- While filming the upcoming movie Plane, actor Gerard Butler had a nasty encounter with a plane.
- The actor told Seth Meyers he encountered phosphoric acid when he touched the plane’s wheels.
- As he rubbed his face to remove sweat, the acid also got down his throat.
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During an interview for Late Night with Seth Meyers, actor Gerard Butler described a stressful day on the set of his new movie Plane. In the action flick, Butler plays a badass pilot who works part-time on an airplane’s landing gear.
“I put my hand between those two wheels and pretend I know what I’m doing,” Butler said. “Every time I get my hands out, they’re covered in blood and green liquid, right? And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what this green liquid is.’”
It turned out to be a synthetic liquid that was “essentially phosphoric acid,” the actor said. As he rubbed the sweat from his face, the liquid got onto his skin.
“All of a sudden it’s in my throat,” Butler said. “It’s in my mouth. It’s in my nose. It’s in my eyes. It burns my face and I mean it burns.”
According to a 2021 article by the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, some synthetic types of hydraulic fluids used for aircraft landing gear are made from a compound “derived from alcohol and phosphoric acid.” It can be colored green (or purple or amber) to make it identifiable.
“The airline pilots who were there watching said ‘No!'” Butler said.
The burning finally lasted for hours, but was “great for the sequence”.
You can see Butler’s performance below: