Trama

High school student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) boards Volee Airlines Flight 180, a Boeing 747, with his classmates for their senior trip to Paris from John F. Kennedy Airport. The trip is for 10 days, with 40 students from the high school, in springtime and is supposed to be a trip with memories to last a lifetime. Before take-off, Alex has a premonition. He visualizes the events with the group boarding the plane, the plane itself being in a bad condition, Alex switching seats with Christa and Blake (fellow students), his tray table having a faulty knob, and after takeoff the plane will facing a mechanical failure, leading to a mid-air explosion, killing everybody on board. When the events from his vision begin to occur in reality, he panics until a fight breaks out between him and his rival Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), resulting in both of them being removed from the plane, along with Alex's best friend Tod Waggner (Chad Donella as Chad E. Donella), Carter's girlfriend Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), teacher Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke), and students Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott) and Clear Rivers (Ali Larter). Valerie asks fellow teacher Murnau to get back onto the flight as she cannot leave the rest of the students unchaperoned. Clear wasn't forced off the plane but disembarked voluntarily. None of the other passengers, except Clear, believes Alex about his vision until the plane explodes on take-off.

The students who perish are Christa Marsh (Lisa Marie Caruk), Blake Dreyer (Christine Chatelain), George Waggner (Brendan Fehr), and teacher Larry Murnau (Forbes Angus), among others.

Afterwards, the survivors are interrogated by two FBI agents, Weine (Daniel Roebuck) and Schreck (Roger Guenveur Smith), who are both suspicious of Alex. Alex is not able to explain how he knew that the plane was going to explode after take-off and simply says that he had a vision where he saw the plane explode. Alex lives with his parents, Barbara (Barbara Tyson) and Ken (Robert Wisden).

Carter refuses to acknowledge that he owes anything to Alex and says that he will live his own life to the fullest. Thirty-nine days later, after attending a memorial service for the victims, an unusual chain reaction (a leaky faucet spills water on the bathroom floor, Tod slips on the slippery floor, and gets tangled on the clothing line inside the shower) causes Tod to accidentally be hanged in his shower that night. Mysteriously, the water retreats into the faucet after Tod is dead. The floor is dry and clean and there is no apparent cause for the death.

Alex had received hints about Tod's death that night and rushed to his home to find that Tod had already died. Clear takes Alex away from the house, lest he be implicated in his death. Clear says that when Alex spoke on the plane, she could feel what he felt and hence followed him out of the plane. Again, that night, she could feel Alex's panic and hence came to Tod's house.

While his death is ruled a suicide (over guilt of George's death, who stayed in the plane), Alex sneaks into the funeral home along with Clear to examine Tod's corpse. Alex learns that Tod was pulling at the shower cloth line wire, which means that it wasn't suicide as the police had concluded. The home's mortician, William Bludworth (Tony Todd), reveals that the survivors who escaped from the impending circumstance have disrupted Death's plan, who is now claiming the lives of those who were meant to die from the accident. Alex and Clear are discussing their next move when the rest of the survivors arrive outside the cafe. Carter again confronts Alex and says that it is because of him that everybody's life has been turned upside down. Valerie declares her intention to move out of town. While Terry is furious that Carter picks a fight every time he sees Alex. She refuses to let the plane crash be the most important event of her life. She backs up and steps into the street while talking. Terry is run over and killed by a speeding bus.

After watching a news report on the cause of the explosion, Alex concludes that Death is reclaiming the survivors according to the sequence of their intended demise on the plane. Nonetheless, he is too late to save Ms. Lewton, whose house explodes after she is impaled by a falling kitchen knife.

The remaining survivors reunite while driving through town as Alex explains the situation. Carter, who is next, is enraged over Terry's loss and stops his car on a train crossing, attempting to die on his own terms. While the others escape, he changes his mind at the last minute, but his seat-belt jams. Alex manages to save him just before the car is smashed by an oncoming train that knocks shrapnel from the wreckage into the air, decapitating Billy.

Alex learns that because he intervened in Carter's death, it skipped to the next person in the sequence. The next day, while hiding out in a fortified cabin, Alex recalls having changed seats with two classmates in his premonition and realizes that Clear is actually next. He rushes to her house to save her while being pursued by Weine and Schreck, who believe Alex is responsible for the remaining survivors' deaths. Alex finds Clear trapped inside her car and surrounded by a loose electrical cable that ignites a gasoline leak around her car. He grabs the cable, allowing her to escape from the car just before it explodes.

Six months later, Alex, Clear, and Carter travel to Paris to celebrate their survival. While discussing their ordeal, Alex reveals that Death never skipped him after he saved Clear. Fearing that their struggle is unfinished, Alex retreats when a bus hurls a parking sign towards a neon sign that descends towards him. Carter pushes Alex out of the way at the last second, but the sign swings back down towards Carter and kills him.