This is the In-depth synopsis of the second movie of the Die Hard franchise Die Hard 2.
In-depth synopsis[]
McClane at the airport[]
Outside in Dulles International Airport at the snowy Washington DC, a car is being towed from parking violation. Then John McClane, who is waiting for his wife Holly's plane, rushed to prevent the police sergeant from towing his mother-in-law's car away, but the sergeant refused to, even when McClane tells that he is an LAPD cop who moved from New York to Los Angeles. As the car he borrowed was towed away, his pager went off. He went inside the airport, he ask the desk receptionist where the telephones we're and she pointed him to the direction where they we're at.
Then the news reveals that deposed General Ramon Esperanza, an infamous dictator and drug lord, who is being extradited to the United States from Val Verde. Years before, General Esperanza led an campaign against communist insurgents which was fought with American money and military advisors. Then when Congress banned funding Esperanza, several military officials continued to fund him while the general went into a business of cocaine smuggling to continue his campaign. Among the US military advisors who supported General Esperanza was disgraced former Special Forces officer Colonel Stuart, who is at the hotel near the airport, practicing marital arts. Then his watch went off and turned the TV off that had the news about Esperanza's extradition.
McClane was still trying to find a phone he can use to talk to someone beeping on his pager. Back in the hotel, Colonel Stuart and many members of his former unit went to start their operation as they left the hotel floor. Colonel Stuart gets into a lift with his men Oswald Cochrane, Baker, Thompson, Miller, and O'Reilly, while Garber, Sheldon, Burke, Kahn, Shockley and Mulkey get in the other.
McClane reaches the payphone and dials the number on his pager, which happens to be Holly, who is using an air phone on flight Northeast Airlines 140. Holly tells John that she is going to be late and John tells her that their kids are with her parents. After hanging up, an elderly passenger sitting next to Holly thinks technology wonderful which Holly replies that her husband doesn't agree. The passenger shows Holly the taser she now carries in case anyone gets too close.
As McClane was heading out of the phones, he accidentally collides into Colonel Stuart. McClane thought he recognized the man he collided, but Stuart only replies that he was on TV before walking away from. McClane replies, "You too." to Stuart before leaving. Stuart turns around briefly to look at McClane, but dismisses his thoughts and walked away.
Outside the airport, in a small rural church called Hidey Lake Community Church in the neighborhood on the west side of the airport, a van arrived and two of Colonel's Stuart's men, Baker and Thompson, who have disguised themselves as airport workers went to the church. As the church custodian was inside the church watching the news Esperanza's arrival in the airport in Val Verde, Baker knocked on the door and convinces him that they are checking the problems their conduit lines in his backyard. The custodian lets them inside the church and admits that it's doesn't seem right to close down the church, despite the parish are going to keep using it. With response to the custodian's words, Baker lets out his suppressed Glock 17 pistol and kills the custodian with three rounds. Thompson then turns the news broadcast off and reports in on the encoded radio that their base of operations is open as Baker began clearing the pews out to make room for larger space in the middle of the church.
Shootout in luggage area[]
Back in the airport, news reporter Samantha Coleman was speaking to the camera about Esperanza's extradition. At the main terminal, Colonel Stuart's second-in-command, Garber finished talking to the colonel on the secured radio before leaving the phone booth and went to the airport lounge where he met up with Oswald Cochrane and Miller. Cochrane gave Garber the weather report about a new storm front coming in from the northeast. Garber tells them to carry on their next assignments as Miller left the lounge first carrying a package.
McClane was having a smoke break in the lounge when he sees Garber and Cochrane from there. As two airport cops we're coming in, McClane sees some suspicious activity from Garber and Cochrane as they left the lounge. Then McClane was going to inform the cops about them, but backed out since one of the cops was the one who towed his car away.
As Coleman was discussing some Justice department officials about Esperanza's transfar to US custody, she spotted Colonel Stuart and Garber walking together. Garber tells Stuart that they have a problem with personnel due to a last-minute replacement. Coleman asked Stuart for comment, but Stuart blows her off while Garber blocks the camera as they walked away.
