Fate Is the Hunter is a 1964 American aviation disaster drama film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, directed by Ralph Nelson, that stars Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor.

Fate Is the Hunter also features Jane Russell (playing herself entertaining for the USO in a flashback sequence), Nehemiah Persoff, Wally Cox, and Mark Stevens.

The film explores the lives of passengers and crew as well as the technical operations of aircraft, the process of investigation, and the pressures brought to bear by relentless news media and industry politics.

After the failure of both engines of his passenger jet during take-off, pilot Jack Savage (Rod Taylor) successfully belly lands the plane along what initially appears to be an open stretch of beach.

He opens the console's access panel and finds that coffee seeped in, short-circuiting the wiring and causing both the radio failure and a false fire warning.

The wings were reportedly removed and reversed, and a Boeing 707 nose cone along with "supersonic spike" were also added in order to achieve the appearance of a modern jet airliner.

The "Fate" aircraft was later used in the filming of an episode of the ABC television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–1968), and remained parked for several years on an overpass used for movie prop storage by the adjacent 20th Century Fox Studios.

[5] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the movie a strongly negative review, writing that it would surely not be shown as in-flight entertainment and that "it might be better for airline travelers if they never see it anyplace."

[7] Tony Mastroianni of the Cleveland Press reviewed the movie as "generally well-acted" and "melodramatic and sometimes suspenseful," while noting that its "series of minor situations that are important in revealing character are also very trivial and lacking in drama.

[10][N 1] On November 9, 2019 and January 21, 2020, two Airbus A350 jetliners experienced in-flight engine shutdowns due to beverage spills on the cockpit center console in the area of the control panel for engine-start and aircraft monitor functions.