Why a disastrous 1979 film about the Concorde became a cult classic of silliness
In short: The final installment of the Airport disaster franchise, The Concorde... Airport '79, was a critical failure that flopped in North America. Yet, its relentless absurdity and unintentional comedy turned it into a beloved relic of high-stakes camp, proving that sometimes being the worst is actually the best.
Released in 1979, the film follows a corrupt arms dealer who repeatedly attempts to destroy a Concorde to silence a reporter. The production was notoriously difficult, requiring years of negotiation with Air France to secure the aircraft. Behind the scenes, the set was plagued by ego clashes, including star Alain Delon demanding the director's larger trailer, and allegations of misogynistic behavior from director David Lowell Rich.
The film's technical production relied on clever workarounds. Because the white model Concorde reflected the blue screen during compositing, the team painted it a yellow primer color, filtering the hue out later. To add detail, they used sharpened number eleven exacto blades as antennas, which served as a sharp warning to handlers. Despite these efforts, critics savaged the plot, with Roger Ebert famously deriding the scene where a pilot fires a flare gun out of a cockpit window.
While the film earned $65 million globally against a $14 million budget, its North American performance of roughly $13 million effectively ended the Airport franchise's financial dominance. The film's legacy is now defined by its inclusion in lists of 'enjoyably bad' movies. Ironically, the specific aircraft used for filming, F-BTSC, met a tragic end in 2000 when it crashed as Air France Flight 4590, killing everyone on board.
The plot features a cargo door failure that mirrors the real-world Turkish Airlines Flight 981 accident from 1974. Whether this was intentional inspiration or a grim coincidence remains unknown. Regardless, the film remains a singular artifact of 1970s disaster cinema, remembered less for its narrative coherence and more for its breakneck pace and total disregard for physical plausibility.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Concorde... Airport '79
- Also: Wikidata — The Concorde ... Airport '79 · CC0
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