In Robert Aldrich's THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, based on Elleston Trevor's novel, a small plane carrying oil workers and military personnel crashes, stranding a group of survivors in the Sahara Desert. As the lethal heat and grating sand begin to take a toll on the group, the conscientious pilot, Frank Towns (James Stewart), struggles with his inability to lead the party to safety. Hope arises, however, when German aircraft designer Heinrich Dorfman (Hardy Kruger) begins to theorize about rebuilding the wreckage into a single-engine plane capable of lifting the crash victims to safety.