While the article is based on canonical information, the actual subject lacks a formal identifier or nickname in official sources.
A German pilot was one of two Luftwaffe airmen who chased down Indiana Jones and his father following their escape from the D-138.
Biography[]
Piloting a Pilatus P-2 aircraft in 1938, a Nazi aviator and his wingman approached the D-138 zeppelin that had turned back towards Berlin, they spotted a fleeing German biplane. Giving chase, they opened fire on the slower biplane. Eventually the biplane was forced down and crashed into a farm building.[1]
As the two American fugitives Indiana Jones and his father stole a car, the pilot let his fellow aviator strafe the target, while he followed at a higher altitude. After his wingman's crash, he tracked the car along a winding road, and dropped a bomb. The bomb landed on the dirt road and exploded, creating a large hole directly in front of the escapees. Their car crashed into the hole, and they were forced to flee on foot, heading down a slope to the coast.[1]
The pilot circled around again, lining up along the beach to strafe the two men. As he lowered in altitude, the elder Jones used his umbrella to scare a flock of seagulls nearby, causing them to take flight. The plane hit many of the birds, breaking the cockpit glass and jamming the engine.[1] Dumbfounded, the pilot realized that the birds were clogging the propeller and stalling the engine, rendering the plane unflyable to his horror.[2] Unable to see or fly his plane, the pilot lost control, slammed into a nearby hillside and was killed in the explosion.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The German pilot was portrayed by an uncredited performer in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The character appears in a unspeaking role albeit his screams of desperation before crashing his plane are briefly heard.[1]
Director Steven Spielberg originally intended to evoke David Lean's 1970 film Ryan's Daughter with the death scene of the pilot when shooting the scene of Henry Walton Jones, Senior and his umbrella.[3]
In Anne Digby's storybook, the pilot himself is ironically the cause of his own death, as it's he who scares the seagulls by shooting his machine gun shots at the beach rather than Henry Jones, Sr. spooking them with his umbrella, causing them to getting sucked into his whirling propellor and wrecking his engine.[4]
In LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, rather than with the seagulls, the aircraft itself is damaged to the point that it loses its propeller and crashes, killing the pilot. In portable versions of the game, however, the pilot may have been one of the many aviators whose planes were destroyed by the Joneses' German biplane and survived via jumping by parachute.[5] In the sequel, neither of the two German pilots appear as the Joneses use the D-138 to travel to the Republic of Hatay.[6]
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
- LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Non-canonical appearance)
Sources[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
- ↑ "Crusade: Viewing Guide". Empire. October 2006. p. 101.
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Storybook
- ↑ LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
- ↑ LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues