Crisis in Mid-Air

Crisis in Mid-air is a 1979 US made for TV movie. Unlike other airport disaster movies popular in the 1970s, it concentrates on the stresses at Air Traffic Control. The film was shot partially on location at the LA Terminal Area/Approach Radar Control (TRACON).^[1][2]

Plot

The film starts with Nick Galver having a nightmare: a military pilot intentionally switching off his transponder signal is intruding into the airspace of civilian flights Nick is controlling, causing an air collision. He wakes up terrified and his wife Betsy advises him to see a doctor, and to find a less stressful job.

Nick, an LA Air Traffic Controller, in his late 50s, feels trapped in his job. The stress is affecting his mental and physical health. He is driven to prove himself despite his years. His nightmare turns real as he experiences an accident similar to his dream. After the incident, the civilian flight passengers are all dead, and the military pilot has bailed out, survived, and is lying during the inquiry. As a final hearing approaches, Nick’s career is in danger. He smokes and drinks coffee incessantly, and begins to take pills to calm 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. Denver who is appointed 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 Nick gets on the bus neutralizing him and drives the bus away clearing the runway while the landing plane is missing it by inches.

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 life.^[3]

Cast

• George Peppard as Air Traffic Controller Nick Galver
• Karen Grassle as his wife Betsy
• Desi Arnaz, Jr. as young Air Traffic Controller Donovan
• Dana Elcar as the Head of the Civil Aviation Authority in LA TRACON
• Martin Milner as Dr Denver
• Fabian Forte as Billy Coleman

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 had followed for a month the shifts at LA TRACON, to realistically portray the stresses of their work.

The air traffic scenes at LA are very impressive and well shot. The types of aircraft include many of those flying in the 70s with quite a variety of air companies that use the LA aerodrome till today. The call sign of the air company used in the scenario for the flight GL802, although real on the radar screen, corresponds to a fictitious one, called GLOBOL in the film

Reception

The film was the 57th most popular program of the week it aired.^[4]

References

1. ↑ Crisis in Mid-air at New York Times (from All Movie Guide)
2. ↑ Crisis in Mid-air at Film.com
3. ↑ Crisis in Mid-Air at Fabianforte.net
4. ↑ 'Roots II' Places 9th With 41% of Audience Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 21 Feb 1979: f18.

External links

• Crisis in Mid-Air at the Internet Movie Database
• Crisis in Mid Air at TCMDB