“I have a real problem …”. The terrible death on the set of Top gun

Top gun is Tony Scott’s 1986 film that airs tonight at 10pm on the Rsi La2 channel. While the sequel is expected in cinemas, Top Gun: Maverickthe iconic film from the Eighties is back on TV, bringing with it both its history and the tragedies that accompanied its making and beyond.

Top gun, the plot

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is a talented but also reckless driver who, together with his navigator and friend Goose (Anthony Edwards), tends to circumvent the rules and react instinctively, even at the cost of going against orders. However, thanks to a truly spectacular rescue mission, the two are noticed from the upper floors and sent to the prestigious Top gun school, where all the pilots converge to be prepared for military aerial combat. The school is tougher than expected and the rivalry with others – especially with Iceman (Val Kilmer) – pushes Maverick to give his all and to keep going at any cost. It will be precisely this desire to emerge and demonstrate one’s worth that will lead him to the center of a terrible accident during the exercises that will influence his path, throwing him into a personal crisis. In love with a school instructor (Kelly McGillis), Maverick will have to find self-confidence again and prove that, after all, no one knows how to fly like him.

The terrible accident during processing

Top gun it is a film that has undoubtedly become part of the collective imagination internationally, although in the United States the influence of the film is even stronger. Just think that, according to what the website of theInternet Movie Data Basein true Top Gun School There is a sort of five-dollar fine that staff members are forced to pay every time they mention the film. Despite this success and the immortal character of the Maverick story, Top gun it is a film accompanied by many shadows. The most recent is that linked to the director’s suicide, Tony Scott, occurred in 2012, when the man, aged sixty-eight, jumped from a bridge. Above all, however, Top gun is characterized by a accident mortal who darkened the production and took the life of one of the stunt pilots in the film.

As reported by the Los Angeles Timesthe aerobatic pilot Art Scholl crashed into the Pacific Ocean with his aerobatic biplane equipped with a camera. The incident occurred off the coast of San Diego County while Scholl was engaged in an upside-down maneuver for footage that would be used right inside. Top gun. Art Scholl, who was 54, had taken off followed by another plane in which mechanic Kevin Kammer and other stunt Chuck Wentworth were. The latter saw School’s plane capsize at a height of about 121 meters at around 5.45pm, before plunging and crashing into the ocean. According to IMDBjust before the impact the pilot said: “I have a problem. I have a real problem”, specifying that it was not a line from the film. The causes behind the fatal crash were never determined and neither the plane nor the body of the Top Gun pilot were never found. To remember Scholl’s sacrifice, Tony Scott decided to dedicate the film to his memory.