Flight of Black Angel

Flight of Black Angel is a 1991 TV (Showtime) aviation film directed by Jonathan Mostow, featuring William O'Leary and Peter Strauss.

Plot

Captain Eddie Gordon, a top gun pilot of air force academy, is a talented but nonetheless aggressive pilot that proves too much for his fellow instructees to match. His stern flight instructor, Matt Ryan tries to encourage him to learn with more restraint.

One day however, after his birthday party at home in Las Vegas, Eddie puts a religiously-motivated long-organized plan into action: He kills his brother (Rodney Eastman) and his parents (Ben Rawnsley and K. Callan). He then holds Captain Melissa Gaiter (Patricia Sill) of the air force base at gunpoint and forces her to arm his Mirage jet with live ordinance, a radar-jamming pod and eventually a tactical nuclear weapon. A shocked Melissa refuses to co-operate further; but is murdered.

Later, Colonel Bill Douglas (James O'Sullivan) of the base flight control is informed of the triple murder at the Gordons residence while the a training exercise involving Eddie is going on. He lets Eddie continue the flight. Eddie however, shoots down his unsuspecting fellow instructees. Ryan manages to alert the base and then tries to lure Eddie into the firing range of the base surface-to-air missiles. Eddie however, eludes the missile barrage and destroys the Ryan's plane. Before any armed aircraft can take off, Eddie decimates the base communications, runway, and aircraft. Ryan, who has bailed out, is later rescued.

Eddie lands in Garrison, Utah to hide his Mirage in a deserted barn, but is accidentally discovered by a family on vacation: Richard (Michael Keys Hall) and Valerie (Michele Pawk) Dwyer and their baby. Before Valerie can raise the police on the CB radio, Eddie takes them hostage.

While Eddie works on defeating the fail-safes on the tactical nuke, he is exposed to strong lethal radiations. His health quickly deteriorates. The next day, he and Valerie leave for a hardware store in a nearby city to obtain tools. Valerie uses a traveler's check and writes their hostage location on the back, but the clerk (Scott Menville) does not notice. Valerie then persuades Eddie to go to a drug store to find a cure for his vomiting and nausea. She repeats the same practice again; this time, the pharmacist (John D. Brancato) notices Valerie's notes on the check.

Two police officers (George Fisher and Steven D. Simpson) arrive to investigate. Eddie kills one by the element of surprise and engages the other in a firefight. Richard and Valerie try to flee with their baby; however, Eddie manages to shoot the second officer, Richard and Valerie in time, letting the baby cry unattended. Richard dies but Valerie is seriously wounded. Painstakingly, she manages to collect her baby and crawl to the roadside at night where she is picked up by a truck driver.

Ryan is cross-checking police leads when the report of Valerie Dwyer comes in. Valerie insists that she has seen Eddie working on a bomb. Just before a surgery, Ryan hears the name of the Eddie's target from Valerie: Las Vegas. Subsequently, Ryan convinces Douglas to concentrate on Las Vegas; he travels to Hill AFB to take an F-16 fighter plane to fly lead. An AWACS plane confirms what Valerie had said.

It has been determined that although Eddie cannot launch the bomb, his jet fuel could detonate the bomb if he is fired upon. Ryan successfully talks Eddie into chasing him out into the desert by provoking Eddie into shoot him down to see if God made him "the one". After evading Eddie's last missile, Ryan orders the other pilots to clear away, and then fires on Eddie. Both pilots and 36 people on the ground are incinerated.

A recovering Valerie receives sanitized TV news on the incident in her hospital bed with her baby in her arms. The report assert that the pilots were on a "training mission" in the area.

External links

• Film Trailer on YouTube

• Flight of Black Angel at the Internet Movie Database
• Flight of Black Angel at AllRovi
• Flight of Black Angel at The New York Times Online
• Flight of Black Angel at Yahoo! Movies