Top 10 Movie Plane Crashes

Ostensibly about man’s fight for survival, the characters in the film are faced with one desperate situation after another. In this crash scene, the darkness of the cabin, paired with the scattered uncertainty of the passengers makes this crash scene particularly unnerving. As the cabin becomes overwhelmed with distressed passengers and panicking flight attendants, Liam Neeson’s character makes smart use of the seat belts to ensure his survival.

This movie follows the story of a group of teenagers who’ve managed to cheat death by exiting a plane before it crashes. The main character’s premonition of the plane crash shows cheers quickly turn to screams. As turbulence violently shakes the cabin and oxygen masks descend, passengers are sucked out into the sky when a hole is ripped into the plane. The plane is finally engulfed in a ball of flame that ensures no survivors.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays an ambitious, dedicated and stubborn Howard Hughes. In this scene, Hughes is attempting to take a military aircraft on a test flight when an engine malfunction causes a plane crash in Beverly Hills. As Hughes struggles to maintain altitude, the plane demolishes several suburban homes. Hughes finally comes to a crash landing but not before shearing off a roof and demolishing a mansion.

Edward Norton plays a “Joe Everyman” with a dissociative personality disorder that has started an underground fighting ring turned anarchy group. While aboard a plane, his character secretly wishes for a plane crash that occurs in his imagination. Two planes collide mid-air, ripping the plane in half. As Norton’s character watches in shock, passengers are wrenched from their seats and tossed into the darkness to their deaths.

Hardened criminals have hijacked a plane in an attempt to make a break for freedom and, of course, action happens. Eventually, their plane runs out of fuel and they are forced to crash land smack dab in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. As the plane descends, it destroys the Hard Rock Café sign before barreling through traffic and eventually coming to a rest in front of The Sands hotel.

Nick Cage plays a widower fighting to solve the mysterious predictions included in a sequence of numbers. One of those predictions happens to be an incredibly sudden and devastating plane crash that happens right in front of him. Cage’s character is talking to a cop when a plane careens out of the sky and its wing scorches across highway traffic. The plane finally comes to stop as it explodes, setting the remaining survivors on fire.

Extra horrific for being based on a true event, a South American rugby team is left stranded in the frozen tundra after their plane crashes in the Andes Mountains. For the team, it was all fun and games until the plane collides with a mountain cliff, snapping it in half, before momentum pushes passengers out of the rear through the wreckage, while the landing severely injures a number of the survivors.

Denzel Washington plays an alcoholic commercial airline pilot who narrowly saves a flight full of passengers from plummeting to their death. As Denzel Washington awakens from a drunken stupor, he and his copilot clamor to keep the plane from rapidly losing altitude. The pilots dump fuel and at one point, turn the entire plane upside down to help mitigate the plane’s downward projection. They eventually crash land after taking off a church steeple.

Tom Hanks plays, Chuck Noland, a systems analyst stranded on a deserted island after a cargo plane crashes into the sea. The plane that Chuck was traveling in suddenly experiences technical problems and dives into the ocean. The planes pilots are killed as he struggles to free himself from the sinking wreckage. A life raft eventually pulls him to the surface where he narrowly avoids being sucked into an engine.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
United 93
Airplane
Die Hard 2
World War Z
Turbulence
Superman Returns
Dark Knight Rises

Jeff Bridges plays a man empowered by a near death experience after surviving a plane crash. As passengers brace for impact, Bridges’ character provides a moment of calm in the midst of chaos. The plane is torn to shreds as it makes contact with the ground, with passengers being thrown violently left and right. The score mutes the sound of the turmoil, adding a poetic sense of morality as the plane’s passengers meet their fate.

Do you agree with our list? What’s your most notable airplane crash in movies? For more entertaining Top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.