Best movies like How to Steal an Airplane

It's not easy - when the jet belongs to the son of a Latin American dictator!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like How to Steal an Airplane Starring Pete Duel, Clinton Greyn, Sal Mineo, Claudine Longet, and more. If you liked How to Steal an Airplane then you may also like: Broken Arrow, Chain Lightning, Cone of Silence, Top Gun, Sully and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Two pilots are hired to reclaim a stolen jet from the son of a South American dictator.

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Broken Arrow

When rogue stealth-fighter pilot Vic Deakins deliberately drops off the radar while on maneuvers, the Air Force ends up with two stolen nuclear warheads -- and Deakins's co-pilot, Riley Hale, is the military's only hope for getting them back. Traversing the deserted canyons of Utah, Hale teams with park ranger Terry Carmichael to put Deakins back in his box.

Chain Lightning

Former World War II flying ace Matt Brennan takes a position as a test pilot for a commercial aircraft corporation and bumps into his old girlfriend, Jo Holloway, who now works as a receptionist for the company.

Cone of Silence

A seasoned pilot is condemned for an error which causes a crash. The pilot later dies in a crash with similar circumstances and an examiner looks for scientific reasons for the crashes.

Top Gun

For Lieutenant Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell and his friend and co-pilot Nick 'Goose' Bradshaw, being accepted into an elite training school for fighter pilots is a dream come true. But a tragedy, as well as personal demons, will threaten Pete's dreams of becoming an ace pilot.

Sully

On 15 January 2009, the world witnessed the 'Miracle on the Hudson' when Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 souls aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and career.

Tailspin Tommy

A young mechanic gets a job with a small airline, which he helps win a mail contract. A rival airline plots to destroy it in order to get the contracts for itself.

Top Gun: Maverick

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.

Iron Eagle

When Doug's father, an Air Force Pilot, is shot down by MiGs belonging to a radical Middle Eastern state, no one seems able to get him out. Doug finds Chappy, an Air Force Colonel who is intrigued by the idea of sending in two fighters piloted by himself and Doug to rescue Doug's father after bombing the MiG base.

Firefox

The Soviets have developed a revolutionary new jet fighter, called 'Firefox'. Worried that the jet will be used as a first-strike weapon—as there are rumours that it is undetectable by radar—the British send ex-Vietnam War pilot, Mitchell Gant on a covert mission into the Soviet Union to steal the Firefox.

Fire Birds

A joint task force operation between the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Army has been formed to dismantle one of the largest drug cartels operating in South America. Multiple attempts to assault the cartel's mountainous compound have been thwarted by a Scorpion-attack helicopter piloted by a cartel leader, Eric Stoller (Bert Rhine). After having several aircraft shot down, most notably a pair of UH–60 Black Hawks and their AH–1 Cobra escorts, the army turns to the new AH–64 Apache attack helicopter, which can match its enemies' maneuverability and firepower.

Iron Eagle II

Chappy Sinclair is called to gather together a mixed Soviet/U.S. strike force that will perform a surgical strike on a massively defended nuclear missile site in the Middle East. Chappy finds that getting the Soviet and U.S. Pilots to cooperate is only the most minor of his problems as he discovers someone in the Pentagon is actively sabotaging his mission.

Red Sky

Disgraced Top Gun fighter pilot Butch Masters leads a rogue squad in recovery of a WMD. Masters must navigate a fractured friendship, a love triangle, and must take to the skies to reclaim his military and personal honor.

Mayday at 40,000 Feet!

The co-pilot and engineer of a passenger jet struggle to keep the plane airborne after a marshal onboard, transporting a murderer to prison, has a heart attack and the killer uses his gun to shoot the captain and blow out the hydraulics.

Scarecrows

Five men heist the Camp Pendleton payroll and kidnap a pilot and his daughter, who are forced to fly them to Mexico. Enroute a double cross has one of the thieves parachute with the loot into an abandoned farm surrounded by strange scarecrows. The rest of the team jump after their loot and their former partner. Everything happens during the course of one very dark night.

The Solitaire Man

An almost-retired jewel thief plans to marry Helen, his partner in crime. Their plans are shattered when Bascom, a gang member, arrives with a stolen necklace, putting their whole gang at risk.

The Sound Barrier

Fictionalized story of British aerospace engineers solving the problem of supersonic flight.

The Starfighters

A young Air Force lieutenant falls in love with fighter planes while his father, a Congressman and war hero, yearns for him to fly heavy bombers.

Task Force

After learning the finer points of carrier aviation in the 1920s, career officer Jonathan Scott and his pals spend the next two decades promoting the superiority of naval air power. But military and political "red tape" continually frustrate their efforts, prompting Scott to even consider leaving the Navy for a more lucrative civilian job. Then the world enters a second World War and Scott finally gets the opportunity to prove to Washington the valuable role aircraft carriers could play in winning the conflict. But what will it cost him and his comrades personally?

