Flightplan

Question: At the end of the movie, when they are at the tip of the plane, Jodi and her daughter slip into a tiny compartment, just as she activates the bomb. She and her daughter are safe, and the small space they were in must have been bomb-proof. Since that compartment is at a part of the plane that is rarely visited, how come a tiny place was made entirely bomb-proof? Or what was the space they climbed into and for what reason was it made?

Answer: The hatch they climb into is the hold of the plane, i.e., the section with the coffin, the car, and all the other luggage in. It only appears small because of the way it is filmed. As Kyle would have known, it would have been extra strong and reinforced, as it was a break in two sections of the plane.

Question: So no-one saw Jodie Foster bring her kid on the plane, I understand that. The plane was empty when the 2 of them boarded as they were the first to board. There wasn't anyone else on the plane and as soon as they got to their seats her little girl bent down on the floor to play with a toy, so I fully understand that no-one saw the girl. What I want to know, is how did the hijackers know she was going to be boarding first? Had she boarded much later with other passengers then SOMEONE would have seen the kid, and that would have totally foiled the plan. How could they have banked on her boarding first?

pierpp

Chosen answer: He didn't know for sure, but he had a hunch. As far as he could tell she would arrive early to register the body for the U.S. and they would let her board the plane first (as a common courtesy, since her husband died) Plus, he knew that she had knowledge of planes and that it was her interest to see a new model of an aircraft that she helped build before it was to take off.

Jason Riley

Question: How did the hijackers get Kyle's husband onto the roof, and push him without anyone seeing?

Answer: It was never revealed how they lured or forced him up to the roof.

raywest

Question: Are the Arab men in the plane the same men Kyle saw through the window of her house in Berlin the night before? If so, is it a coincidence?

Answer: No, they are not the same. She was jumping to a politically incorrect assumption they were involved.

raywest

Question: After reading what really happened, I am still not understanding why they killed her husband. Did he know something that he should not have known? I do understand the need for his coffin to hide the bombs...now why did they need to take her daughter as a 'hostage' for the sake of the $50 million dollars?

Answer: If there's no dead husband, there's no coffin to hide a bomb in. Without the daughter's disappearance, Kyle won't have reason to unlock the coffin (only she knew the code; the terrorists didn't). When the captain initially refuses to have the hold searched, the marshal suggests it would be a good idea for him to take Kyle down there and look. This would be for the purpose of having her open the coffin, and allowing him to access the bomb.

Question: At the very beginning of the movie, Kyle sits on the bench alone in the empty subway station. She looks very shocked or frightened. Why is that? Because at that time, her husband David is not dead. He walks up to Kyle and they get on the yellow subway train home.

Bunch Son

Answer: I believe he isn't really there. She's on her own on the way to the morgue but she's too scared to do it; that's why she's upset and why she takes long time to get on the train but he appears in her head to give her the courage to get up and get on the train to the morgue. It's done to set the scene.

Answer: He's not really there. On the plane, she tells the psychologist that she saw him, but that was her mind coping with his death. She imagines him helping her onto the train, walking home with her, sitting in the courtyard, but you can see there's only 1 set of footprints.

Chosen answer: It's never explained. She might have been concerned about something at work or there were problems with her marriage that she is contemplating. Personally, I attribute it partly to Jodi Foster's acting style. She tends to play scenes in an overly intense manner.

raywest

Chosen answer: At the end of the movie, the police ask Kyle to look at a photo to ID the morgue director. So he was in on it. He had to be because Gene/Carson didn't have the code to open the casket. Therefore he could not have put the explosives into the casket. Remember he needed Kyle to leave it open on the plane.

Answer: When the captain angrily described the terrorist plans to Kyle as he deboarded, she put that together with everything else that happened.

James King III

Question: Why did Kyle Pratt kill Carson, instead of sparing his life, running to either the cargo door or passenger door, showing the people her daughter, telling them he was the hijacker? He appears to have injured his leg after he fell down in the restroom, He was further away from both of the doors than Kyle, And she probably would gotten to one of them before him, because he wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to get to either of the doors before her. And then he would have gotten arrested, because then the people would have realised that he had deceived them. And his charismatic and manipulative skills would no longer have helped him.

Answer: Because even if she had managed to convince people he was the hijacker, and get him arrested, there would have been risks that he would escape from jail, and try to get revenge on her for ruining his plan.

Answer: There's something satisfying with seeing a villain undone by his own devices, so after Kyle finds out that Carson was behind everything and willing to kill her and her daughter, Kyle is eliminating his threat while getting revenge, thus providing an explosive end to him that might satisfy the moviegoers desire for his utter defeat.

Erik M.

Question: Since when does the FBI have jurisdiction and operations in Canada?

Answer: They don't have jurisdiction but they would be working in cooperation with Canadian authorities.

raywest

Question: How did Carson convince the captain Kyle was a hijacker without showing any evidence of Kyle being a hijacker?

Answer: Basically, Carson used his role as an air marshal to mislead everyone. In matters of security, the captain would assume the marshal was the expert and he would follow his recommendations.

raywest

Well a plot hole says just Carson is an Air Marshal does not mean the captain would trust him. The captain would know Air Marshals break the law too.

The captain had no reason to distrust him. He's busy flying the plane and Carson is acting exactly the way an air marshal would.

raywest

You would have to read the entire plot hole.