McClane followed Cochrane to the luggage handling area. When he tells an airport handler to open the sealed door to the restricted luggage area, he tells the airport handler to go get the airport cops. As McClane looked around, he spots Cochrane and Miller working on something on a control penal, appearing to be tampering with it. McClane tells them the areas restricted and Miller tells him that they work here. McClane knows that they are lying and asks for some identification. As Miller and Cochrane freight polite talk, they opened fired at McClane who fires back at them. Miller directs Cochrane to go above the area as they search for McClane. Miller spots McClane at the conveyor belt and fires at him while McClane fires back. But Miller fires his last round at the luggage above McClane, which hits his Beretta 92 pistol, losing it at the conveyer belt.
As Miller reloads his pistol, he searches for his enemy. But McClane strikes him from behind with a golf club, which causes Miller to lose his gun. But Miller fights back with his fighting prowess. The McClane headbutts Miller down to the ground and uses a mace spray can from the fallen luggage on his face when all the sudden, Cochrane fired at the spray can, forcing McClane to retreat. McClane was climbing with the conveyer belts. As Cochrane was searching the area, McClane jumps on him and both of them fell into a conveyer belt. As McClane knocked down the mercenary, McClane see the baggage press and pushes Cochrane into it, electrocuting to death. But McClane gets away from it by jumping into a nearby pipe and falls into the cart full of luggage.
Miller sees airport police coming to the luggage handling area and makes his getaway. McClane spots him leaving and uses a bike in an attempt to subdue the mercenary. But after landing on the luggage cart, Miller finally gets out of sight. The airport policeman points his gun and, when he asked for his ID, McClane apparently lost his shield during the fight.
Conducting solo investigation[]
Meanwhile, on Northeast 140 flight, reporter Richard Thornburg is on the same flight as Holly. Holly was in mild disbelief when he saw him. Two flight attendants disliked him for degrading female flight attendants in his news editorials by calling them bimbos. When Thornburg sees Holly, he demands the stewardess to move him from another seat since he has a restraining order against him when she assaulted him after the Nakatomi Plaza takeover when he expose her identity to Hans Gruber when he interviewed her children. One of the stewardesses was impressed when she learns that Holly knocked out two of Thornburg's teeth and asked for some champagne.
While Cochrane's body is wrapped in the bodybag, an airport police officer apologizes to McClane for thinking him as a suspect and brings him his Beretta 92FS and shield. Suddenly, reporters heard about the shooting and officers walked away from the crime scene, much to McClane's disbelief. An officer takes McClane to see the airport police captain.
At the church, Baker, who is at the back of the church, sees Miller arriving late as two mercenaries we're digging through the ground to the conduit lines. Miller tells Baker that Cochrane didn't make it, which seemed to upset Baker. Then Miller faces Colonel Stuart. He tells him that a cop killed Cochrane and barely got away, but did complete his mission. An indifferent Colonel Stuart says the damage is minimal, but the penalty for the lost of Cochrane is severe and points his gun at Miller's forehead. He fires the gun, but the chamber on it was empty, sparing Miller. The colonel tells the mercenary he fails again and the gun won't be empty this time. Miller walked away in mild disgust.
At the airport police station, McClane is escorted to the office of Captain Carmine Lorenzo, the hotheaded chief of police. Lorenzo chastises McClane for breaking FAA and District of Columbia regulations for shooting at the airport. McClane explains his officers walked away from the crime scene and needs him to shut down the luggage handling area. Lorenzo refuses to listen to him and believes the men who fired at McClane we're a bunch of punks stealing luggage. McClane says that the assailants pulled a rare porcelain gun that's designed to evade airport's medal detectors. Lorenzo pushes the button and orders McClane to leave his office and be removed from the airport by his officers. McClane storms off in disgust over Lorenzo's incompetence.
McClane sets off to investigate on his own. He takes some ink and a paper on the car rental stand. He rushed to the corpse before it can be taken away and got Cochrane's fingerprints on the paper.
