When the aircraft is shown taking off, it is a 737-200, as the engines are long and thin, whereas a 767 has wider engines
When Maurice Quintal leaves the cockpit after the initial resolution of the pump failure, he is seen to chat with a flight attendant in the galley. At this time, his epaulettes show four stripes. At all other times they show three. Other shots show that the epaulettes being worn, are (unusually) reversable, with a four bar side and a three bar side. He simply got his upside down.
The captain moves the stick forwards, yet the pitch indicator shows that the plane begins climbing.
Prior to the breakdown of flight 174, the altimeter in the cockpit reads 21,960 feet. The next shot shows the ATC radar screen, with the altitude of flight 174 reading 33,500 feet.
During the landing, the shots from the inside of the cockpit show the landing surface being a black strip with no marks or lines. The shots from the outside of the plane show however a light gray runway with white lines and marks.
The aircraft cabin is obviously not that of a Boeing 767, with its 2-3-2 seating arrangement in economy class. It looks as though an existing set representing a 747 (3-4-3) was used.
Winnipeg's air traffic control centre still had available the old radar that did not require a working transponder on the aircraft. When the plane disappeared as its power failed, the controller only needed to switch his display to that radar (and in the actual event, did so).
In the instant before the aircraft touches down at Gimli, the altimeter needle is winding down very close to zero feet. However, altimeters display mean sea level (MSL), not above ground level (AGL). The elevation at Gimli is 760' MSL, so the altimeter needle should have been pointing slightly above 760' at that moment. In fact, very few airports in the world sit at 0' MSL. For reference, the world's lowest-lying international airports are New Orleans (4' MSL) and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, which is actually 11 feet below sea level.
Since the former Gimli air base was still in use by small planes, detailed information about it should have been (and was, in the actual event - see trivia entry) available at the Winnipeg airport.
Throughout, in straight and level flight, the Primary Flight Displays show a steep climb.
While the Ram Air Turbine can be deployed manually, it will deploy automatically in the event of a double engine failure when the N2 (second stage compressor) RPM percentage on both engines drops below 47%.
A Lexus is shown at the airport. Lexus didn't exist in 1983.
At the beginning one of the characters is seen arriving in a Lexus and even though the movie was set in 1983, Lexus didn't come into being until 1989.
In one scene , a passenger speaks into his tape recorder and says "Alicia, remind those airheads in Travel never to book me on a flight that has no Airfones". The film is set during mid-1983, but Airfones were not first available on commercial flights until the fall of 1984 (according to a New York Times article dated 10/15/84). Even then they were still very rare and almost prohibitively expensive: $7.50 for a three-minute phone call (equivalent to $18.67 in 2020 dollars).
First Officer Maurice Quintal was only 36 years old at the time of the incident, but the actor portraying him (Scott Hylands) was in his early 50s at the time of filming.
Although the film is set in 1983, most of the actors in the film have clothing and hairstyles which are clearly indicative of mid-90s fashion, which is when principal photography took place. The film's producers appeared to make little or no effort to accurately reflect the time period in this particular respect.
From 1979-1986, Quebec license plates displayed both month and year stickers in the bottom corners of the plates. The Quebec license plate visible on a car in the driveway is missing both of these stickers.