The captain has no reason at all to distrust an air marshal at that point. First of all, he was suspicious of her from the beginning and was angry for disrupting the flight which was the whole point of removing all evidence of the daughter, which was also the point have the morgue director sending a fake certificate that Julia died. They were going to use the "daughter's disappearance" as a credible excuse for "Kyle" to enter the hold and retrieve the explosives. The real plot hole is not that Carson has no evidence of as a hijacker, but why the airline accepts the "hijacker's" request to wire the money without talking to them or having a background identity.

Question: Why would the airport not x-ray a casket? Did the morgue director order them not to?

Answer: Often times cargo, such as the casket, are sent by "known shippers" and it's the known shippers that were responsible for screening. So the airport would not x-ray cargo that was already deemed secured (i.e. safe).

Bishop73

Question: Why did Kyle want to sit in the courtyard with her husband at the beginning? She looked quite serious. What is the significance?

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: He's not really there. On the plane, she tells the psychologist that she saw him, but that was her mind coping with his death. She imagines him helping her onto the train, walking home with her, sitting in the courtyard, but you can see there's only 1 set of footprints.

Answer: There's no explanation, but there seems to be some sort of tension or discord going on between them that may be putting some strain on their marriage. They may have wanted a more private place to discuss something where they knew their daughter could not overhear. They also acted this way when they're in the subway station, communicating that all is not right between them.

raywest

Question: How did Carson manage to keep people from finding out that he murdered Kyle's husband? It's not like German crime scene investigators are stupid. Surely crime scene investigators would have found evidence that Kyle's husband was murdered.

Answer: Carson was part of a conspiracy. He did not actually kill Kyle's husband, his accomplices did the actual killing. For whatever reason, the death at that time was ruled a suicide.

raywest

Answer: The audience is not given much information about the investigation into Kyle's husband's death, only that he fell and that ultimately it was ruled a suicide. The conspiracy may include more people, OR some levels of assumption and sloppy police work-it's a plot hole.

Erik M.

Question: Kyle poses at the hijacker and demands Carson to stay on the plane. Why would his cover be potentially blown if he refused?

Answer: Carson has to obey Kyle's demand because others are watching. The others believe Kyle is the hijacker, so Carson has to play along.

Answer: It was less about his cover being blown than Carson needing to stay aboard to try and salvage the situation and possibly kill Kyle. Kyle wanted him on the plane in order to expose his plan and to find her daughter.

raywest

Question: Even if Carson was exposed as the hijacker, how would the US, and Canada charge him? The crime was committed outside of both of those nations.

Answer: They can still arrest him, regardless of where the crime was committed. He'd likely be extradited to the appropriate place to be charged. Also, the crime was occurring while the plane was on Canadian soil. There would also be matters of violating international law.

raywest

Question: How did Carson know Kyle had worked out he was a terrorist near the end of the movie?

Answer: At the end, when Kyle is speaking to the captain just before he disembarks the plane, she then realises that everyone believes she is the terrorist. She works out that Carson is the likely person behind the scheme and had been manipulating everything happening during the flight. When Kyle starts pretending to the captain that she is the terrorist in order to get what she wants (to find her daughter), Carson then realises that she likely now knows that he is in on the plot.

raywest

Question: I get how no one saw the child get on the plane. But how did no one see the kidnappers take her and put her under the plane, not even crew members?

Answer: Carson told Kyle that he put Julie inside a drink cart and used that to transport her to the lower area. Since one of the crew members was an accomplice, it's likely she helped move the cart.

Thisbe

How would they have put Julia inside a drink cart? Children Julia's age can weigh 40 to 60 pounds. That's more than drink carts are built to take. How would they have moved the cart without Julia's weight causing it to break?

"Suspension of disbelief" rears its head again-the audience isn't meant to analyze or be aware of the drink cart's limits, or how anyone could put a child into one while on a plane full of passengers. A limp body is not easily carried or maneuvered, but the viewer is just supposed to accept that they managed it for plot sake.

Erik M.

Question: Shouldn't the Arab man have been arrested for assault?

Brad

Chosen answer: Kyle assaulted HIM first when she jumped on top of him and scratched his face so technically she should be arrested.

rswarrior

Answer: Kyle assaulted the Arab man earlier in the film. At the point he threw her down, she was running at him in hysterics. He threw her down out of fear she would hurt him again.

Question: What's the significance of the scene where Carson and Stephanie look at each other when she's running away from the plane? I can't find an explanation.

Answer: I think it just solidifies the fact that they were working together, and both knew the plan was starting to fall apart at that point. She's now running to try and protect herself.

raywest

Plot hole: Gene's plot has far too many holes for it to have had any chance of working in real life. He somehow must get himself assigned to that particular flight (OK, maybe as a flight marshal he could persuade his superiors to assign him to it) - but also hope that the air stewardess Stephanie is also assigned to that flight - something he has no control over. He then needs to push Jodie Foster's husband off a building, hope the corpse is taken to the only morgue in the city with a crooked morgue director, hope the coffin is assigned to the flight he is on. On top of that, he needs to get explosives into a coffin, the combination of which he actually says he doesn't know. He also needs to hope no-one notices the child, the child doesn't make a noise while boarding, there are lots of spare seats on this inaugural flight, and that mother and daughter move to them.

swordfish

More mistakes in Flightplan

Kyle: You get off the plane when I say you get off the plane.

Bunch Son

More quotes from Flightplan

Trivia: While he plays an airline captain, Sean Bean is an aviophobe and flies only when he finds it absolutely necessary.

Cubs Fan

More trivia for Flightplan

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