1980 Movie Airplane! Isn't the original you thought it was

[AggieMike88]

Many of us, including me, thought it was a satire making fun of the disaster movies in the 70's.

It actually is a near scene for scene parody of Arthur Haley's movie "Zero Hour"

Here is something that compares the two.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

At the time Airplane was being made, Paramount also owned the rights to Zero Hour, so they were able to copy as much as they wanted from the earlier script.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Interview on how they made Airplane https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/25/how-we-made-airplane-the-movie