During a routine flight to Minneapolis, a passenger (Susan Dey) aboard Global Airways Flight 502, a Boeing 707, discovers a bomb threat written in lipstick on the mirror of a first-class bathroom. Captain Hank O'Hara (Charlton Heston) believes it may be a hoax, but when a second lipstick threat is left on a stewardess's serving tray he is convinced to follow its instructions: "Bomb on plane divert to Anchorage, Alaska. No Joke, No Tricks. Death". To avoid an explosive decompression en route, he flies at lower altitude, increasing fuel consumption.
The captain is not convinced by a passenger (Roosevelt Grier) that his erratically behaving seatmate, Sgt. Jerome K. Weber (James Brolin), is the hijacker. Severe storms plague the trip north and drain even more fuel. Visibility approaching the airport is so poor a United States Air Forceground-controlled approach specialist (Claude Akins) is called in. His radar shows the airliner on a collision course with a small plane with evident radio failure, but Flight 502 has too little fuel for a go around. O'Hara sees the other aircraft at the last moment and manages to avoid a collision, then is talked down safely.
Once on the ground passengers attempt to disarm Weber, a Vietnam veteran driven insane by war trauma, but he brandishes a pistol then manages to fend them off. He then pulls the pin from a grenade and threatens to detonate it if anyone attempts to interfere with his plans.
Weber goes to the cockpit and demands the aircraft be refueled. While he’s occupied there bossing everyone around, the lead stewardess (Yvette Mimieux) oversees the escape of the economy-class passengers by emergency slide. Weber is upset when he discovers this, but allows the other three stewardesses to leave. He keeps the remaining crew and first-class passengers as hostages, including a U.S. Senator (Walter Pidgeon) and a pregnant woman (Mariette Hartley) who has gone into premature labor due to the crisis.
Weber demands to be flown to Moscow, where he intends to defect to the Soviet Union. A federal agent who had slipped on board gets frostbitten in an unheated hold.
Although the Soviets deny clearance into their airspace, the increasingly agitated Weber forces the pilots to continue on. As they enter Soviet airspace, O'Hara orders the landing gear down, reduces airspeed, and broadcasts their situation to Soviet ground control. The aircraft is surrounded by aggressive Soviet fighter jets, which eventually escort the plane to the Moscow airport. Upon landing there the airliner is ordered to stop on a siding, where it is encircled by armed soldiers.
The remaining crew and passengers are finally released, leaving only O'Hara and Weber. Weber, who had nursed fantasies of being received by the Soviets as a hero, is jubilant to have seemingly achieved his dreams and gloats to O'Hara that he never even had a bomb. When he realizes the Soviet forces have deployed to attack rather than welcome him, he straps on a bandolier of grenades and produces an automatic weapon. When O'Hara tries to jump him, Weber shoots him and leads him down the airstair to the landing strip. As the soldiers prepare to fire and Weber pulls a pin from a grenade, O'Hara manages to push free. A fusillade follows, Weber is cut down, then falls on his own grenade. O'Hara survives, and is placed on a stretcher. Gazing skyward, he smiles with relief as he spots a departing aircraft overhead.
Fighters escort the hijacked airliner over Soviet airspace
Between 1961 and 1973, nearly 160 hijackings took place in American airspace.[4] David Harper's novel Hijacked was published in 1970.[5]
Film rights were bought by Walter Seltzer. The star was Charlton Heston, who had made four films with Seltzer.[6]
Under the working titles Hijacked and Airborne, principal photography took place from early January to early March 1972.[7][8] The production obtained a World Airways Boeing 707 (N374WA) to play the part of the "Global Airways" airliner.[9] With 90% of the filming done inside a 707 set, Charlton Heston compared his work there to what director Alfred Hitchcock had achieved in filming Lifeboat (1944).[10] Then still current Air National GuardNorth American F-100 Super Sabres of the 188th Fighter Squadron were painted as the Soviet interceptors.[11]Oakland International Airport was used for the airport scenes.[10] Some of the Soviet soldiers at the "Moscow" airport are carrying American M16 rifles. The sedans are Swedish Volvo 164s.
Filming took place in early 1972. Charlton Heston wrote about the experience in his diary:
January 4: I've never done a film with so many scenes I wasn't in. Still there was the 707, all becrewed and passengered. I did get a chance to try my uniform on. I look OK...January 5:...My first scene today consisted of walking out of the cockpit and into the can. Very demanding bit of emoting there. January 20: The opening shots went well, John Guillermin utilizing his talent for richly textured full shots, most with a moving camera. He provided a good introductory scene for me. I'm beginning to realize this is not a rich role, of course. Nonetheless, if the film comes off, it'll help me. I'm beginning to think it will, too...Skyjacked looks surprisingly good, I was relieved to see...It seems very tight. A pleasure for a change to be in a film that runs under two hours...it's been some time."[12]
Reception
Box office
The film was profitable. It was one of MGM's bigger hits of 1972, along with Shaft and Kansas City Bomber.[13]
Critical
In 2020 Filmink called it "is a solid piece of classical entertainment which is one of the best movies made at MGM under the regime of James Aubrey...Charlton Heston was born to play a pilot."[14]
Paul Mavis writing for Movies & Drinks in 2022 appreciated its non-glossy approach to the disaster genre: "This is a straightforward, simple, mean little suspense thriller, extremely well-told by director John Guillermin and screenwriter Stanley R. Greenberg, and unpretentiously unembellished."[15]
^"MGM Says Earnings From Operations Rose 15% in Its Aug. 31 Year: After Extraordinary Gain from Sale of Properties, It Expects to Report Net of $10.5 Million". Wall Street Journal. 1 Nov 1972. p. 14.
Eames, John Douglas. The MGM Story: The Complete History of Fifty Roaring Years. London: Octopus Books Limited, 1982, First edition 1979. ISBN978-0-51752-389-6.