Somewhere in the skis, the F16 fighter jets escorting Esperanza's plane out of Val Verde turned away and left the plane, since it's out of danger. The pilots learns the estimate time to Dulles Airport is around 3 and 1/2 hours. Esperanza is held in the back of the plane. He asks the guards to loosen his shackles, but the guards tells him he is not permitted. The dictator praises the soldier for his loyalty and asks him to light his cigarette. As he waits patiently, Colonel Stuart and his men are setting up their makeshift airport equipment inside the church. One of the mercenaries was setting a radar dish in the bell tower while a mercenary name Burke breaks into the conduit box to patch into the airport's systems.
Meanwhile, McClane calls his friend, Sgt. Al Powell. He asks Powell for the fax number down in the station in Los Angeles. Powell was surprised the McClane is doing faxes for the first time. As the female car rental receptionist faxed Powell the fingerprints, McClane tells him to run it through every database. Powell acknowledged and will contact him in the airport as soon as he gets the prints.
At Dulles tower, Ed Trudeau, IAD chief of air operations, informs chief engineer and chief of communications Leslie Barnes show about the large storm coming in from the north on the radar. Barnes advice Trudeau that they need to operate the airport at reduced capacity in order for their people to plow the runways between landing aircrafts. Trudeau tells his controllers to slow down the planes above to avoid heavy backup above them. This causes most of the planes in the area, including Holly's, to be affected.
Shortly afterwards, Powell reveals McClane about the man in the fingerprints, an American military sergeant name Oswald Cochrane. The flle from the Department of Defense reveals that Cochrane was reported to be killed in the helicopter accident in Honduras and was involved in black-bag operations. Powell faxes McClane the dossier of Cochrane. McClane thanks Powell for the help.
As McClane was heading for Dulles Tower, Samantha Coleman spots him while speaking to someone on the phone. As she was walking to him, Coleman recognized McClane as the hero cop in the Nakatomi Plaza takeover. McClane walks away from him.
Terrorist plot revealed[]
Back in Dulles Tower, Trudeau tells Barnes and Lorenzo that National Airport has shut down since their runways are totally iced up. Now Dulles airport will be crawling with planes that are originally coming to National Airport as well as the ones coming to them. Lorenzo tells Trudeau about the problems with the reporters who are covering Esperanza's extradition now are questioning about the shooting in the luggage handling room. Then McClane arrives, which Lorenzo immediately tells him the Dulles Tower is restricted. Trudeau asks McClane what he's doing in the tower and he shows him, Lorenzo and Barnes the file of Cochrane, since he is the man McClane killed in the luggage area. McClane tells them that somebody will hit the airport and that the man he killed wasn't a punk stealing luggage. He tells them that Cochrane was a professional mercenary and Esperanza is on his way to the airport, which may have something to do with it. Trudeau believes McClane's suspicions and wants Lorenzo to investigate this, much to Lorenzo's chagrin.
Then Burke finishes wielding up the conduit box. When it was operational, he calls Stuart on the secured radio that all systems are ready to go. The mercenaries power up the equipment and are proceeding to shut down the airport. Then Burke cuts the ILS conduit lines with a chainsaw as another mercenary Kahn destroys the other line with an axe.
As everyone in Dulles Tower saw that the runway lights went offline, Trudeau orders them to go to emergency lighting immediately. But everyone in the tower finds out that all of their systems are down and inoperable. Trudeau tells the controllers to have every aircraft approaching their airspace diverted to an alternate airport while having every other aircraft who are near their airspace holds at the outer marker.
After the announcement, Trudeau tells that no one in the airport will know about the situation, since there are at least 15,000 people in the airport and they will panic is word gets out. He asked McClane if this was he expecting and McClane only replies, "No, this is just the beginning."
Then someone is dialing through the FAA hotline and McClane suspects it's the men who shut down the airport. Barnes puts the call on the speaker and Colonel Stuart announced that he took control of the system. Trudeau ask who he is and Stuart says who he is not important. What he wants is. He demands that the plane carrying General Esperanza, Foreign Military One, to land at the runway at his destination where it will not be met by anyone. He also demands that the 747 cargo conversion plane fully fuel and place at his disposal. He says that they have only have two minutes to get the planes above to hold on the outer marker which the communications will be lost afterwards and states that any attempt to restore their systems will be met by severe penalties. Trudeau angrily curses at Stuart that he cannot do this and Stuart replies that he just did before hanging up.
