SST: Death Flight

Plane disaster movie about a deadly flu and sabotage.

Directed by David Lowell Rich who worked on a few 70s disaster movies (see Runaway Train, Adventures of the Queen, Horror at 30, 000 Feet, The Concorde...Airport '79).

I am guessing Rich was asked to direct Airport '79 because this TV movie, SST: Death Flight, could almost pass as a very low budget cinema release.

"SST" is now more interesting than ever because everybody watching it now knows all about the dangers of a deadly flu (thanks to Covid).

The flick is loaded with well known TV faces from the 60s and 70s - one from the 80s as "Q" from Star Trek The Next Generation is here!

If you don't expect anything too original, you should get a blast from this movie I have nicknamed - The Long Lost Airport Movie.

This is a very enjoyable disaster movie, about yet another one of those star-filled planes heading for trouble. This time, a Concorde is sabotaged, and if that wasn´t enough, there is also a virus spreading inside the plane. The film has everything an airplane-disaster movie buff could ask for: tacky effects, lots of stars and fun dialogue. Pretty good stuff.

That so many good actors would get together in such a bad film. This movie's premise seems to be "take a cast, put them on an SST, and then subject them to trouble after trouble." I also find it hard to believe that so many good actors would have an off day every day of filming and at the same time. How many of their careers didn't get ruined by this film is beyond me, especially that of John de Lancie. Avoid this one at all costs. Airport '79 was a much better film, and Airplane! was a whole lot funnier.

The success of "Airport", "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" proved there was a big appetite for disaster movies so naturally television felt they had to get into the act by offering their own lower budget knockoffs of the Irwin Allen disaster movie formula. "SST: Disaster In The Sky" is the ultimate example of this, since not only do we see a gaggle of 70s TV stars (all of whom it should be noted had one thing in common at the time. Their once popular series had all been cancelled by then!) like Robert Reed, Martin Milner, Peter Graves etc. we even see two future 80s TV stars Billy Crystal and John DeLancie in smaller roles (I hope David Letterman some day springs a clip of this on Crystal the next time he appears on the show). That alone is enough to make you keep watching despite the bad dialogue (characters have to engage in a lot of implausible exposition at various points in order for certain things to make sense), cheap FX and silly plot resolutions at the climax. Heck, "SST" is even better than some of the worst theatrical disaster movies coming out by then like the dreadful "Concorde: Airport 1979" so if you loved the quality disaster movies of the time like "Airport" and "Towering Inferno" settle back and enjoy this intriguing TV knockoff of the genre.

I watch a lot of disaster movies, and while I wouldn't place this with the Towering Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure, I enjoyed this a lot. I was surprised it was a TV movie because the acting was so good. They spent enough time for character development. There were several subplots, but that is true for many many disaster movies. I got this movie as part of a collection and some of the movies were really bad. This one was worth at least twice what I paid for the set. I will be watching this movie at least 3 times a year and definitely will recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of film. This movie was well worth my time. I was shocked that the only other review was really bad.