Runway 34

Runway 34 is an 2022 Indian thriller drama film produced and directed by Ajay Devgn and assistant director Govind Bhana under his banner of Ajay Devgn FFilms. It stars him along with Amitabh Bachchan, Boman Irani, Rakul Preet Singh, Angira Dhar and Aakanksha Singh in pivotal roles.^[1][2] It is inspired by an aviation incident of a Jet Airways flight from Dubai to Kochi in 2015.^[3]

It released on 29 April 2022.^[4]

Plot

Captain Vikrant Khanna is an accomplished pilot, who is preparing for a flight from Dubai to Cochin. He parties before the flight, and feels tired onboarding it, where his co-pilot is Tanya Albuquerque. Later, a cyclone in Cochin leads to the flight being diverted to Trivandrum on Khanna's suggestion, despite objection from Albuquerque. Albuquerque says that Bengaluru has to be the second option, not Trivandrum, as the latter is near Cochin and has a high chance of having bad weather too. Khanna says that if they divert to Trivandrum, they can attempt a landing there and save fuel. Due to miscommunication, the pilots do not realize that Trivandrum is facing weather worse than Cochin, which reduces the visibility level. Captain Khanna manages to land the flight while closing his eyes and averts a major disaster.

Prior to an inquiry, a small interrogation takes place, including Khanna's medical test. The instrument, however, is damaged and isn't able to reveal whether or not Khanna is drunk. The enquiry is held regarding the pilots' actions, headed by AAIB Head Narayan Vedant. The enquiry is held mainly because Alma Asthana, an elderly woman who was on the flight and was thesole passenger to trust Khanna with his decision to divert to Trivandrum, had died of a heart attack on her way to the hospital. During the enquiry, a polygraph is conducted on Khanna. Vedant scares Albuquerque with his questions and she mistakenly reveals that Khanna had closed his eyes during landing.

During the next session of the enquiry, Khanna reveals that he has a photographic memory, so he knew what he was doing during landing, even though his eyes were closed as he was imagining everything in his mind. He eventually proves it through a simulated flight with Vedant as his co-pilot. He makes the same movements that he did on the night of the landing, this time wearing an eye cap over his eyes, to assure Vedant that he can land flights without seeing. He is suspended for three months, but is praised for his skill.

Cast

• Ajay Devgn as Captain Vikrant Khanna
• Amitabh Bachchan as Narayan Vedant
• Rakul Preet Singh as First Officer Tanya Albuquerque
• Boman Irani as Nishant Suri
• Ajay Shankar as Lijesh Joseph
• Angira Dhar as Radhika Roy
• CarryMinati as himself
• Aakanksha Singh as Samaira Khanna
• Vijay Nikam as Santoshlal Tripathi
• Aamil Keeyan Khan as Vikram Sukumaran
• Flora Jacob as Alma Asthana
• Rukhsana as Delilah Asthana
• Al-Mamun Al Siyam as Lumin
• Hrishikesh Pandey as Yusuf Rangoonwala
• Rakesh Bhavsar as Ramiz