How A Raiders Of The Lost Ark Pilot Wound Up Saving Jurassic Park’s Cast And Crew

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By Sedoso Feb

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While filming “Jurassic Park,” Steven Spielberg recalled being awakened at 4 a.m. at his hotel to news that Hurricane Iniki — then the largest in Hawai’ian history, was bearing down on his location. Actor Sam Neill recalled he and the rest of the cast having to hide in the ballroom of the Hawai’ian hotel, waiting for the storm to strike. Everyone was a little nervous. Spielberg recalled his producer taking action, going by foot to the local airport to see if a flight away from the storm could be hastily arranged. 

And who should be in Kauai at that moment, but Fred Sorenson. The pilot recognized the producer. As Spielberg told EW:

“Kathy Kennedy jogged to the airport. She found some guy about to leave on a small private single-engine aircraft. She hitchhiked her way to Honolulu and she was trying to find a plane that could get our crew and cast back to Los Angeles. She bumped into this guy she kind of recognized and she walked over to the guy and said, ‘Don’t I know you?’ and he said, ‘Hi Kathy.’ It was the young man that flew the biplane in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.'”

Quite a coincidence. Sorenson’s presence on Kauai had nothing to do with the production of “Jurassic Park,” and his cargo plane wasn’t delivering film supplies. It was just one of those wild-chance meetings. So, yes, Spielberg and his crew were, it seems, going to be rescued by one of his former actors, arguably the deliverer of the first laugh line in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

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