John Travolta Reflects on Near-Death Experience Flying a Plane: I Thought I Was 'Going to Die'

The actor and licensed pilot remembered an incident where his plane experienced "a total electrical failure"

John Travolta is opening up about a plane mishap that left him thinking he was "going to die."

While attending the London premiere for the Disney+ short The Shepherd — which tells the story of a Royal Air Force pilot who suffers total electrical failure — the Oscar winner, 69, spoke about how he too had previously "experienced a total electrical failure" while flying a plane, per Variety.

"I actually experienced a total electrical failure, not in a Vampire, but in a corporate jet over Washington D.C.,” Travolta, who has his own pilot's license, said. “So when I read [Frederick Forsyth's book of the same name], it resonated even more because of this experience I had personally had.”

“I knew what it felt like to absolutely think you’re going to die,” he added. “I had two good jet engines, but I had no instruments, no electric, nothing. And I thought it was over.”

Related: John Travolta and Daughter Ella Wish Ben Travolta a Happy 13th Birthday: ‘I Love You!’

In a 1995 New Yorker feature, Travolta described a flight with his family when he made an emergency landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. At the time, he explained that his “transducer rectifier” wasn’t functioning on the flight.

A report from The Washington Post afterward noted that investigators concluded "the threat of a mid-air collision was very real" during the 1992 flight. The report added that a Boeing 727 bound for New York was the other plane involved in the near-miss.

“And then as if by a miracle, we descended as per the rules to a lower altitude," Travola recalled at the Q&A this week. "I saw that Washington D.C. monument and identified that Washington National Airport was right next to it, and I made a landing just like [pilot Freddie Hooke] does in the film.”

The actor added that his costar Ben Radcliffe, who plays Hooke, "captured that despair when you think you’re actually going to die."

"And I had my family on board and I said ‘This is it, I can’t believe I’m gonna die in this plane,'" Travolta said.

Related: John Travolta Receives License to Pilot a 737 Airplane: 'A Very Proud Moment for Me'

The Grease star also revealed during the event that he “instantly fell in love” with Forsyth’s book when he first read it, but never got around to doing anything with the screen rights at the time. “Because it was right after ‘Pulp Fiction,’ I was doing one movie after another,” he said. “After 10 years, I just let it go and decided that I was never going to really get to do it.”

Eventually, when writer and director Iain Softley connected with him, the two aimed to make the project happen. “There’s very few projects I’ve ever been involved with that were locked in here,” Travolta said of his heart, per Variety. “I wanted to have a destiny with it for 30 years."

"It took 30 years but here I am tonight. But 30 years for me, fantasizing that we’d get this book done because there’s nothing like it I’ve seen," he added.

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