After the call, Barnes comes to some air traffic controllers because he has a plan and will need their help. McClane tells Lorenzo and Trudeau that if Esperanza gets on the 747 and heads for the country that has no extradition treaty, they will never get him. Lorenzo plans to have his officers search the airport. He states to McClane that he has a first-class unit, including an SWAT team and his service won't be needed. McClane argues that his wife Holly is on the planes and tries to state to Lorenzo about if he hadn't allowed his people to walk away from the crime scene the in a luggage room. Lorenzo orders his people to remove McClane from the control tower. McClane overhears Barnes plans to head for the antenna array through the annex skywalk in the new terminal while being removed. Coleman shows up in the tower and Lorenzo orders her out. Trudeau tells Coleman the tower is off-limits. After McClane and Coleman we're put in the elevator, the frustrated Lorenzo calls two officers in the lobby security area and orders them to get McClane and Coleman out of the elevator of the control tower.
McClane stops the elevator from going to the certain floor and climbs into the elevator door. Coleman asks him for the comment over what believes that there is a connection between Esperanza's arrival and the gunfight in the airport. McClane just tells to "fuck off." Coleman comments that Colonel Stuart already said that to her, which McClane realizes that the man he collided in the airport was Stuart and he's the man behind the takeover of the airport. As McClane climbed out of the elevator, Coleman was surprised. When the airport police arrived, Coleman covers for McClane as she walks away.
Back in the control tower, Barnes plan to rig in the antenna array, so they can speak to the airplanes without the knowledge of the terrorists. Trudeau tells him to get whatever he needs to get it done. Lorenzo wants his SWAT team to go with Barnes for protection.
Ambush in Annex Skywalk[]
In the subterranean basement of the airport, McClane walks around the area as he heard the sound of a phonographic music. He finds a small basement apartment. When he shuts off the music, McClane is started by the appearance of Marvin, an airport janitor who is living in that basement since he is homeless. Marvin helps McClane about the location of the annex skywalk in the new terminal, where the antenna array is located at. McClane realizes the room is a great place for a bottleneck ambush and asks Marvin a for a fast way to get him out of the ambush spot.
Trudeau gives out a grave last message to the airplanes that they are having severe problems in their systems without revealing them about the terrorist takeover and requests that they circle around the airport until they restore their systems. He has the departure and arrival changed to Delayed, much to the frustration of the people who are waiting for their aircraft to arrive.
Barnes gets his tools ready as five airport SWAT officers joined him to escort him to the antenna array.
McClane arrives in the ventilation duct where Marvin suggests where to go. McClane complains about not getting a normal Christmas as he crawls into the ventilation duct. At the same time, Barnes and the SWAT team arrived in the annex skywalk in the new terminal. Barnes calls Trudeau and gives him an update before hanging up.
As they walking in the moving skywalk, four airport employees seemed to mind their own business until one of them shut off the skywalk. The SWAT sergeant berates him as he and the others we're coming to the painter. As the SWAT commander angrily asks what he looks like to him and then the painter, revealed to be Stuart's mercenary O'Reilly, replies, "A sitting duck." He then lets out a Glock 17 and shoots the SWAT commander in the head, killing him instantly. Then he dove from cover from the shotgun-carrying SWAT officer. Then the other three disguised mercenaries, Sheldon, Shockley and Mulkey, unleashed their weapons at the SWAT team, springing the ambush.
McClane hears the sound of gunfire and draws his weapon as he continues to crawl in the ventilation duct. Barnes goes to cover, but a shred of glass cuts his left arm. Sheldon, who is on top of the scaffolding, kills one of the SWAT officer. One of the SWAT officer was able to kill Shockley before being killed by Mulkey. Then Mulkey killed the other SWAT officer and Sheldon killed the last SWAT officer before he can go to cover. Barnes takes his tool box and hides as the shooting end.
