FINAL APPROACH SYNOPSIS A well-armed team of ATF agents moves in on a secluded compound in Provo, Utah, where a group calling themselves the Freedom First Separatist Movement, led by the radical and charismatic Silas Jansen is barricaded inside with his family and at least six other families. The group is looking to create a new America, free of foreign influence. They are not giving up without a fight and open fire. The FBI is soon on the scene. Agent Lorenzo Dawson is the hard-nosed leader of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and the agent in charge. Second in command is Jack Bender, who is the best when it comes to negotiating hostage situations. Unfortunately, Dawson and Bender have completely opposite methods. Dawson is convinced Jansen understands violence, but Bender feels he can reason with him. He convinces Jansen to release some of the children and to let a doctor into the compound to tend to the wounded. Bender enters the compound posing as a Red Cross doctor. Just when it looks like Bender is starting to make some headway with the radical leader, Agent Dawson gets permission from the head of the FBI to burst into the compound. Bender tries to get the FBI and ATF agents to hold their fire, but it s too late and a bloody battle ensues. When Agent Bender finds his way outside of the bedlam, he blames Agent Dawson for the unnecessary massacre. Dawson dismisses him and tells him he did what he had to do to arrest Jansen, which sends Bender over the edge. Enraged, he attacks Dawson. A bleeding Dawson promises Agent Bender that when he is through with his report, his career in the FBI will be over. Infuriated, Bender quits on the spot. Cut to one year later. Jack Bender is interviewing for the top security job at a large aerospace firm in New Jersey. Everything is going well until the head of Human Resources receives a fax in the middle of the interview, clearly containing some unflattering facts about Jack and the Provo incident. The interview is over. Jack heads to the airport to catch his flight back home to Los Angeles to be with his wife, Alicia and daughter, Maya. Meanwhile in Santa Monica, California, Alexa Windom, 36, sits engrossed at her computer, trying to meet a deadline and doesn t even hear a masked man entering her home. The intruder grabs her and kidnaps her.
HALLMARK CHANNEL / FINAL APPROACH Synopsis Page 2 Simultaneously, in a sprawling home in Malibu, California, Marie Gilford is pulling out of the garage to take her daughter to school. Suddenly, she is dragged, screaming from her car by another masked man and kidnapped right in front of her child. Back on the East Coast, a terrorist named Vartan sits in a house with several other young, male terrorists surrounded by a homemade bomb, military assault rifles, grenades, technical communication and computer equipment, etc. The wall behind them is covered with clippings and posters featuring Silas and his Pro-American Separatist Organization. The terrorists leave the house, their destination: Newark Airport. Cut to Newark Airport. People begin to board Allied Air Flight #732 for Los Angeles. They have no idea how their lives are about to change. The passengers include: Greg Gilliad: a clean cut man in his late 30 s who appears to be an ordinary business man, but hides a very dark secret. Lina Howren: a 28-year-old confident, ambitious local news anchor for one of the New York affiliates. Sela Jameson: very pretty, about to start her first day on the job as a flight attendant for Allied Air. Robert Windom: 50 s, distinguished Chief Financial Officer of World Bank. Husband of kidnap victim Alexa Windom. Vince Gilford: younger than Windom, equally distinguished, Executive Vice President of World Bank. Husband of kidnap victim Marie Gilford. Gerald and Elizabeth Foxhaven: a couple in their late 50 s. He is frail and not in good health, she is clearly the caretaker in the relationship. Dan and Jackie Reynolds: twenty-something newlyweds, blissfully in love. He is handsome, Caucasian; she is lovely, African American. Senator Ed Burbage (Ken Magee), 50 s, short, stocky, Republican to the core and completely self-absorbed. Brian Fields: 53, a retired aerospace engineer. Abu Karlim: an Arab passenger who has gotten quite used to being held up at the security checkpoints since 9/11.
HALLMARK CHANNEL / FINAL APPROACH Synopsis Page 3 Vartan and three other terrorists, Tucker, Thomas, and Karl also board the plane. A fourth terrorist, known as the video terrorist, gets loaded onto the belly of the plane with his video equipment and an arsenal of weapons in a large metal container, thanks to the help of an airline baggage employee who is loyal to Silas and his beliefs. The plane takes off and Greg Gilliad gets up and walks to the back of the plane, presumably to use the restroom. But he keeps walking, coming to a door in the floor and taps on it. The video terrorist pops up out of the hole and hands Gilliad a duffle bag. He goes into the restroom and pulls out several guns. Gilliad passes Vartan on the aisle and hands him one of the guns. He does the same with the three other terrorists. Gilliad takes a small amount of plastic explosive and blasts the cockpit door free from its lock. He and Vartan storm the cockpit, killing the pilot. The frightened co-pilot takes control of the plane and as the terrorists remove the pilot s dead body, he manages to trip the silent alarm without being seen. The passengers start to panic when they see the terrorists blow the door off the cockpit. Gilliad gets on the P.A. system and announces that the plane has been taken over by the Freedom First Separatist Movement and they are demanding the immediate release of their leader, Silas Jansen. If Jansen is freed the passengers will be released upon landing. If not, there will be grave consequences. Passenger Lina Howren, the ambitious reporter, has managed to get her cell phone up and running. She gets her boss on the phone and relays what is happening on Flight 732. Her boss quickly hooks Lina up to the station via her cell phone video link. Lina manages to get most of the story out before she is discovered by one of the terrorists and her cell phone is taken away from her. The terrorist grabs Lina from her seat and takes her to Gilliad, who is initially upset, but then realizes he can use this reporter and the media to his advantage. Gilliad scans a passenger manifest and grabs Robert Windom and Vince Gilford from their seats in First Class. He leads them toward the back of the plane and orders them down into the cavernous luggage compartment in the belly of the aircraft. Windom and Gilford do what they are told and descend into the luggage hold area, where they see the video terrorist, surrounded by high-tech equipment. Meanwhile, back on the ground at the FAA Los Angeles Bureau, Gary Markash, a senior official, oversees a meeting about the plane. In a twist of irony, Jack s wife, Alicia, is a senior analyst for the FAA. She is stunned to hear the news that her husband is on the hijacked flight. Gilliad informs everyone in the room of his demands by phone. An Air Force official tells the
