Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771 (Movie review)
Jay (Scott Bakula), realizing he is lost
Imagine flying for more than 14 hours non-stop over the Pacific Ocean. You see nothing but the ocean blue around you. You try to contact your landing airport… Nothing. Then you realize you are lost in the middle of nowhere… and you’re on a Cessna airplane. Your only hope is the determined Captain of a commercial flight nearby (or believed to be) to help you. This is what the made-for-TV movie Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771, based on a true story, is all about. The movie is known as The Flight from Hell in Australia and New Zealand.
Plot summary
Jay Parkins (Scott Bakula) is something of a daredevil flyer. At the beginning of the movie, he is making, along with his flight partner Frank (Alan Fletcher) a helicopter crop duster demonstration, as he is flying too high, the farmer in charge asks him to fly lower. So he does… almost touching the ground and right after, passing under… a bridge with the helicopter. You guessed it, they got fired!
Back at home in San Francisco, Jay meets his wife Ellen (Rebecca Rigg), pregnant, and they make a lot of projects for the baby who spends his time resting or… kicking! In the meantime, Gordon Vette (Robert Loggia), Captain for Air New Zealand, does an energetic complain to his superior about his friend, First Officer Ross Mann (Michael Bishop), who has not yet been promoted as a Captain. Gordon is a veteran and has been working for 33 years on Air New Zealand. He plans to either retire or BE retired, and have more time with his wife (Sarah Kemp).
Meanwhile, Jay and Frank are called by Harry Hanson (Robert Benedetti), their supervisor, for a very special flight. They will be in charge of delivering two crop dusters to Sydney by Christmas. They will have to fly the leg by making stopovers at Honolulu, Pago Pago, Norfolk Island, and finally Sydney. The trip seems dangerous, but Hansen reassures the pilots, telling them they are experienced with this kind of situation. And it sounds like a very lucrative assignment.
The two cropdusters, flying out of San Francisco
Jay goes back home and discusses about it with his wife, who doesn’t seem to agree to put his life in danger just for the money. After much vain reassuring, Jay finally flies the morning after with Frank, who takes off quite roughly because of the fuel quantity higher than usual in the wings. Both pilots will be guided by the ADF just installed on both planes… with masking tape!
The flights to Honolulu and Pago Pago are very smooth. On Christmas morning at Pago Pago, Jay, piloting the Cessna registered as N30771 (callsign Cessna 771), takes-off with no major problems. But Frank cannot lift the plane. He reaches the end of the runway, stalls and crashes in the sea near the airport. Frank is okay and escapes before the torn Cessna turns into a fireball. Jay doesn’t want to fly alone anymore and proposes, by radio, to stop the journey and get back to San Francisco. Frank disagrees and convinces Jay to fly lonely to earn the money for the baby. He finally does, but unaware of a “small” problem.
Somewhere else, a little later, Air New Zealand flight 308 is on final boarding process at the Nadi International Airport in Fiji. A group of children travelling with their chaperone “invades” the jetliner, but besides that, it is very calm with only 88 passengers. Among the flight crew, there is Captain Gordon Vette, First Officer Ross Mann and Captain Warren Banks (Kit Taylor) on the two-hour ride to Auckland. Flight NZ308 finally takes-off quietly and climbs to cruising altitude.
At the same time, Cessna 771 is supposedly flying over Norfolk Island, at North of New Zealand. Jay tries to contact Norfolk Tower… but nothing. No answer. He looks at the ADF and the needle indicates the same heading he is flying into, near South West. But he pushes the glass and the needle spins to a new heading. This can only mean one thing: the ADF was not working properly and Jay has diverted from his original route. He contacts Auckland Center on his HF radio to find some help.
Frank's plane exploding after the crash
The rescue planes are far away at Auckland Airport and they are not able to leave at the moment. There are no ships nearby. The only plane in the air space is Air New Zealand flight 308. Auckland Center contacts 308 to ask for help, and Capt. Vette agrees to give a hand to the young lost pilot. After a few discussions with him by radio, telling him to save what’s left of fuel, he convinces his flight crew and his passengers to divert the flight and find the pilot.