O'Reilly quietly walks towards Barnes and points his pistol at Barnes with his right hand while carrying a Heckler & Koch MP5 machine gun on his left hand. Just before O'Reilly can execute Barnes, McClane kicks the vent grate open and it falls onto O'Reilly's face when he catches it. McClane shoots and kills O'Reilly by firing through the vent grate. Sheldon and Mulkey fires at McClane. McClane fires at Sheldon, who dives for cover and jumps down. He tells Barnes to get to cover as he deals Sheldon and Mulkey, despite being outgunned. As McClane fires through the scaffolding, Sheldon fires at him. McClane pushes the scaffolding with much effort as Sheldon falls off from the top of it and the titanium-made scaffolding falls onto the screaming Sheldon, crushing him to death. Then McClane was hit by a part of a scaffolding that falls on top of McClane, pinning him down. Mulkey tries to kill McClane with his submachine gun, but finds the ammo on his last magazine ran out. As the mercenary was coming to him by the skywalk, McClane activates the skywalk with a pipe, which caught Mulkey by surprise. As McClane reaches for his pistol, Mulkey sees what he's doing and runs to get it. But McClane takes his Beretta pistol and kills Mulkey with it.
As the shootout was over, Barnes turns off the skywalk and helps McClane get free from the scaffolding. Barnes was heading for the antenna array until the bomb in the array destroys it. McClane knows that the terrorists have the upper hand and that Lorenzo lost his best men.
Meanwhile, on Northeast 140 flight, Thornburg noticed other planes flying close to them and looks closely to the uncomfortable Holly. They disagreement over the views over the events in the Nakatomi Plaza takeover when Thornburg exposed Holly's identity to Hans Gruber.
Crashing Windsor 114[]
Back in the airport, several medics and officers are in the process of removing the bodies of the SWAT officers and mercenaries in the new terminal. Barnes informs Trudeau on the cellular phone that Lorenzo's SWAT team has been killed and the antenna array has been destroyed while getting his cut arm patched up by McClane. Then they hear some radio chatter. McClane finds a radio in Shockley's body. In the church, Garber tries to check with O'Reilly and his men in the annex for an update, but are not responding. McClane shows Barnes the radio, but Barnes reveals the radio must be activated by the code penal in order to have a clear frequency and it take awhile to crack.
At the church, Kahn comes down from the choir loft and informs Stuart that they discovered through the intercept call from Barnes that they're people kill the SWAT team in the new terminal. Stuart realizes his men are dead too and is angered by it. He calls Dulles tower and tells them they are going to suffer severe consequences. McClane takes Barnes' which was listening to the call and speaks to Stuart. Lorenzo rudely berates McClane, which Trudeau angrily cuts off the speaker and glares at Lorenzo that his SWAT team's dead and just revealed McClane's identity to the terrorists. Stuart now realized who he is dealing with. McClane asked the traitorous ex-military officer how much drug money Esperanza's paying to turn against his country. Stuart only replies that Esperanza is the man who stands up against Communist aggression and the US government has to learn a lesson for rejecting him. McClane replies to Stuart, "And lesson one starts with killing policemen? What's lesson 2, a neutron bomb?" Stuart only says it's something in between and tells to watch before hanging up. He tells Thompson to give him a flight number of the plane that is low on fuel. Thompson finds Windsor 114 which is flying transatlantic from London. Stuart orders him to activate the ILS landing system and re-calibrate sea level to minus 200 feet. Thompson reluctantly and uncomfortably re-calibrates the ground level on the computer.
As everyone in the control tower see what they just did, Stuart calls in at the high-pitched voice to Windsor 114, pretending to be Dulles approach. He tells the pilots on the plane to land on runway 29. McClane discovers that Stuart is going to crash the plane, that has 230 people onboard, into the runway that they can't see due to the snowstorm. Barnes tells McClane the plane is responding to their frequency and there is no way for them not to listen. Horrified, McClane takes a can of paint thinners, two pipes and some rags in an attempt to save the plane from crashing. Barnes hands McClane his coat and helps lower him down the ground.
