Goofs

(at around 1h 40 mins) At the end of the movie, when Cyrus crashes through the overpass, at first he appears to be coming out the other side, and that he will land behind the fire truck onto the street. However, he somehow falls through some power lines and lands on a conveyor belt that drops him under a pneumatic hammer looking object that appears to be in the middle of an industry yard, yet they are supposed to be in the middle of Las Vegas.

Clearly an example of over-the-top artistic licence.

The first look at Billy Bedlam's teeth reveals they are regular-looking. But a few scenes later when he is in the plane's hatch and fighting with Poe, they are very, very yellow.

In several scenes Swamp Thing is steering the plane with the control wheel while the plane is on the ground. The C-123 Provider is steered on the ground with a small wheel to the left of the Pilot's Control Wheel.

(at around 1h 35 mins) When the plane is headed to crash at the Las Vegas strip, the sky shows that it is sunset or dusk. About two cuts later, the sky is pitch black.

(at around 1h 40 mins) At the end of the movie, towards the end of the fight between Cyrus and Poe, Cameron clearly handcuffs Cyrus to the fire truck's ladder; the ladder then begins to rise (which it couldn't do while in motion anyway), hurling Cyrus through the overpass. As his body leaves the ladder the framework is intact yet as his body comes out the opposite side the handcuff - one end still on his wrist - is no longer around anything even though it is obviously still closed.

(at around 5 mins) The judge that sentences Poe claims that Poe does not have the same right of defense because he is combat trained. While it is a common myth that people trained in combat, such as soldiers, martial artists, and boxers, have to register themselves as dangerous weapons, this is completely untrue. All people are held to the same standard regarding self defense, regardless of their combat training.

(at around 1h 40 mins) Most fire trucks, especially ladder trucks, cannot pump water and drive at the same time, as the power from the motor is disengaged from the transmission/driveshaft and diverted to the pump gearing.

(at around 37 mins) The "transponder" removed from the Con Air aircraft is actually just a remote control head as evidenced by the large, multi-contact connector on the back of it. Even if it were the transponder, it would not operate on a single lantern battery, nor would it operate without an antenna. Having two operating transponders in an aircraft (the Grand Canyon Tours aircraft) would result in a collision alarm at Air Traffic Control since the radar would see two aircraft in the same place. Transponders are "Secondary Surveillance Radar". The Primary Surveillance Radar would still see the Con Air Plane take-off and notice that it didn't have a transponder signal.

The C-123 aircraft does not have lower compartments as depicted in the movie.

(at around 1h 30 mins) The TOW missiles that would have been carried by the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters are not air-to-air missiles and have to be manually guided to the target (i.e. they cannot simply "lock on" to one)

(at around 1h 28 mins) When the three agents first see the airplane dragging Malloy's Corvette in the air the plane is a good ways away from them yet after while the Corvette hits a building and is released from the plane and lands next to the three agents. The plane would of had to do an impossible turn and fly back toward the agents. It is does not show the plane turning at all, it was taking off and was trying to gain altitude.

There are no guns allowed on U.S. Marshals/JPATS flights. It is very unlikely a DEA agent would provide another agent with a weapon onboard a con air flight. Technically, this is not a goof, as Agent Malloy was told several times that no guns were allowed on the plane, which he supposedly agreed to only to later hide a gun in his undercover agent's clothing. This is clearly a case of Agent Malloy deliberately going against the rules to further rub his nose at another agency's apparent weakness.

Cameron Poe takes the photograph of his daughter back from Guard Falson. A while later, Cameron shakes him and demands the photograph. But he didn't really want the photograph; this was a cover for planting the tape.

(at around 1h 21 mins) When Diamond Dog gets the small arsenal out from the belly of the plane, he opens a box of shotguns. He pulls them out and throws them to nearby cons, but when the camera switches to the cons, they are catching assault rifles, not shotguns, because he's opened the second box as well.

(at around 33 mins) Baby-O can't get off the plane in Carson City because only white convicts are expected. When the men are prepped to get off the plane we see two black men among them. However, only the three dead prisoners that were being replaced needed to be white. There were still three more (making six all together) whose race was not specified.

(at around 1h) When Larkin is driving the car at high speeds to the airfield, he is supposed to be driving along the straight road, yet from the shadow circling round him and the sun moving when he is on the phone, he is apparently driving around in circles.

After the plane crashes, the paramedics board the plane and determine that Johnny 23 was dead. They move his body, which was still dangling, but his arm has been cut off and remains hanging there. He was hanging by his handcuffed hand so if his arm had been cut off there would be no way for him to be dangling.

In the extended edition, as the cons are running back to the plane to escape the shootout with the military, Johnny-23 appears with a gun, and is shot in the leg, when he was just on the plane assaulting Guard Bishop before Cameron stopped him, and is then seen being chained up by Cameron.

