on the Red Sea.
The character Sammy Navon (MD) asks did the "soldier" who was shot in the excursion make it or not to Ethan Levin. The operators in that particular operation were Israeli counterparts of Navy SEALs, thus, Navy personnel, and should be called "sailor", not "soldier".