TV Reviews : ‘Crash Landing’ Relives Sioux City Tragedy

Half an hour into ABC’s “Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232,” you’re still waiting for it to start. And after the pace does quicken--”Attention all units!”--you’re anxious for it to end.

Airing at 9 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42, this is the story about the 1989 crash of a United Air Lines wide body in Sioux City, Iowa, and the herculean rescue effort responsible for 186 of 296 passengers being safely removed from the wreckage in just 48 minutes.

Newscasts everywhere showed spectacular footage of the crippled big jet hurtling onto a runway, tipping over, splitting into three-parts and then becoming a fiery holocaust that you thought would have doomed most if not all occupants. Thus, presumably, there is a compelling rescue story to tell.

Yet despite having usually capable director Lamont Johnson on hand, “Crash Landing” is never able to lift itself above the standard jet-in-jeopardy genre that has been a staple of disaster films for years. Its patness extends to Flight 232’s cockpit, where, in command as calm, courageous Capt. Al Haynes, sits typecast Charlton Heston (“We may have to put this sonofagun down and hope for the best”), buckling under the baggage of his numerous other depictions of a hero bucking danger.

His co-star is the emergency procedure itself, mainly personified by Richard Thomas as Gary Brown, the local official whose vision and determination were largely responsible for Sioux City’s extraordinary level of preparedness. That in itself is something to see.

But loosen your seat belts. You salute the heroes and mobilization effort, but not the movie.