It doesn't even make sense for Agent Gibbs to reveal himself in the end

He wanted to get off the Plane. They only had time for one more trip.

Yeah, I don't think he would have given himself away if the rescue jumper hadn't said only one more could go. Then he decided that if anyone was going to die, it wasn't going to be him.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Yep, i was just watching this movie on AMC and as others said: The only reason he revealed himself was because the army guy said they only had time for 1 more trip. William H Macy and Gibbs were both going to be left on the plane for the sake of the President.


"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

It's because only one more person could be rescued, and he wanted to save his own life in the expense of others. That's what it was. He didn't want to sacrifice his life for anyone. That's what it was.

One of the crew members, Carl J. Stensel, said: "The issue of when Gibbs would be revealed as a traitor was a hotly contested one. It went back and forth throughout preproduction. Originally, he was not to be revealed until the end of the film, and my recollection was that this was the intent most of the time. It wasn’t until well into shooting that a version revealing Gibbs earlier on started to be dominant, and, to tell the truth, I was a little surprised at the screening by the way things went, given what seemed to be happening during production."

More production info: https://popcultmaster.com/2018/04/02/high-stakes-on-a-plane/

Agree, it seemed shoehorned in "Only time for 1 more rescue!"

Did the President at the end also FIGURE out that Gibbs masterminded that whole hi-jacking operation in the first place? Or just think he was at the end too desperate to survive and hence decided to kill others and attempt to go to that rescue plane?

He wouldn’t have gotten off the plane had he not.