The Flight of the Phoenix is a 1965 American film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich and based on the 1964 novel The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor. It stars James Stewart as a pilot whose transport aircraft is downed in the middle of a desert, Richard Attenborough as his navigator, Hardy Krüger as an engineer who designs a new aircraft from the remains of the original, and Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Dan Duryea, Ronald Fraser, and Ian Bannen as other passengers on the aircraft.