- Audio/visual unsynchronized: As the breeches buoy is being set up, the fireman in the Promenade Room of the tower signals to the helicopter with his flashlight. We hear clicks, as if the flashlight is being turned on and off, but it is on the whole time.
- Crew or equipment visible: Near the beginning of the movie, when the helicopter is taking off, the cameraman and other crew walk into left-hand side of shot.
- Revealing mistakes: When James Duncan walks to the bar in the promenade room and speaks to the Senator Parker, a rear shot of the band is shown. The drummer is seen not hitting the drums when the band is playing.
- Continuity: When they were fighting the fire on 81, before the explosion, we see the exterior of the building and parts of it were scorched but no fire was present
- Revealing mistakes: After the helicopter has crashed on the top of the tower during an aborted rescue, the second of the two ladies who caused the crash by running into the path of the helicopter gets up from the ground, revealing a knee pad she was wearing to protect her knees under her dress.
- Revealing mistakes: When the passenger elevator stops and opens on the fire floor, a glass panel can clearly be seen separating the passengers from the flames.
- Continuity: The spread of the fire never matches the exterior shots.
- Factual errors: When the electrical junction box explodes open in the storage closet on the 81st floor, a fairly thick wire flops down and sparks. The thick wires in such a box are made out of bundles of copper wire, too stiff to flop down as shown in the movie.
- Factual errors: When Wess opens the electrical box that shorts out in the Utility Room, only the edge of the inside of the panel shows scorch marks (from the pyrotechnics that sparked). A real electrical short/explosion would have blackened the entire inside of the panel.
- Factual errors: In the closing scenes of the movie, after the fire is out and everybody is back on the ground, a fireman walks by wearing his Scott Airpack upside down. The proper wearing of the air pack is a life saving piece of training for any Fireman.
- Continuity: When Roberts calls Duncan at the party to tell him that Will Giddings has been burned and, eventually, that there's a fire, Duncan tells him to get to the party saying "I'm not going to concern myself with a fire in a storage room on 81..." The dialogue is clearly continuous throughout, but at that point Doug has not mentioned either the floor number nor that the fire was in a storage room.
- Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When O'Halloran is first setting up the forward command on 79 he asks Jernigan for a list of business tenants on 81 or above. Yet, according to the man showing an apartment to a couple near the beginning of the movie, the commercial tenants only go up as far as 80. From 81 up it's all residential.
- Revealing mistakes: In all of the outside shots of the burning tower the flames are moving too fast (as they would if the building were a miniature). In larger fires the flames move much slower due to their size.
- Revealing mistakes: When Will Giddings is on fire you can see gloves and obvious mask his body double is wearing.
- Revealing mistakes: When Lorrie is in the office kneeling with the fire around her you see the fireproof pants on her legs.
- Revealing mistakes: When Lorrie is propelled/jumps through the window you see her holding a mask over her face to protect herself from injury.
- Revealing mistakes: At approximately 2:31:42 into the movie where they are blowing the water tanks, the sides of the one tank are blown outward from the center. This would not be the case from using an external explosive that was attached at the base of the tank.
- Crew or equipment visible: A crew member shadow is visible in the stairwell as the water cascades down.
- Continuity: When Lorrie goes through the window, she is seen on fire, then not on fire, and goes through the window twice.
- Continuity: Throughout the movie, it is night time, but many window shots show a dusk sky.
- Revealing mistakes: When the fire crew slide down the fireman's pole to answer the alarm call the pole can clearly be seen moving from side to side. A real fireman's pole is fixed solidly to both ceiling and floor.
- Factual errors: A helicopter lowers O'Hallorhan onto the damaged scenic elevator. In order to set him directly and vertically onto the elevator car (he did not swing to it), the helicopter blades would have to be no more than a foot wide to get that close to the building - or the cable would have to reach to the top of the building to accommodate the width of the helicopter blades, which would be impossible.
- Revealing mistakes: When Doug goes to his office at the beginning, the elevator door opens and he exits, but the light on the button does not go off.
- Revealing mistakes: When the breeches buoy falls, the explosion is far above it, yet the ropes are anchored well inside the Promedade Room.
- Continuity: When the helicopter is bringing the scenic elevator down, in one shot you can see the top of skyscrapers, then within seconds, it is only 20 or so feet off the ground.
- Continuity: When O'Halloran is on the scenic elevator and reaches out to grab the falling Mike Powers, he is wearing the heavy protective gloves he wore when transported over by helicopter. In the subsequent tense scenes as O'Halloran struggles to hold onto Powers while the elevator is lowered to the ground, the gloves have vanished. There would be no way O'Halloran could hang onto Powers with the gloves.
- Factual errors: At the beginning of the film, a Bell Jet Ranger Helicopter lands on top of the tower. A wind sock is seen showing a strong wind towards the side of the helicopter. A helicopter can NEVER land with a side wind. It is very dangerous.
- Revealing mistakes: As Harry Jernigan kicks open the apartment door, a fraction of a second beforehand you can see him turn the knob and open it slightly.
- Continuity: After Dan falls through and breaks the glass in the outer office, we see firemen in the same office, but all of the glass is intact.
- Continuity: When the first woman is lowered to the Peerless Building using the breeches buoy, the downward shot of her moving away from The Glass Tower does not show the outside elevator, even though at this point of the story the elevator is "hanging by a single cable." When the Fire Chief arrives on top of the Peerless Building, the elevator can be seen on the side of The Glass Tower again.
- Revealing mistakes: At the beginning of the movie when we first see the tower, it's easy to tell that it's a fake/added building because it's slightly moving.
- Continuity: At the beginning of the film, Roberts land on the roof of the building in a helicopter and meets with Duncan. They both get into a lift though we then see Roberts alone in a lift, going up. (Possibly Duncan's office was on another floor, but it's unlikely that they would have gone down as far as that floor before Roberts then went upward; he would have got off first.)
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Concrete debris can be seen floating in the water after the flooding sequence.
- Continuity: SPOILER: Tanks #5 and 6 blow up on the face, not underneath where the C4 was placed.
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