| Director | Robert Schwentke |
|---|---|
| Budget | $55 million |
| Box office | $223 million |
Recently widowed Berlin-based American aviation engineer Kyle Pratt is taking her husband David's body back to the United States. Traveling with their six-year-old daughter Julia, they board a new double-decker aircraft Kyle helped design.
Awakening from a nap, Kyle finds Julia is gone, and no one recalls seeing her. Flight attendant Stephanie tells her there is no record of her daughter boarding the flight, and Julia's boarding pass and backpack are missing. At a panicked Kyle's insistence, Captain Marcus Rich conducts a search, while sky marshal Gene Carson monitors her. Kyle accuses two Arab passengers of stalking her daughter the night before, resulting in a fight and her being handcuffed.
Kyle reveals that her husband died in an apparent fall from the roof of a building, though she suspects it was not a suicide. Captain Rich receives a message from a Berlin hospital that Julia died with her father, and is convinced that Kyle, unhinged by her husband's and daughter's deaths, imagined bringing her on board. The increasingly erratic Kyle is confined to her seat, where a therapist, Lisa, consoles her. Kyle doubts her own sanity until she notices the heart Julia drew in the condensation on the window next to her seat.
Kyle asks to use the bathroom, where she climbs into the overhead crawl space, sabotaging the aircraft's electronics. In the ensuing chaos, she rides a dumbwaiter to the lower freight deck and unlocks David's casket, suspecting Julia to be inside, but finds only her husband's body. Carson escorts Kyle to her seat in handcuffs, and explains the flight is making an emergency stopover at Goose Bay Airport in Labrador, where she will be taken into custody.
Kyle pleads with Carson to search the hold. He sneaks down to the freight deck, removing two explosives and a detonator concealed in David's casket, and planting the explosives in the avionics section. It is revealed that Carson, Stephanie, and the Berlin mortuary director have conspired to hijack the aircraft for a $50 million ransom and frame Kyle; they abducted Julia to coerce Kyle into unlocking the casket. Carson also falsely claims to Captain Rich that Kyle is threatening to bomb the aircraft unless the ransom is wired to a bank account and a G3 aircraft is readied upon landing. He then plans to detonate the explosives, killing Julia, and leaving Kyle dead with the detonator in her hand.
Landing in Newfoundland, the airliner is surrounded by FBI agents as the passengers exit the aircraft. Kyle confronts Captain Rich, who angrily declares the ransom has been paid. Realizing that Carson is the perpetrator, she quickly assumes the role of hijacker, commanding Carson to remain aboard and the crew to disembark.
Once the plane's door closes, Kyle knocks Carson out with a fire extinguisher, handcuffs him to a rail, and takes the detonator from his pocket. He quickly regains consciousness, frees himself and pursues Kyle, who locks herself in the cockpit. She draws Carson away by throwing a binder out a hatch door to the upper level as a ruse so she can escape. After an altercation with Kyle, a guilt-ridden Stephanie flees the airliner.
Kyle finds the unconscious Julia, but Carson arrives, revealing that he murdered David to smuggle the explosives inside his casket and gagged and dumped Julia into the food bin, believing that neither the passengers nor the crew would notice. Kyle escapes with Julia into the aircraft's non-combustible hold as Carson shoots at her. She detonates the explosives, killing him and damaging the landing gear, but she and Julia emerge unscathed as everyone realizes she had been telling the truth all along.
The next morning, in the passenger waiting section of the airport, Captain Rich apologizes to a seated Kyle holding Julia in her arms as Stephanie is led away by FBI agents. One agent approaches to inform them that the Berlin mortuary director has also been arrested, adding that they are tracking down another accomplice who erased Julia's record from the flight manifest.
Kyle silently redeems herself by carrying Julia through the crowd of passengers. As one of the Arab passengers assists Kyle in loading her luggage onto a waiting van, Julia awakens and sleepily asks "Are we there yet?" as they drive away.