The Arrival - Recap

Airport security guards have roped off a DC-3 airplane, Flight 107, inside of a hanger. FAA Inspector Grant Sheckly arrives to investigate it. Earlier, the DC-3 had landed but no one comes out. The airport crew search the airplane and find no crew, no passengers, and no luggage. Sheckly meets with the airport staff, led by Bengston, and holds a preliminary meeting. Everyone confirms the story and the dispatcher from Buffalo, where the DC-3 departed, has a form confirming that the pilot and co-pilot filed a flight plan. Steckly thinks their names sound vaguely familiar. He meets with Paul Malloy, the airport's PR representative, and insists that he's solved every mystery in his 22-year career. Everyone insists the airplane couldn't have landed on its own.



The airport staff try to come up with a theory that can explain the disappearances while the press clamor for answers. Steckly notes that none of the passengers' relatives have inquired about them since the plane arrived. Steckly again thinks the names of the passengers sound familiar. He runs into the plane and checks the seats, then goes outside and talks to the attendant, Robbins. Earlier Robbins had said the seats were blue, and Steckly sees them as blue now. However, earlier he saw brown seats. Bengston, who looked in the plane earlier, says he saw red seats. Steckly checks the registration number on the plane but everyone else sees different numbers.



Steckly proposes his theory: they're all suffering from mass hypnosis and each one sees the plane the way they expect to see it. He says that the plane doesn't exist and says he'll prove his theory... or he'll be dead. He has Robbins wheel the plane outside and start the engines, and prepares to stick his hand in the props. He steps forward, extends his hand, and the plane disappears. A triumphant Steckly turns to the airport staff, only to see them all disappear. The hanger is empty and Steckly runs outside and goes to Bengston's office. Bengston and Malloy have no idea what he's talking about and Steckly sees a newspaper headline about a movie starlet arriving from Buffalo on Flight 107. Bengston demands answers from a confused Steckly, and then remembers that a Flight 107 out of Buffalo did disappear: 17 years ago. The flight was lost in the fog and no one ever found it. It was the one case that Steckly never resolved. Steckly insists that he's never failed on a case and stumbles out, raving.



Steckly goes to the hanger as he recites the names of the crew and passengers and tries to figure out what went wrong. He finally collapses, sobbing, obsessed with the case that he never solved.



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