Airline captain William "Whip" Whitaker awakens in his Orlando hotel room with flight attendant Katerina Marquez after a night of sex, alcohol, and very little sleep. He uses cocaine to wake up then boards SouthJet flight 227 to Atlanta. After Whip threads the plane through turbulence at takeoff, Copilot Ken Evans flies the plane while Whip discreetly mixes vodka in his orange juice and takes a nap. Whip is jolted awake just before their final descent and the plane goes into a steep dive. After failing to achieve any pitch control, Whip rolls the plane into an inverted position to bring it out of the dive and then maneuvers the plane right-side up just before crash-landing in a field. He loses consciousness upon impact.
Whip awakens in an Atlanta hospital with minor injuries. He is greeted by Charlie Anderson, a friend who now represents the airline's pilots union. He tells Whip his heroism saved 96 of 102 souls on board. An NTSB official informs him Katerina was among those killed, and that Evans has been put into a coma.
Sneaking a smoke in the stairwell, Whip meets Nicole, who is recovering from a heroin overdose, and promises to visit her when they leave the hospital. In the morning, his friend and drug dealer, Harling Mays, picks him up and sneaks him away from the hospital. Whip drives to his late father's farm, where he hopes to avoid the media. When he meets Charlie and attorney Hugh Lang, they explain that the NTSB performed a toxicology screen while he was unconscious in the hospital that revealed his alcohol intoxication and drug use, which could result in Whip going to prison on both drug and manslaughter charges. Lang promises to get the toxicology report ruled inadmissible on technical grounds, but Whip leaves in a fury and seeks out Nicole. He finds her skipping out on her lease and offers to let her stay at the farm.
Nicole and Whip begin a romantic relationship, but Nicole is trying to stay clean and sober while Whip's alcoholism progresses, and she soon leaves. The media discover his farmhouse, so he drives intoxicated to visit his ex-wife and teenage son, but they call the police. He begs to stay with Charlie, vowing not to drink before the upcoming NTSB hearing.
The night before the hearing, Charlie and Hugh check Whip into a guarded hotel room to ensure he does not get intoxicated. His mini-bar has only nonalcoholic beverages, but Whip discovers that the door to the adjoining room is open and finds alcohol in its refrigerator. Charlie and Hugh find him the next morning passed out and intoxicated. They call Harling, who brings him cocaine to perk him up for the hearing.
At the hearing, Ellen Block, the lead NTSB investigator, reveals that the cause of the plane's malfunction was a broken jackscrew in the elevator assembly. She commends Whip on his valor, pointing out no other pilots were able to land the plane safely under the same circumstances in simulations. She knows about his toxicology results but just as it appears Whip will escape culpability, Block raises the fact that there were two empty alcohol containers found in the trash on the plane; Whip knows these were his. Block points out that only the flight crew had access to the alcohol, and since only Katerina's toxicology screen showed alcohol, Block asks Whitaker whether he thinks Katerina may have been drinking on the job. Refusing to taint Katerina's good name, Whip admits not only that he was flying intoxicated but also that he is intoxicated at the hearing.
Thirteen months later, an imprisoned Whip tells a support group of fellow inmates that he is glad to be sober and does not regret doing the right thing, because he finally feels "free." He has kept in touch with Nicole and is reconnecting with his estranged son.
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