When a brutal sandstorm forces their cargo plane to crash in the heart of the Gobi Desert, pilot Dennis Quaid and his disparate group of passengers and crew face a desperate fight for survival. Stranded with limited supplies and no hope of rescue, tensions flare between the pragmatic captain, a by-the-book company man played by Hugh Laurie, and the other survivors, including a resourceful oil rig worker Tyrese Gibson and a determined navigator Miranda Otto. Their fragile hope rests on an unlikely source: a mysterious and eccentric aviation designer, portrayed by Giovanni Ribisi, who proposes a radical plan to build a new aircraft from the wreckage of the old. This gripping adventure from director John Moore becomes a intense psychological battle against time, the elements, and each other, as this band of strangers must unite to attempt an impossible escape.