Del plays American Pilot "Jerry Smith" from the tragic crash of Southern Airlines 932, a DC-9 which met a disastrous fate in 1970.
"Disastrous Descents"
This was the first time I had to commit an American accent to film and I....passed the test. The excellent dialect coach Rebecca Gausnell gave me a few hints, and that helped me pull off the part.
The crash of Southern Airways 932 was a truly awful tragedy killing almost an entire college football team; there is still some ambiguity as to what happened in the cockpit - but it is thought that the crew were disorientated and this led to them trying to land too early, crashing into a forest. The excellent film "We Are Marshall" takes a more long-lens view at the events surrounding the disaster, in Air Crash Confidential we concentrated on the air crash itself.
I played the role of the Co-Pilot "Jerry Smith", and had quite a few lines of script to learn....getting steadily more confused as the plane (a DC-9) headed towards the ground. Filming took place at White Waltham "Berkshire Museum of Aviation" - and wasn't filmed in the cockpit of a DC-9, but in the cockpit of a Handley Page HPR.7 Dart Herald 100. The analogue screens and dials made a good substitute for a DC-9. This aircraft also had an incredible history, flown around the world by the Duke of Edinburgh!
2018 / UK / Discovery Channel Quest, Channel 9 Australia, ZDF. Production: Shoot Aviation studios.
