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This movie was inspired by the real 1971 helicopter rescue and breakout of Joel David Kaplan from a Mexican prison which was orchestrated by lawyer Vasilios Basil Choulos. Film Critic Roger Ebert has said of this: "Kaplan was the scion of an American sugar-and-molasses empire with Latin American connections, and in the early 1960s, he was a courier for Fidel Castro. The Mexicans imprisoned him in 1962 on a highly questionable murder charge, and there were rumors that the C.I.A. was somehow involved. He was in prison nine years before his sister hired a California helicopter pilot to carry out a neat little mission spiriting Kaplan out of the prison yard. Ramparts published material about the C.I.A. connection, but Kaplan wouldn't talk, then or later. The movie's naturally more concerned with the rescue mission, than with any shadowy political implications. But there are a couple of leftovers from the original story in the sinister persons of a C.I.A. operative and the hero's rich grandfather. They seem to be in cahoots, although how or why is a little unclear."

The airport that Nick flies out of is located in Texas, but the surrounding countryside is covered with Joshua trees, which are only found in the Mohave desert of Southern Calif, the Southern tip of Nevada and Northwestern area of Arizona.

Opening credits prologue: MEXICO 1971

Featured in Kain's Quest: The Stone Killer (2015)