A slightly more personal PSS this round; this epic scene isn’t so much creepy as just so well realised (in its time at least) that I seem to think of it every time I board a plane…

So Devon Sawa and classmates board Volée Flight 180 from New York JFK to Paris – the very route the fated TWA 800 erupted at the start of in 1996 – when he has a vision of the plane falling to pieces in mid-air, minutes after take off.

Most plane crashes in film are hampered by crud effects, crud budgets or over-zealous writing. Final Destination‘s catastrophe is experienced entirely from the inside of the plane. The thing wobbles like hell, baggage falls everywhere and parts of the fuselage are ripped off, sucking several poor schmucks out into the sky, such as the poor girl in this shot, who zips out still strapped into her seat. Then it’s flames for all as the plane’s final nosedive burns up all those left inside.

Final Destination 5‘s dovetail ending allowed a revisit to the scene, this time occurring with the survivors finding themselves aboard the flight and external shots showing the destruction of the plane.

I’d say it’s made all the more unsettling by its realism: the events shown are likely what the poor souls on TWA 800 experienced. Not the best film to watch before your next Transatlantic flight… Yarrrgh!