Fire and Rain (film)

"Fire and Rain" is also the name of a recording by James Taylor.

Fire and Rain is a 1989 made-for-television film directed by Jerry J. Jameson, starring Charles Haid, Angie Dickinson and Tom Bosley, as well as an all-star ensemble television cast in supporting roles. The film was based on the Delta Air Lines Flight 191 aircraft crash at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) on August 2, 1985, as depicted in Fire and Rain: A Tragedy in American Aviation (1986) by Jerome Greer Chandler.

Jerry J. Jameson had become known for his work on "... movie-of-the-week phenomenon and group-jeopardy suspense and terror."", although he also became a specialist in "one-off" television and film features. ^[1]Fire and Rain was an example of the aviation "disaster" film, as well, it also very much fits the additional genre of the complex, heavily character-driven ensemble cast film, exploring the personal dramas and interactions that develop among the passengers and crew as they deal with a deadly onboard emergency. Fire and Rain, however, veers from the traditional format as it based on a real-life accident.

Plot

On August 2, 1985, Delta Airlines Flight 191, flown by Captain Connors (John Beck) and First Officer Rudy Price (Dick Christie) are preparing to land at Dallas on its single stop, flying from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Los Angeles. Air Traffic controllers advise that a thunderstorm is present. The flight crew surmise that the aircraft might get washed, but have no other worries about the storm being so near. Passengers such as Lucille Jacobson (Patti Labelle), who is terrified of flying, however, are fearful about landing in a storm. Others, like Marilyn (Gloria Hocking) and Mike Steinberg (Joe Berryman) are thinking more about their California vacation. As the rain pelts down on the airliner, there is no warning of an impending crisis.

Without warning, the airliner is slammed into the ground, a mile short of the runway, slicing into a small car on the road, killing William Mayberry (Rudy Young), before skidding onto the airport, and bursting into an explosion. Within a minute, all airport fire and emergency units were alerted. Five minutes into the rescue, first responders Jack Ayers (Dean Jones), Beth Mancini (Angie Dickinson), led by Bob Sonnamaker (Charles Haid) are rapidly deployed to the scene. The severed rear section of the airliner is where most survivors are found although flight attendants at the front of the airliner, also survive.

Cast

Production

Fire and Rain utilized images of Delta's Lockheed L-1011 fleet, which had the same livery throughout the 28-year span of service with the airline.

Filmed at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Fire and Rain was a docudrama that recreated the events of August 2, 1985, when Delta Airlines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar airliner flying from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Los Angeles was coming into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on its single stop on the route. The airliner unexpectedly flew into an isolated thunderstorm hovering very close to the field. The storm created a dangerous "wind shear", or "microburst", dashing the L-1011 into the ground just slightly more than a mile north of the outer perimeter of the airfield.^[2]

The telefilm incorporated the true-life stories of many of the 152 passengers and 11 crew members on board. In the end, 137 died and 28 survived; one other person on the ground was also killed. The prologue to the film indicated that the Delta Flight 191 was one of the worst aircraft mishap in U.S. history. Up to that time, the circumstances behind the crash regarding microbursts and wind shears of the kind that bought down Delta 191, as well as the kind of thunderstorm that caused them, were unknown. Subsequently, the accident investigation and review of procedures led to modifications in all big-body civil aircraft whereby their radar could detect the anomalies of major storm systems. At the time, it could only detect the actual presence of the storm itself. A groundbreaking legal action also resulted.^[3]

Many firefighters and emergency personnel were portrayed by real first responders from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Some of them had been on duty during the actual rescue following the crash, and were, in effect, portraying themselves.

Reception

The crash of Delta Flight 191 was not only the subject of the Fire and Rain television movie,^[4] the accident was also featured on an episode of When Weather Changed History on The Weather Channel,^[5] and the episode "Deadly Weather" of Survival in the Sky.^[6] The television series Mayday (aka Air Crash Investigation or Air Emergency) on Discovery Channel Canada and National Geographic dramatized the accident in the episode "Invisible Killer" (aka "Slammed to the Ground").^[7] The crash was also shown and discussed in a later Mayday episode about the American Airlines Flight 1420 accident, which also occurred during landing in bad weather conditions.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links

• Fire and Rain at the Internet Movie Database
• Fire and Rain at the TCM Movie Database