The Survivor 1981

In Adelaide, Australia, airline pilot Keller [Robert Powell] survives the crash of his Boeing 747-200, unhurt despite all of its 300 passengers dying in the accident. With no memories of the moment of impact, he begins to experience unsettling visions, ghostly glimpses of the plane and the people on board, as if the tragedy were trying to reach him from beyond the veil. The visions hint at something more than a tragic accident, suggesting sabotage or a hidden truth.

Back at home, Keller attempts to return to normal life, but photographers circle him, hoping to sell his image to sensational papers. One photographer, whom Keller confronts, returns home where his girlfriend begins developing the photographs. The images reveal the crash victims with burn scars, and the man glimpses a young girl in his yard—a victim of the crash—who seems to appear and vanish. The apparition pursues him to a set of train tracks, where he is killed by a passing train.

A vigil is held at the crash site, where a Catholic Priest [Joseph Cotten] gives a sermon. After the vigil, Keller is approached by Hobbs [Jenny Agutter], a clairvoyant who claims to have been contacted by the victims’ spirits. Keller visits Hobbs at her home and rebuffs her, but their confrontation becomes physical, with both seeming to lose hold of their bodies, channeling the victims’ untethered emotions.

Later, Hobbs is compelled to visit the home of the photographer who was killed. The photographer’s girlfriend begins developing photographs in the dark room, which reveal disturbing portraits of the burned victims. The woman is attacked by supernatural forces and chopped to death by a large paper cutter.

Hobbs brings Keller to visit the crash site again, and inside the intact cockpit, Keller begins to experience regressive memories of the days leading up to the flight: a passenger finding a bomb on board and detonating it, triggering the disaster. He wakes from the vision only to realize they must leave; Tewson [Peter Sumner], one of Keller’s peers investigating the crash, arrives shortly after and is stabbed to death by an unseen figure.

Utilizing Hobbs’s psychic impressions, Keller drives around the city as she directs him. The two arrive at an airplane hangar where Keller finds Slater [Ralph Cotterill], armed with a shotgun. Slater admits to having planted the bomb to kill Keller and take control of the airline, showing no remorse as he declares the 300 passengers to be “nobodies.”

“nobodies”

Moments later, the screams of the victims fill the hangar and a flaming plane propels into view, bursting into flames and burning both Keller and Slater to death. Hobbs watches from outside the hangar in horror as Slater staggers out, engulfed in flames, before he too is consumed.

The following day, as the wreckage crew hauls away pieces of the plane, they discover Keller’s burnt corpse seated in the cockpit, a final, haunting testament to a crash that may not have been an accident.