Into the Sun

Paul Watkins is an American pilot stationed in the Middle East, who is taken away from his normal duties of protecting the skies to show an actor everything he needs to know about being a pilot in the Air Force. The actor, Tom Slade, is about to start filming an Air Force movie and wants to "get the feeling" for the part. When Watkins takes Slade for a ride in an F-16 fighter, some other American jets are attacked and the pair comes to the rescue. However, it does not go according to the plan.

The Crowded Sky

When Navy pilot Dale Heath takes off, he doesn't expect his navigational equipment to fail and must adapt when it goes out along with his radio. Heading straight for a commercial jet piloted by Dick Barnett, whose plane is full of passengers, Heath can't tell which way to turn in order to avoid a catastrophe.

Sabre Jet

The story of jet pilots flying over Korea by day, from their Itazuke Air Base in Japan, and of their wives, on station with them, who have dinner ready when they return. Jane Carter (Coleen Gray), a reporter for a large newspaper syndicate arrives... she's also the estranged wife of the assistant squadron commander, Colonel Gil Manton (Robert Stack.) At first, she goes at her assignment of getting a story on the pilots wives with the same ruthlessness and persistence that broke up her marriage - but a mirror isn't needed to peek around the corner to where this one is headed.

Air Cadet

A group of cadets have assorted problems at the U.S. Air Force Pilot Training Academy.

The McConnell Story

Joe McConnell was sure that he was meant to be a pilot, but was stuck as a restless army private. It seemed that his ambition was blocked at every step.

Love and Money

An investment planner, bored with his job and his girlfriend, is given the opportunity to help open a new firm in South America. Once in the new country, he finds himself dealing with dictators and revolutionaries during a time of intense political upheaval, and to complicate his life further, he begins an affair with his new employer's wife.

Final Approach

Final Approach deals with the mental condition of Amnesia when a stealth test pilot, Col. Jason Halsey, is involved in an air disaster. A psychiatrist Dr. Dio Gottlieb attempts to help Halsey to recover his memory, but his motives seem strained. Is Gottlieb giving professional help or is he a counter-intelligence agent sent to debrief Halsey?

The Flying Ace

A veteran World War I fighter pilot returns home a war hero and immediately regains his former job as a railroad company detective. His first case: recover a stolen satchel filled with $25,000 of company payroll, locate a missing employee, and capture a gang of railroad thieves.

Blowback

When a master thief is sabotaged during a bank heist and left for dead, he seeks revenge on his former crew one target at a time. Now, with the cops and the mob closing in, he's in the race of his life to reclaim an untold fortune in cryptocurrency from those who double-crossed him.

The Hunters

With its electrifying flight sequences and high-powered cast, The Hunters is a mesmerizing film based on the best-selling novel by veteran fighter pilot James Salter. Set during the height of the Korean War, the story centers on Major Cleve Saville (Robert Mitchum), a master of the newly operational F-86 Sabre fighter jets. But adept as he is at flying, Saville¹s personal life takes a nosedive when he falls in love with his wingman¹s (Lee Philips) beautiful wife (May Britt). To make matters worse, Saville must cope with a loud-mouthed rookie (Robert Wagner) in a daring rescue mission that threatens all their lives in this well-crafted war drama.

Kill Speed

KILL SPEED is a high-octane, youth oriented, TOP GUN meets FAST & FURIOUS tale about best friends who fly home-built, high-tech planes to deliver Mexican manufactured crystal meth throughout rural California in order to fund their Hollywood, rock-star lifestyle.

Air Marshal

A commercial jet plane has been hijacked by a group of terrorists who don't realize that a U.S. Air Marshal, Brett Prescott (Dean Cochran), is among the passengers. The fate of dozens of people lies in the hands of Prescott, who must forge a one-man war against the hijackers destructive plans.

Air Strike

Tasked with training a group of untested new recruits, a no-nonsense Navy commander faces a host of challenges as he attempts to transform the greenhorns into a squadron of crackerjack jet pilots. Don Haggerty co-stars as the unit's second-in-command who clashes bitterly with the cocky young upstart of the team after the lad shows off with some reckless aerial acrobatics.

SST: Death Flight

On its maiden flight, the crew of America's first supersonic transport learns that it may not be able to land, due to an act of sabotage and a deadly flu onboard.

747: The Jumbo Revolution

At any given moment hundreds of people are soaring above us in a 747. From the moment the very first jumbo jet took off in 1969, it has been the aircraft against which all others are judged. But its 45-year journey has been anything but smooth. This is the definitive story of the Boeing 747, from its milestones and triumphs to its turning points and disasters. Witness its history through rare archival footage and tales from pilots, engineers, designers, and passengers who were there when it all began.

The Young Country

An adventurous young gambler searches for the owner of a mysterious fortune.

Border Treasure

Two cowboys aim to reclaim stolen jewels and money in this 1950 Western.

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