Corrected entry: There's a shot of a jet crashed in the mud on the shore of the Nung River in a classic scene as the PBR sails underneath it. This makes for a great shot and may be the way WWII airplanes crashed, but it's not the way B52's crash. At the rates of speed and high altitudes they fly a jet aiming down at the ground like that would be in a million pieces and not sticking up in the mud. Even if the tail section were blown off it wouldn't crash this way and that's why there are absolutely no pictures of a Viet Nam combat era B52's tail section that has crashed in this way. (01:54:35)
lionhead
9th May 2007
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Correction: Just FYI, the first loss of a B-52 was 11-22-72 during Operation Linebacker II. The movie, most likely, takes place about August/September 1969.
Making this an entirely different type of error. The correction is right in terms of the state and disposition of the wreckage, but the fact that the wreckage shouldn't even be there in the first place doesn't invalidate that. Maybe you should post it as a factual error?
In 22 November 1972 it was the first shot down, not lost. First B-52 lost in the Vietnam war was June 18 1965, from colliding with another B-52. In total 11 B-52's were lost from accidents, the crashed one we see in the movie could be one of those.
First crash was a collision in June 1965. First one shot down was in Linebacker 2.
Not entirely true: A B52 was lost taking off from Andersen Guam going to Vietnam in 1969. The wing broke off on take off. Structural failure. Wreckage went in the water. Deep water.
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Correction: The crash site wreckage you see is entirely typical of a low-level event such as an attempted emergency landing. The tail of an airliner or heavy bomber is often the only piece of piece of wreckage left after such an incident.