As the pilots was setting course for them to land, Stuart reports in his normal voice that they are on course. McClane arrives in runway 29 and wraps the rags on the pipes and lit them with his lighter, creating makeshift torches. He begins waving with them to signal plan to an abort landing. Lorenzo sees someone on the runway and Trudeau sees through the binoculars that it was McClane. He immediately learns that McClane is trying to save the jet, but is so unsure if he will succeed. As the plane was getting closer, McClane waves more frantically to prevent the crash, but the plane overshot him and flew over McClane. The plane runs into the concrete and sets the plane's ruptured ignited onto flames. Stuart hears pilot's dying screams and mercilessly taunts them they got them. Then the plane exploded, killing all onboard. Everyone in the tower watched in horror as the plane's fiery wreckage spread across the area. McClane, distraught that he was unable to save the plane, curses at Stuart for killing all those people.
Stuart announces to Dulles Tower to have their demands met and further lessons will be avoided. As the rescue crews arrive on the wreckage, McClane, dazed and shaken up, walks into the tragic site.
Meanwhile, Trudeau was heading into the police station which was crowded due to the plane crash. He tells Barnes, who is being treated by a doctor, to find a way to warn the planes about the new dangers. After someone hands him manifest of the people onboard the ill-fated Windsor 114 jet, Trudeau goes to the shaken McClane and gives him some emotional support that he feels the same way. Trudeau informs him that they called the government and they will send military anti-terrorist group to help find the terrorists. He also tells McClane that Holly's plane, Northeast 140, will run of fuel in 90 minutes, which motivates him to get back into game.
Back in the church, Stuart and Garber listens to Coleman's reports on the tragic crash of Windsor 114, not knowing about Stuart's deliberately crashing the plane. The corrupt colonel crumbles the slip of information on the Windsor flight he crashed.
Questioning the tide of the situation[]
Back in the Northeast plane, Thornburg conducts his own investigation into the air traffic. He goes his friend Victor and asked to use a listening device to hear the cockpit communication. But Victor only hears an airport beaker, which indicates the tower is not there. Thornburg tells him to stay on it.
Outside the airport, two Army helicopters arrived and landed. A Special Forces team, Blue Light, came out of their choppers. The team leader, Major Grant, introduces himself to Department of Justice official Rollins, Trudeau, Lorenzo and McClane. Grant tells McClane to let his team handle Stuart, saying he trained him and served with him. He has the team setup a command post in the airport police station. McClane asked Trudeau if things are getting better or worse. Trudeau didn't know how to answer.
At the control tower, Barnes and the other controllers try to figure out how to warn the planes. When one of the controllers mentioned the outer marker, Barnes thought of something. The outer marker is a radio beeker that beeps to let the planes they are over them and Barnes suggests there's an alternative to it. One of the controllers say they can switch the frequency rate from the tower over to the beaker, so they warn the planes without the knowledge of the terrorists. Barnes agrees as the controllers get to work on switch frequencies to warn the planes. After that was done, Barnes addresses to all the planes about the terrorist takeover of their control and landing systems and warns them not to reply at their own frequency since they cause one crash by impersonating the tower. But during that time, Thornburg and Victor listened in the on the situation. Thornburg was horrified by the situation and has the conversation on tape and written down.
At the airport police station, One of Grant's men found the scrambling device in the luggage area, which everyone, including McClane, glared at Lorenzo for his poor assumption over the shootout earlier. McClane goes to one of Grant's men, Telford, who is transferred to Grant's team a day before to replace a sick soldier who's got appendicitis. Telford tells McClane that the portable decoder will be in two hours, which McClane knows that Holly won't make it that long. Telford states that word is nobody is better than Major Grant, which McClane mentions that maybe Colonel Stuart is better than Grant. Grant says he's wants to know about the plane Stuart has asked for and wants a meeting in the Pilot's Briefing room. As the others went to the elevator, McClane followed them. But was denied access. Trudeau looks at McClane regrettably before the elevator doors closed.
McClane goes to Marvin's basement home and asks him to get him up to pilot's briefing room. As Marvin was getting the map to the pilot's briefing room, they hear the radio chatter that was from Garber speaking to Stuart and Stuart tells Garber to get his men assembled. McClane was elated that he found a radio with a code still punched in. Marvin says he found the radio in the luggage area, which was dropped by Miller earlier.