HALLMARK CHANNEL / FINAL APPROACH Synopsis Page 4 terrorist that they are ready to bring the aircraft down with force if necessary. Gilliad tells them that there is a radioactive bomb on board big enough to kill approximately 5 million people, or take out a good size U.S. city. By now, the police and the FBI have figured out that the two kidnapped women are connected through their husbands, who are both on the hijacked plane and that it s not a coincidence. On the plane, Jack realizes that he can get a line out from the plane using a laptop computer and the wiring from the phone that was formerly in the seat in front of him. Jack e-mails his wife, Alicia, filling her in on how many terrorists there are. She in turn informs Jack about the bomb and sends Jack a passenger manifest. In the cargo hold, Gilliad and the video terrorist reveal to Windom and Gilford their true agenda for hijacking Flight 732. It s not about politics at all it s about money. One billion dollars in bearer bonds. The bank executives can release the funds and direct them wherever they want them to go. Windom and Gilford are indignant and refuse to help, but the video terrorist turns on his laptop computer and reveals a terrified Alexa and Marie being held captive at knifepoint on the screen via a live feed. Gilford and Windom are stunned and outraged. Jack and Alicia do a simultaneous search on the name of the two men who were taken from their seats down to the cargo area and when World Bank pops up, they realize this has a lot more to do with the hijacking than the release of Silas Jansen. Jack knows the only hope for the passengers aboard the plane (and potentially countless people on the ground) is to find the bomb and diffuse it. Back at the FAA, Markash informs Alicia that per the President, Homeland Security is recommending taking the aircraft down, which the FAA is supporting. Alicia begs for a little more time, at least enough for Jack to confirm that a bomb even exists. She gets as much time as it will take for the fighter jets to rendezvous with Flight 732. Alicia e-mails Jack to let him know the severity of the situation. Jack locates the bomb in the cramped auxiliary cargo space area. It comes down to two red wires; Jack isn t sure which one to cut. Meanwhile, Gilliad has become aware that a passenger is missing from his seat and grabs the passenger manifest. He figures out that passenger's name is Jack Bender from the seat number and makes an announcement over the PA system that if passenger Bender doesn t show himself immediately, they will begin killing passengers. Jack hears this and knows his time is running out. Just then the blinking light on the bomb begins to blink faster and starts beeping. He desperately begins to rip all of the wires out.
HALLMARK CHANNEL / FINAL APPROACH Synopsis Page 5 He figures if it s going to blow, he s going to go down fighting. Nothing happens. He opens the cylindrical container and it s empty. The bomb was a fake. Jack breathes a huge sigh of relief, but realizes that Gilliad is counting down from 10 and he needs to reveal himself or more people will die. Jack climbs out of the extra cargo space and casually walks out of the First Class cabin restroom. With one look from Gilliad, two of the terrorists begin to brutally beat Jack and he goes down hard with a hit to the back of the head from the butt of a rifle. The terrorists drag his limp body to the rear of the plane and toss him into the main cargo hold, leaving him for dead. Lina Howren has managed to capture all of this on her video cell phone, so the brutal beating has been broadcast live to millions of viewers, via the news. Meanwhile, Sela Jameson has managed to sneak in to the cockpit and hit the dump fuel button, so the plane will be forced to land early. Back at the FAA conference room, they get word the Los Angeles Field Office has a lead on the kidnapped wives location. The FBI immediately rolls on that tip, which turns out to be true. A hail of bullets ring out and two of the three kidnappers are killed. Alexa Windom and Marie Gilford are rescued -- dehydrated and exhausted, but alive. The third kidnapper is captured and gives up the rendezvous point for Gilliad and the other terrorists. In the air, the video terrorist gets word that the money has been transferred, and the terrorists also realize the fuel has been dumped, so they begin to gather their parachutes. One by one, the terrorists all jump out of the plane from the cargo hold area. Gilliad takes the flight attendant, Sela Jameson, with him in case he needs a hostage on the ground. Just when Jack and the other passengers begin to breathe a sigh of relief, they look out the plane s windows and see fighter jets, ready to shoot them down. Jack scrambles to find a cell phone that will get a signal in the air and Windom has a high-tech blackberry that does the trick. Jack reaches his wife on the phone and the FAA is able to disengage the fighter jets. Now all Jack and Brian have to do is land a DC-10 they ve never flown that is running out of fuel! They reach someone at a small airstrip nearby, who talks them down as best he can. Jack s seatmate Brian, the retired aerospace engineer, relies on his airplane design skills to do the rest. It s a bumpy landing, but Flight 732 is safely on the ground. Agent Dawson and Alicia Bender are on their way to meet Flight 732, when Dawson gets a call that LA Tower has tracked a small aircraft landing in an aircraft junkyard in the desert. They believe it s Gilliad s new rendezvous point, which changed since they had to bail out of the