A major international airport becomes the arena for terror as Detective John McClane is drawn into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with an elite special forces unit which has seized a bustling airport in Washington, D.C. Led by a maniacal former U.S. military officer, the group plans to intercept the extradition of a Central American strongman as he is brought into the United States for prosecution on drug charges. Their plan is swift, brutal and brilliant...but they didn't count on the presence of John McClane. Principal photography began in November of 1989, and the huge scope of the film quickly became apparent as hundreds of skilled craftsmen and technicians labored under arduous conditions to bring one of the largest-scale productions in recent Hollywood memory to life.

In the Los Angeles area, locations included the Harbor Generating Plant in Wilmington and the Jensen Filtration Plant in Granada Hills standing in, respectively, for the airport's basement and boiler room and the tunnels under the runways. The crew shot among boilers, pumps and compressors, as special effects worked their magic with plenty of smoke and steam. Other locations included the steps of City Hall and one of the elaborate council chambers there, offices at the Pacific Stock Exchange building and the first of many airport runways, with the Mojave airport doubling as a tropical airfield.