The problem is that NZ308 is a commercial flight not equipped for the situation. With rudimentary methods, such as the sun orientation and the VHF radio (with a range of 200 nautical miles), the search is hard. Jay slowly loses any hope and is seriously thinking of landing on the water. But if he does, he won’t be found and he is most likely doomed. Will Jay be found by NZ308 before it’s too late?
Appreciation
The action in the movie is at some moments very tense and breath-holding. Loggia and Bakula nicely play their roles, along with the other secondary actors. The audiovisual quality is excellent and the air to air images are magnificent, most likely professional commercial footage. However, that compensates for the “amateur” special effects, that might remind you of the movie Airport. Also, too bad they don’t give many precisions about the real event: no date is given at any time.
I give this movie 8 out of 10.
It is an excellent movie to watch with the family, and will keep you restless at key moments.
Things to notice
Here are the goofs and trivia for Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771.
Capt. Gordon Vette (Robert Loggia)
- In real life, Gordon Vette retired from Air New Zealand in the early eighties (1981 or 1982), so even in the movie, the event should have been depicted before that time, when the Boeing 767 was not yet on commercial service… nor the 747-400s seen at San Francisco, bearing a fresher United Airlines color scheme (larger and more “squeezed” characters).
- Prior to departure, many planes are seen from the cockpit, among them a few Ansett Australia planes bearing the “Australian Flag”, when the action occurred in the early eighties (at the time Ansett used the “Star” livery).
- I see an Australian Airlines plane in the ground cockpit scene at Fiji. Has Australian Airlines ever flown to Fiji? Did it even exist when the incident occurred (early eighties)? Or was it still called TAA?
- During the cockpit sequence, the engine needles (EPR, N1, N2) in the central video screens do not move, even though Captain Vette applies full thrust.
- Air New Zealand Flight 308 is a Boeing 767-200 in all sequences (mostly stock footage from ANZ), except on take-off when it becomes a Boeing 737-200, and at the Auckland Airport apron, where it is a Boeing 737-300/400 of Australian Airlines. The titles are barely visible since the scene is at night. Additionally, the hangar where Vette challenges one of his supervisors, in one of the first scenes, hosts a couple of Australian Airlines aircraft, minus titles.
- In all the daylight sequences, the clouds seen from the inside the cockpit of the 767 are perfectly still. A poster was probably used. For the night sequences however, the clouds really move. In the case of the Cessna, the clouds from the outside are moving, but the use of background film is obvious.
- The First Officer touches too many random and irrelevant buttons during the flight operations. For example, he sets the autopilot heading or course during the very final approach!
- The take-off cockpit sequence was done (obviously) in a flight simulator.
You may be interested to know that…
Air New Zealand flight 308 changing course
- As shown during the taxi sequence, the aircraft was christened “Aotearoa”, which is the Maori name of New Zealand and means “land of the long white cloud”. It is one of the first 767-200s used by Air New Zealand. This can be noticed as the plane taxies to the runway… before it becomes a 737-200.
- The major airport in the American Samoa is in a city called Pago Pago, which is actually pronounced “Pango Pango”, as accurately depicted by the actors. The same thing can be said about Nadi, in Fiji, which is pronounced “Nandi”.
- When the air traffic controller stands up to warn Hudson about the Cessna declaring an emergency, you can see, right above his radar scope, a bumper sticker saying: “I ♥ AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL”.
Here are the main differences between the real event and the movie depiction. This information comes from Stanley Stewart’s excellent book Emergency! Crisis on the Flight Deck.
- Jay departed Pago Pago for Norfolk Island in the night of December 21, 1978, and landed one day later (due to the International Date Change line crossing). The movie depicts his departure (and Frank’s balked departure) as occurring after Christmas Day.
- The only characters that were kept in the movie were Gordon Vette and Jay Prochnow, whose last name in the movie was changed for personal reasons. Both pilots were consultants in the production and appear in a cameo scene at the end of the movie.
- Aboard what was really flight 103 (and not 308), there were also First Officer Arthur Dovey and Second Officer Gordon Brooks (later killed in the Mount Erebus, Antarctica crash on November 28, 1979). An Air New Zealand DC-8 First Officer, Malcolm Forsyth, flying off-duty as a passenger, later joined the three airmen.