Rough Landing[]
As Stuart was giving the speech to his men, Thompson finds that the plane carrying Esperanza has came up in Dulles airspace. Stuart calls Dulles towers that they will lighting up one of the runways and warns them not to land any planes. Barnes asked Trudeau what should they do. Trudeau grimly tells him to obey since he doesn't want another plane crash.
At the plane, Foreign Military One, Stuart contacts the plane's pilots as Dulles Tower and tells them to land in runway 15. While giving out the order, Esperanza strangles the soldier guarding him to death with his own handcuffs. The general quietly enters the cockpit with the soldier's gun and convinces the pilot to proceed the tower when the latter tries to question the order. The co-pilot grabs Esperanza's wrist and begins to struggle for the gun. But Esperanza killed the co-pilot, but a stray bullet went into the cockpit's windshield, causing decompression. Esperanza then kills the pilot since he knows how to fly planes. He takes the encoded radio that was hidden and contacts Stuart with it.
Stuart and the others heard Esperanza's distress call on their radio. They disconnected the Dulles Tower frequency and Stuart speaks to Esperanza on the radio. The general tells Stuart that he has lost cabin pressure and is near zero visibility and needs to land at the outgoing runway since he cannot land at runway 15. McClane hears it on the radio that Marvin had with him. He tells to show him a shortcut to the runways.
As Stuart and his men work to solve the situation with Esperanza's plane, McClane hears Stuart to Esperanza to land at runway 25R as he is running towards the basement leading to the runways. Stuart has Thompson changed runway lights from 15 to 25R. Esperanza tells Stuart sees the runway lights directly in front of him and will be landing safely. Stuart tells the general that they will extract him in five minutes. He, along with Garber, Thompson and Kahn headed for the plane. McClane reaches the grate above runway 25R and, shooting the lock, gets in the runway. Then Esperanza's plane landed and McClane barely managed to get out of the grate before the plane's front wheel hit it and closed it. As the plane stopped, McClane headed for it.
As Esperanza opened the hatch of the plane and happily expresses his freedom, McClane punches back in the plane and holds him at gunpoint, intending to use him in exchange for Holly. But then Stuart and his men arrived soon and open fired at him. Although he killed Thompson and wounded Esperanza's shoulder, McClane hid in the cockpit. Kahn sealed McClane off with a fire axe, trapping McClane. As Kahn escorts the general out of the plane, Esperanza says the policeman came after him and express some disbelief that they didn't expect him. Kahn tells Stuart that McClane is in the cockpit. At the cockpit, McClane hears Stuart yelling that he's quite a soldier and his death will be considered a military funeral. Then Stuart, Garber and Kahn opened fired in the cockpit. McClane managed to survive the wave of gunfire, although one of the bullets hit his hand. Then he hears that they are throwing grenades, which horrifies him. As the mercenaries threw grenades in the cockpit, McClane sees the pilot chair has the ejection seat and went to it. As he buckled himself in, McClane quickly lifts the ejector lever and he flies up as the grenades ignited, destroying the plane. The mercenaries then see McClane up in the sky, opening his parachute, in which one of them calls him a "lucky fuck". Then the fire trucks we're coming in, Stuart orders to get back to the church and took off. McClane lands on the ground as the fire trucks we're coming to the plane.
Finding the terrorist place of operation[]
Meanwhile on the NEA airplane, the plane is now nearly low onto 0. Then, the female flight attendant enters the cockpit and explains to the head pilot that the passengers are a little nervous. The pilot then tells her that television can work. The flight attendant then becomes worried about the faded fuel as she leaves. As Holly puts away her computer, she notices Thornburg writing a news report. Holly taunts him as Thornburg responds with a mild insult. The stewardess then announces the broadcasting of television (which is the "There's No Disgrace Like Homer" episode from The Simpsons which was relatively new at the time), Thornburg then leaves his seat to make a phone call. One of the stewardesses comes up to him to make sure he is in his seat but Thornburg then feigns that he is going to vomit and goes into the bathroom, much to the stewardess' annoyance. He then makes a call to his news channel station and tells the caller to put him on conversation with the head news contributor.