In Airport (1970), Joe Patroni states that he and his wife have five children. In this movie, the same character says he and his late wife had one child, a son (both of whom were seen in Airport 1975 (1974)) , and never got around to having any more. In the '75 version, the son was 10 years old, and in this version, four years later, he's started college,
The mechanic who sabotaged the plane in Paris is seen in the toilets putting a shirt on over a waistcoat containing money. Going through passenger control a bundle of money falls out causing security to chase him. He runs out onto the airfield, over the tarmac and in front of Concorde taking off. Caught by the turbulence he's seen rolling over and ,money blowing about but freeze frame and advance by frame and his shirt is still intact and tucked into his trousers.
After the oxygen masks drop and the passengers put them on, the masks disappear in two shots.
During first flight when Martha Rayes emerges from lavatory and says "the bathroom is broken" her hair is wet and disheveled. When she is later shown (twice) in her seat (during the landing in Paris), her hair is dry and combed.
When the Concorde lands at Le Bourget, the runway turns into a taxiway, and changes color continuously. The same thing happens when it takes off from Roissy afterward.
Even though the Concorde's engines were shut down during the missile attack, they still would have been very hot. The two heat-seeking missiles would not have missed.
Although the special effects were well done for the time, the Concorde's intact "belly landing" in the snow would have been impossible. The damage the plane had suffered from the cargo door coming off would likely have caused it to break up.
In the story, an airline takes possession of a Concorde, then it immediately launches its first commercial flight. The plane was delivered without the livery of the airline, but had the name "Concorde" on the side. In the real world this never would have happened. Clearly, this was done to promote the Concorde, which at the time was barely profitable and was in need of an increase in passengers, most of whom were driven away by the extremely high ticket costs.
In the film, the Concorde lands in Paris just before dark, and takes off again at 3:30pm the next day, about 21 hours later. Since the Phantom jet fighter attack caused major electrical and hydraulic damage, it wouldn't have been allowed to fly until it was repaired; this would take much longer than 21 hours.
In the beginning, while landing at Dulles, the Concorde makes a steep turn aligning with the runway. In real life, even a small, relatively slow plane (like a Cessna) needs a few miles to approach a runway.
The Concorde was not designed to perform a loop-the-loop, but it could do a barrel-roll. Considering the power available, if the plane were below mach speeds and the loop were large enough, it is possible for such a maneuver to work.
When the Concorde lands in France, the nose is alternately lowered and raised between shots. This is not a goof. The nose was lowered for visibility as they touch down, it is then intentionally raised to avoid damage to the nose when going through the barrier nets. This is the correct procedure.
As the Concorde was departing Paris for Moscow, it was revealed to the crew that there was bad weather in Germany and they would need to take a southern route to Moscow. Flying south of Germany would put them in the vicinity of the Alps.
When Avery Schreiber's character is signing to his daughter, he is uses the American Sign Language alphabet and signs. Both characters are Russian, so they would use the Russian Manual Alphabet. When he spells his daughter's name, Irina, he uses the American Sign Language letter "I", which does not not exist in the Russian Manual Alphabet. Her name would start with a different character.
When the drone missile is approaching the Concorde head-on, the Concorde appears to be flying backwards.
When the French Mirage Fighter planes are firing on the F-4 Phantom, the F-4 model shows no signs of bullet hits and is already headed for the water.
The two missiles that miss the Concorde explode before they hit the water.
When the Concorde's vertical stabilizer falls to one side after the plane explodes, it is clearly a prop standing alone in the snow.
Incorrectly regarded as a goof: It is not stated in any dialogue, but to make the violent maneuvers in order to evade the missiles, the Concorde's captain would have had to slow its speed to well below Mach 1. When Petroni puts the flare gun out the window, his hand would not necessarily have been sheared off. Although he would have likely a suffered a serious wind burn.
At no point during the drone attack did the air crew contact air traffic control, declare an emergency, describe what was happening, or make any contact or report of any kind. Neither was there any contact with the fighters.
The canopy of the Phantom has a blue glow. This is because the art was expected to be against a sky with a similar coloration. In essence, it was a cut-out that was superimposed on the background image. Instead of a blue sky, the background was of heavy gray clouds, which did not match the Phantom art. The cloudy background was used so that the relative motion could be more readily discernible. This is a trick that was developed as a result of Howard Hughes massive WWII film Hell's Angels (1930). While the air action in that film was massive, employing more airplanes than were owned by most countries, the cloudless skies of the California desert over which it was filmed made it seem that the planes were not moving at all. Despite the massive cost, Hughes scrapped all of the aerial scenes and re-shot them completely. Once the action was taking place with clouds in the background the film came alive. It was one of the most massive blockbuster hits of its day.
During the rainy Paris street scene after the Concorde lands, a car is shown with a red turn signal flashing. Cars built for Europe have amber turn signals.
Incorrectly regarded as a goof: Although all European cars for European market have been equipped with amber turn signals since 1968, red rear turn signals were allowed on individually exported cars in most European countries until the end of 80's.
When the passengers are boarding buses after the emergency landing in France, the buses being used for the scene are bus models that are sold in North America and would not be present in Europe.
When the passengers are leaving the hotel in Washington D.C. , the hotel in the background is the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel.
During the final scene, the European (presumably Austrian) rescuers have strong American accents.
When the plane is rolling on the Dulles taxiway, the Russian gymnastics coach gets up and switches seats with the gymnast sitting next to Andrea Marcovicci's character. Even in 1979, passengers were not allowed to stand up while a plane was rolling on a taxiway or runway.
Joe Patroni says his son is in college. His son was seen as a young boy in the 1974 movie Airport 1975. Therefore, he could not have grown up to be a college-age man in the five year span between the two films, unless this film takes place many years after 1979.