- The aircraft was a DC-10-30, registered ZK-NZS, and not a Boeing 767-200 as depicted in the movie. There are two accurate details, however: the flight’s route was indeed a Nadi-Auckland run, and there were really 88 passengers.
- Jay did make the trip all the way to Pago Pago with a fellow pilot, flying a separate Cessna 188 crop duster. The departure from Pago Pago is relatively accurate. The fellow’s plane did experience difficulties on take-off, and its pilot was forced to ditch. It is interesting to note that, in real life, Jay landed back in Pago Pago after his colleague’s ditching. In the movie, Jay is compelled to resume his departure to Norfolk Island immediately after witnessing Frank’s ditching from the air.
- It is believed that, on the second half of the movie, there are several scenes created for dramatic purposes, since the book makes no mention of them at all.
The planes
Flight 308 is a Boeing 767-200 operated by Air New Zealand, flying a Nadi – Auckland route. (NAN-AKL). Cessna 771 is a Cessna crop duster privately owned and operated, flying a San Francisco – Honolulu – Pago Pago – Norfolk Island – Sydney route (SFO-HNL-PPG-NLK-SYD) for a delivery flight.
Movie links
- IMDb – Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771
Trailer, goofs, quotes, trivia and more from the world’s widest movie database. - Navworld – Mayday in December
Recount of the true event that occurred at Christmastime in 1978.
Specifications
U.S.A./New Zealand 1995. Produced by Anasazi Productions. Directed by Roger Young. Starring Robert Loggia, Scott Bakula, Rebecca Rigg, Alan Fletcher. Rated G. Also known as Sauvetage en plein vol (French), SOS über dem Pazifik (German).
UPDATE (Oct. 23, 2010): The real Jay Prochnow comments this movie review and tells the real story (see below).
OMG, it’s such an honor to have Jay comment here! This has been a favorite movie of mine for years, just amazing. I also saw it the first time quite by accident. I tried then to purchase it, back in the VHS days, LOL. And it wasn’t available. Now I see I can finally own it, I am thrilled. It’s honestly my favorite Christmas movie because the story is so incredible. I’m on the edge of my chair every time I see it, even tho I know what happens that moment when the tower tells Jay “we see you” makes my cry! What can I say? Hard to imagine living through that. (And if I was Jay’s wife I would have killed him —- after I kissed him!)
Hi Jay im Cristian Lemcke and i like to contact you.
Im a ferry pilot and i ferried a lot of crop dusters from USA.
how many hours did you fly on that ferry, in the last leg.
I absolutely love this movie. I don’t understand why people feel the need to “pick apart” the inaccuracies in the movie. It is a MOVIE. They always take dramatic license. It doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to portray that this was an extraordinary situation that happily, turned out for the good. I think Scott Bakula is an amazing actor and did an excellent job in this film as he does in everything I have seen him in. Robert Loggia is also one of my favourite actors and I loved him in this movie. I have an uncanny ability to get really immersed in anything I am watching or reading, to the point that I feel I am actually there. Those two did such a great job that I was laughing and crying and sitting on the edge of my seat right along with them.
Excellent movie that I would recommend to anyone!
Yep, it’s me. Just a couple of comments from the “guy on the spot:”
1. A 767 has no fuel dump capability. It’s too bad that they couldn’t use a DC 10 in the movie, but budget constraints dictated a change in the aircraft type for the movie. The 737 footage was of, I believe, a -200 series.
2. My partner did land in the water at Pago. It occurred at about 0030 in the morning. A beautiful water landing if I ever saw one. The water was about 3 feet deep where he touched down in the lagoon and it sat there for some time, upright before it was salvaged. I heard that it was refurbished and was back flying. BTW they were brand new aircraft right out of the factory. I suspect that my partner had water in his fuel which caused him to lose power.
3. I actually did land after he made his “water landing”. I assure you that his welfare was much more important to me than anything else at the moment. He was fine. I instructed him to remain in the aircraft if possible until we could get to him with a boat. We salvaged his avionics gear and he boarded the next Pan Am flight out to the US.
4. Gordon Vette remains my good friend after all these years. Although the movie depicted him as a bit irascable, he is actually very low key and soft spoken, but a real mans man, very capable and incredibly intelligent. At the time of the incident, I had a few thousand hours in many aircraft and wasn’t sure how he could help me, but he soon gained my confidence when he and I (mostly he) started working out the solution. I flew as a US Navy pilot and have met many pilots whom I greatly respect. Gordon is at the top of the heap in my book.
