Executive Decision is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Stuart Baird (in his directorial debut) and written by Jim Thomas and John Thomas, who also produced the film with Joel Silver. It stars Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Joe Morton, David Suchet and B.D. Wong. It depicts the rescue of an airliner hijacked by terrorists, by a small team placed on the plane in mid-flight. The film was released in the United States on March 15, 1996, by Warner Bros. It grossed $122 million against a $55 million budget.

REAR COVER

Looking for excitement? You've made the right Decision! Producer Joel Silver adds to his string of hits and Stuart Baird, editor of Silver's Lethal Weapon and other action spectaculars, makes a memorable directorial debut on a movie "faster than Speed and more fun than Broken Arrow" (Allen Barra, Newhouse Newspapers).

Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo and others in a heroic ensemble are on board for first-class thrills. The mission: board a hijacked 747 in midair. Avoid detection. Locate and disable a hair-triggered nerve-toxin bomb that could wipe out the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. Execute a

split-second attack that overwhelms the terrorists and safeguards the passengers. Do it all without air-to-ground radio. And do it before an increasingly jittery U.S. military blasts the airliner out of the sky. "I hope there's a good movie on this flight," anti-terrorist operative quips. As it turns out, there's a great one: Executive Decision!

DETAILED PLOT

In May 1995, Lieutenant Colonel Austin Travis leads an unsuccessful Special Forces black ops raid on a Chechen mafia safe house in Trieste, Italy, to recover a stolen Soviet nerve agent, DZ-5. Three months later, Oceanic Airlines Flight 343, a Boeing 747-200, leaves Athens bound for Washington, D.C., with more than 400 passengers aboard including Nagi Hassan, lieutenant of the imprisoned terrorist leader El Sayed Jaffa. Hassan and his men hijack the flight, demanding Jaffa's release. Meanwhile, just moments before the hijacking, a suicide bomber working for Jaffa destroys a London Marriott hotel restaurant.

Dr. David Grant, the U.S. Army intelligence consultant behind the botched raid, is summoned to a meeting at the Pentagon to plan an operation to retake the plane. Grant doubts Hassan's demands, suspecting he engineered Jaffa's capture, and intends to use the 747 to detonate a bomb loaded with the DZ-5 in U.S. airspace. The Pentagon authorizes a mid-air insertion of Travis' special operations team onto the hijacked airliner using the experimental "Remora F117x" aircraft. Grant and DARPA engineer Dennis Cahill reluctantly join the mission.

The Remora intercepts and docks with the airliner. Grant, Cahill, and team members Cappy, Baker, Louie and Rat successfully board but Cappy is injured after a fall. Severe turbulence strains the docking tunnel. Travis sacrifices himself by closing the 747's hatch before it decompresses. The Remora is destroyed along with the team's communications equipment, leaving the Pentagon unaware of their survival. They conduct a covert search for the bomb, hoping to neutralize it and storm the cabin. Grant accidentally reveals his presence to flight attendant Jean, but successfully recruits her to assist their search, despite Hassan's suspicions.

The team locates the bomb and Cappy, despite his injuries, guides Cahill in disarming it until they discover its arming device has an additional, remote-controlled trigger. Jaffa, released by U.S officials in an attempt to resolve the situation, calls Hassan from a private jet to tell him he is on his way to Algeria, but Hassan abruptly ends the call. Grant and the others realize Hassan's men are unaware of the bomb and Hassan's true intentions, after he kills one of them for rebuking him. He also inadvertently reveals that one of the passengers is a sleeper agent and the trigger-man for the bomb.

The Pentagon dispatches U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats to shoot down the 747, prompting Hassan to execute passenger U.S. Senator Jason Mavros as a warning. Baker uses Morse code via the 747's taillights to signal the fighters that the team made it aboard, requesting an extra ten minutes to neutralize the bomb and retake the 747, despite already crossing into U.S. airspace. Jean spots a man with an electronic device and informs Grant, who enters the passenger cabin to take the suspected individual by surprise, only to find he is merely a diamond thief. Grant spots the real sleeper, Demou, and fights him for the detonator. Hassan attempts to shoot Grant, but is himself shot by an on-board air marshal.

The commandos storm the cabin as a firefight ensues. Grant struggles to wrestle the detonator from Demou's grip while Baker and Rat gun down several terrorists. Louie assists Grant by fatally shooting Demou and eliminating the remaining terrorists. Demou, however, manages to arm the bomb before dying, and stray bullets from a terrorist's weapon pierce a window causing explosive decompression. The bomb is disarmed just in time by Cappy and Cahill as the 747 stabilizes. Hassan kills the pilots and damages the controls, before being shot and killed by Rat.

Despite his limited flying experience and poor flying technique, Grant takes control of the 747 and attempts a landing but misses the approach to Dulles International Airport. Now flying north over Maryland, Grant recognizes the area surrounding his training airfield, Frederick Field, and opts to attempt to land the 747 there. With Jean's assistance, Grant successfully lands the airliner and the passengers are safely evacuated. Grant is saluted by Baker, Louie, Rat and Cappy for his leadership before being summoned to the Pentagon.