Movie for the day: BEL

Behind Enemy Lines, starring Gene Hackman (as Admiral Leslie McMahon Reigart, photo. top) and Owen Wilson (as Burnett, photo. bottom), was supposedly the true story of Lieutenant Chris Burnett, shot down over Serbia in 1995:

American aircraft detected a Serb missile radar along the Croatian coast, scanning for targets. An American plane recommended destroying the Serb radar, code-named Giraffe. The request was denied, partly out of concern that a strike could spark wider conflict.
Minutes later, the Marines reported they were under fire. Two shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles had been launched at them but missed, as the helicopter pilots, flying a hundred feet off the ground at almost two hundred mph, jinked to evade them. Serb small arms pocked both helicopters; the Marines aboard heard the bullets hit inside the fuselage. One door gunner returned fire. One round hit some communication gear in the chopper, and the bullet ended up against Master Sergeant Angel Castro Jr.’s armor, without injuring anyone. At 0715 local time, thirty minutes after picking up O’Grady, the rescuers reported “feet wet”, meaning they were over water. O’Grady was back aboard the Kearsarge at 0730. All of the aircraft landed without further incident.
Aftermath
On 11 August 1995, a USAF RQ-1 Predator UAV was shot down by Serb forces in the same area. Recovering the wreckage, the Serbs handed it over to Russia for technical evaluation. On 30 August NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force, a massive airstrike campaign which eventually lifted the siege of Sarajevo and led to the end of the war in Bosnia.
The incident was depicted and described on the documentary television program Situation Critical in episode number five, Downed Pilot. and also shown on the National Geographic Channel. It was also covered in Escape! – Escape From Bosnia: The Scott O’Grady Story on the History Channel. The BBC also made a documentary, Missing in Action, later purchased by 20th Century Fox and Discovery Communications.
The 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines, starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, is loosely based on this event. Although O’Grady had given the film a positive rating on the film review television show Hot Or Not, O’Grady took offense at the portrayal of ‘his’ character in Behind Enemy Lines “as a pilot who disobeys orders and swears”. O’Grady sued 20th Century Fox in 2002 for making the film without his permission. He also took action over the documentary, Behind Enemy Lines: The Scott O’Grady Story, which was a reedited version of a BBC documentary which Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, had purchased and edited. The documentary was broadcast several times on the Discovery Channel, and O’Grady accused Fox of using it to promote the film. Both suits were settled in 2004. Fox made a confidential settlement with O’Grady, while a Texas court ruled against O’Grady and in favor of Discovery Communications. The judge’s ruling stated, in effect, that the events in a person’s life are not the same thing as that person’s likeness or image.
O’Grady co-wrote two books, collaborating on one with Michael French, that detailed his experiences of being shot down over Bosnia and his eventual rescue, Basher Five-Two: The True Story of F-16 Fighter Pilot Captain Scott O’Grady. He later wrote a book concerning the spiritual effects of his experience: Return with Honor with Jeff Coplon. Another book has also been written; this one, Good To Go:” The Rescue of Captain Scott O’Grady, USAF, from Bosnia, by Mary Pat Kelly.

Rico says only the lawyers get rich off this shit... (Hackman was great, as usual, and Wilson was his typical punk self...)