5. I met Arthur Dovey in Reno (where he came to visit me). He, too is quite an impressive guy.
6. The gents that I was working for were extremely professional and were adamant that all the aircraft that were ferried were in good condition and had good equipment. The problems that I encountered were NOT due to poor maintenance, but due to a strange anomalycaused by the glass that covers the ADF needle vibrating down onto the needle thereby preventing it from tracking the station. The ADF DID track the station and turned the shaft , but not the needle. When I discovered what happened, I soon came to realize that it would take some mental gymnastics to figure out what my bearing to Norfolk Is was. That was when Gordon came on the scene. Good thing for me, because I was very fatigued, and needed his help. Our efforts didn’t work quite as planned, but our manuevers led me overhead an oil rig that was being towed to Brunei. It was well lighted and was a welcome sight in the event that I had to ditch. We were able to contact them and they gave us my position. Gordon then gave me the course and distance to Norfolk Is. where I landed with only a few gallons of fuel left. The folks at Norfolk Is. had a reception committee awaiting me with sandwiches and beer. Great hospitality!
7. The Ag Truck had no autopilot but is very stable and was fun to fly. The instruments were strapped in and useable, but very basic. IFR was not difficult in it because of it’s inherent stability.
I feel that some of these facts need to be said to set the story straight regarding the outfit that I worked for and the people involved.
Oh, by the way, I have never flown a helicopter, and have never flown under a bridge. Flying as a Navy pilot was exciting enough for me.
@Mr. Prochnow: It is an honor to have you comment on my review of a movie that, obviously, has taken many liberties. Your comment was fascinating and I agree that the facts need to be known to fully appreciate the scope of the story. I found many of the differences between the real-life event and the dramatization with Stanley Stewart’s book, but nothing beats a first-hand recount of the events like you did. Thank you very much for commenting.
hello!
its really a pleasure to find you after all those years. i am a flight attendant for an international airline, and since i was a kid, i watched the movie and wondered what ever happened to you.
so what do you do now? are you still flying? what airline do you fly with?
There are some simple reasons for the discrepancies in this film/movie
1) The film came out in the 1990′s not the time when it was depicted as this was 1978
2) Air New Zealand had no DC-10′s in service when this film came out & they had been replaced by the Boeing 767-200, Although I Noticed one you didn’t pick up on and that was the cabin Interior from the plane is from a A300-B4 Air Newzealand Never had these in their fleet .
3)The Dc-10 had a seating configuration similar to the Boeing 747 I, should know Because I have flown on an example from United airlines again before they went on to be replaced by the later models of Boeing 767’s & 737’s
4) United Airlines had replaced there earlier 747
-100, 200’s for 747-400′s
5) the discrepancies shown when the Air Newzealand flight took off can be explained by footage of Air other newzealand flights taking off from that runway that’s probably why in some movie footage the Plane depicted changes from a Boeing 737 to a 767 as shown later in flight
6) The Dc-10 that
really took part in the rescue of flight 771 Sadly crashed into Mt Erebus Antarctica in the previous year that being back in 1977 with the loss of all on board so was unviable for the film/movie instead it’s registration was painted on the Boeing 767 there by depicted in the Movie.
7) The actual rescue flight took place in December of 1978 one year later then the Mt Erebus Disaster which killed 237 people; This was & still is New Zealand’s deadliest air disaster A permanent memorial to the victims& their families is situated at Scott Base Antarctica
8) At the time of the incident Air newzealand was owned by TAA (Trans Australian Airways) so would probably have not been in Air Newzealand Colors/ Corporate Livery.
9) The flight number really was flight 103 and not 308 they may have changed this for the film because of the Negative association with Pan Am flight 103 which was a 747 that was tragically destroyed by a terrorist bomb again with the loss of all on board back in 1988 whilst on route to New York from Heathrow which crashed near Lockerbie Scotland.
