The emergency landing scene in Kurt Russell’s action-thriller Executive Decision, a $122 million hit in 1996, impresses a real airline pilot.

Russell plays a combination of Jack Ryan and John McClane in producer Joel Silver’s airborne reworking of the Die Hard formula. Die Hard on a Plane co-stars an uncredited Steven Seagal, along with Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt and David Suchet.

Executive Decision’s thrilling premise sees Russell leading a mission to infiltrate a hijacked airliner mid-flight and take down the terrorists responsible before they can bomb America with ᴅᴇᴀᴅly nerve gas. The climax sees Russell’s character taking control of the airliner to execute a daring emergency landing.

Russell’s performance in that emergency landing scene didn’t just save a plane full of movie characters, it impressed expert Rob Mark, a former airline pilot who recently reviewed several such sequences for a Vanity Fair video.

Mark praised the “good job” done by Russell’s character in the scene, but did criticize one moment where the airliner’s wings hit other planes parked along the runway, explaining that this wouldn’t happen in real life:

I mean, he did do a nice touchdown on the runway, but of course, this was not a runway designed for a 747. So it wasn’t very wide, but he did pretty darn well. And in this movie, I remember he was supposed to be a pilot that flew small airplanes. So he knew the basics of flying.

As he begins to slow down, the wings are so long on this airplane from the fuselage that he’s knocking over all the airplanes that are parked close to the runway. So again, that’s why we don’t park aircraft close to the runway at any airport. But again, he did a pretty good job.

What This Means For Executive Decision’s Legacy

Air Force One is likely the first movie people think of when it comes to 1990s thrillers set on hijacked airliners. This is fair enough, given Harrison Ford’s iconic performance in that film, plus its huge box office success.

But Executive Decision can lay its own claim to being one of the more successful action-thrillers of a decade positively stuffed with action-thrillers. It stars its own icon in Russell, and was a sizable box office hit, grossing $122 million ($312 million adjusted for inflation) on a budget of $55 million.

Critics had mostly kind things to say about Executive Decision, as reflected by its 62% Rotten Tomatoes score, with Roger Ebert calling it “a gloriously goofy mess of a movie.” Gloriously goofy the film may be, but there’s nothing to scoff at in its climactic emergency landing, which was executed effectively enough to earn praise from a real airline pilot.

Having one believable scene won’t help Executive Decision leapfrog Air Force One in any 1990s action-thriller rankings, but it’s a noteworthy point in the movie’s favor nonetheless, and perhaps balances out Seagal’s widely-panned performance, which earned the star a Razzie nomination.

Our Take On Executive Decision Winning An Expert’s Praise

Executive Decision was made to entertain an audience, not to earn the praise of experts. Its RT score and box office show that it succeeded in its aim. It’s nothing great, even by the standards of 1990s popcorn films, but it contains plenty of fun elements.