(at around 1h 28 mins) When Duncan Malloy's car hits the ground, a cable holding the front left tire is visible.

(at around 55 mins) When Pinball hits the car, you can tell it is not Dave Chappelle, but rather a black crash dummy carved to look like the actor.

In the opening credits montage, Mykelti Williamson's name is misspelled "Myelti Williamson".

For the cable TV version, actor Mykelti Williamson's first name is incorrectly listed as Myelti.

At Lerner Airfield, the jet Francisco Cindino is trying to escape in is hit by a crane arm and then crashes into gas pumps and a small building. After it stops, Francisco is trying to climb out of the back of the broken in half jet and gasoline is shooting out of the ground where the knocked over gas pumps were. Right then while Francisco is yelling for help and hanging out of the back of the jet, and Cyrus' and Swamp Thing's legs are to the left of screen, between Cyrus' left leg and Swamp Thing's right leg there is a man very far off in the distance. He is wearing a white shirt, black pants and some kind of hat and is running and carrying something red in his right hand that resembles a bag or maybe a bucket. There is no character in the movie that fits that description during the Lerner Airfield Scenes. Nor is there any character that could be off in the distance at that moment. So it's some kind of crew member or first responder.

Repeated several times through the movie, the camera and light screens are reflected - this is mainly present during the close-ups of the actors in the police/military helicopters.

(at around 1 min) Prior to accidentally killing the drunk, Poe is outside of the bar, with a "BAR" sign visible. Alabama prohibits using the word "bar". It would be a "club", "place", or just about anything else, but never a bar.

When "Swamp thing" announces to land the jailbird in Las Vegas, he announces that he has to land on the strip, since the damaged aircraft won't make it to the airport. seconds later, he flies over the hard rock cafe. from the hard rock cafe, it is only two blocks to the airport, but five blocks to the strip.

At the end of the movie Poe and Larkin are fighting Cyrus and Swamp Thing on a ladder truck in a long tunnel. There is no tunnel like that in Las Vegas. The tunnel used is the 2nd Street tunnel in downtown Los Angeles; however, that tunnel goes for only 1500 feet, which is not nearly as long as depicted in the movie.

(at around 1h 40 mins) When the plane crashes on the strip, as Poe and Larkin chase the fire truck, within seconds they are at Fremont Street, which is miles from where the plane crashed.

(at around 1h 35 mins) When the plane is crashing at the Las Vegas strip the casinos that the plane hits / passes are all in wrong order. The plane passes the and is heading south on the strip. It then hits the guitar for the Hard Rock Hotel, which is not even on the strip, but is several blocks east and much further south. Then they show the Circus Circus sign, which is after the Stratosphere. A few clips later as the plane is about to touch down it passes the white wooden roller coaster of the Boardwalk Casino. The casino is on the wrong side of the plane if it is flying south, and the Boardwalk casino is miles south of The Sands, where the plane finally stops. The next exterior shot shows the Barbary Coast and it is in the correct place south of Circus Circus and to the correct side of the southbound plane. Other shots show the Mirage and the Sands being mixed up and the plane finally ends at the front door of The Sands (which is no longer in existence).

Master criminal Cyrus takes every precaution in the world in order to execute the perfect airborne prison escape, yet instead of destroying a few pieces of paper which are a virtual road map to his plan (including schematics of the plane and they "keys" required to decode the rendezvous points), he takes the time to seal them in the wall of a cell he knows he will never see again.

An aircraft carrying several high-security prisoners would not land at a civilian airport to transfer prisoners. This would take place at a military airfield. In addition to this, a U.S. Marshal being shot and killed on the airfield and an aircraft full of prisoners escaping would result in the airport being immediately closed down and sealed off for investigation, so there is no way that "Uncle Bob's" scenic tour aircraft would have been allowed to depart shortly afterwards.

(at around 24 mins) The pilot's cabin is constructed of bullet proof steel, with a heavy duty bullet proof door, which is why Cyrus waits for one of the pilots to open it. The remaining pilot had several opportunities to close the door and seal himself in, then could have returned to the original airport.

Poe is convicted of involuntary manslaughter, which would be a state crime, and the courthouse appears to be a state rather than federal one. Therefore, the judge would have no authority to sentence him to a federal prison. Poe would have been sent to an Alabama state prison, and Alabama would issue his parole order, instead of the US Parole Commission as depicted.

At the beginning of the movie, Cameron Poe was attacked and there are witnesses that he tried to avoid the fight and the killing was in self-defense. It is an extremely weak plot hammer to get Poe onto a plane full of criminals.

(at around 59 mins) While looking at a map to figure out where the plane is actually heading to, Larkin points inside the California area when he mentions the last transponder location was in Arizona.

(at around 1h 29 mins) The whole band Lynyrd Skynyrd did not die in a plane crash. Although their plane did crash, only three members of the band were killed along with three other passengers. The other seven members of the band escaped with injuries.