10) 2 of the people you notice standing at the control tower in Auckland Newzealand where the real Capt. Gordon vette(r.e.t) retired & Capt. Jay Parkins who later after he was rescued went on to fly commercial airliners for a Major US Airline, The pilots you see depicted as Jay & Gordon in the movie where professional stunt Doubles
11) It should be said Please Don’t attempt to recreate this flight as You Probably won’t make it to dry land again, unless you have adequate fuel on board your plane, Crop dusters where not or designed to meant to fly long-haul distances where as Airliners are it was a miracle Capt Jay made it that far with the Fuel he had on that fateful day & that at the time he made his distress call a Air Newzealand Flight was in the area and was able to divert to help guide him to a safe landing at Auckland Airport.
12) Because at the time no Air Newzealand pilots were on hand to be filmed in the cockpit of the aircraft was obviously filmed in the comfort of a full motion flight simulator
11) The first officer in the real rescue flight was named Greg cassin not Ross Mann as depicted in the movie Tragically 1st officer Greg Cassin was killed in the Mt Erebus air disaster.
13) So obviously as a matter of respect to his family his name was changed for the movie to Ross Mann (who was a fictitious Character based on him) played by the actor Michael Bishop the main roll of (Capt Gordon Vette) was played by well known actor Robert Loggia.
14) Whilst Tragically 1st officer Greg Cassin was allocated on that day as the 1st officer of flight TE901, Fortunately Capt Gordon Vette was not allocated that day as the captain of that flight & so survived to write the book on the disaster called “Impact Erebus”
@James: Thanks for commenting and for expressing your point of view. With your indulgence, I’d like to respond to some of the points you raised.
1) The date of release of a movie is irrelevant to the date of the action. For example Titanic, released in 1997, depicts an accident that occurred in 1912.
2) The shape of the overhead compartments, windows, window shades, and 2-3-2 abreast seating in economy class depicted in the movie are consistent with a Boeing 767 aircraft, not an A300. Also, the absence of an actual Air New Zealand DC-10 aircraft could have been overcome with the use of stock footage (if available) or repainting a DC-10 aircraft.
5) The shot of the Boeing 737 taking off appears to be stock footage. Why was there no stock footage of an Air New Zealand Boeing 767 taking off? Who knows…
6) and 7) According to the Aviation Safety Network, the DC-10 that crashed on Mt Erebus in 1979 (flight TE901) was registered ZK-NZP: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19791128-0
However, the DC-10 involved in the real-life rescue mission above the Pacific in 1978 (flight TE103), was ZK-NZS, according to Emergency! Crisis on the Flight Deck. Same aircraft type but different registrations…
8) According to Air New Zealand’s website, the airline was owned by the government of New Zealand until 1989: http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/company-history . Furthermore, ownership of an airline sometimes has no impact on the color scheme of the aircraft.
11a) According to Emergency! Crisis on the Flight Deck, the first officer on flight TE103 was Arthur Dovey.
13) According to the same source, it is the flight engineer, Gordon Brooks, who sadly died in the crash of TE901 on Mt Erebus, and you are probably correct saying that the character’s name was changed for that reason.
Sorry if you interpreted the tone of the article as being harsh on the filming crew for not accurately depicting the rescue mission. I was just reporting the differences and obvious inaccuracies (such as the NZ flight being a 737 on take-off, a 767 throughout the movie). I am totally aware that movies based on true stories often have no choice but to take liberties because of a budget limitations, legal concerns, or the reasons you mentioned earlier. Thanks again for commenting.
This is one of my all-time favorite films and I have immense respect for Capt. Vette, a truly remarkable human being.
The suspense in this movie builds magnificently and when, at the end, the little plane lands and the pilot meets the man who saved him, it is impossible not to cry happy tears in a flow of relief. The people who put this movie together did a superb job and even if a few facts were changed for dramatic purposes, the basic story stands as a testament to man’s courage and dedication.
Looking at the google maps, I can’t believe how he got lost. I think after he realized that he had missed norfolk, he have had to turn a bit right, and arrive at somewhere australia…
That time, there were no “B plan” in case something goes wrong…? LOL
Great movie and Robert Logia is my favorite actor and this movie is a great example of how right and important it is in life to ask for help in any situation not only in flying but in life or job or proffesion etc.
J M Betz
FAA Pilot since 1966
@joe betz: Very well said! Thanks for visiting.