This TV movie was Irwin Allen's first project with Warner Bros. Studios after having moved over from 20th Century-Fox, where he had mastered both mediums of television and films for sixteen years. Warners and 20th Century Fox had actually co-produced Allen's then most recent theatrical feature, The Towering Inferno (1974), the first time that two studios combined forces on making a single film.
Actors Martin Milner, Cameron Mitchell and Eric Olson all starred in Irwin Allen's short-lived Swiss Family Robinson (1975) series, which was off-the-air earlier in 1976. This TV movie also served as the pilot for an intended series about helicopter pilots that unfortunately was scrapped early in the planning stages. Mitchell would also later appear in one of the theatrical Allen disaster films, The Swarm (1978).
Carol Lynley and Roddy McDowall had worked together on screen among the all-star cast of Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure (1972), though they share no scenes together in this film. They also had worked together on screen along with another of their co-stars in this movie, Teresa Wright, in another TV disaster movie, The Elevator (1974), again although neither of them works directly with Wright this time around.
The cast includes several people who worked with producer Irwin Allen on other projects, most regularly Elizabeth Rogers who had appeared in an episode each of the Allen sci-fi series The Time Tunnel (1966) (The Alamo (1966)) and Land of the Giants (1968) (Sabotage (1969)) and later in the Allen films The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974) (as the woman screaming as the breeches buoy carries her to safety from the fire), Adventures of the Queen (1975), The Swarm (1978), Hanging by a Thread (1979), The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1980) and Outrage! (1986); also Jack Collins who had played Mayor Ramsay in "The Towering Inferno"; Richard Basehart who starred as Admiral Harriman Nelson in Allen's TV series version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) and appeared in City Beneath the Sea (1971) and Time Travelers (1976); Whit Bissell appearing regularly as General Heywood Kirk on The Time Tunnel (1966) and also having roles in episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (The Peacemaker (1965)) and Land of the Giants (1968) (The Secret City of Limbo (1970)) plus Allen's series Swiss Family Robinson (1975) and "City Beneath the Sea"; Francine York who was in episodes of Lost in Space (1965) (The Colonists (1967) and Land of the Giants (1968) (Doomsday (1970)) as well as a different early version of City Beneath the Sea (1969) plus Adventures of the Queen (1975), "Time Travelers" and "The Night the Bridge Fell Down"; and future Titanic (1997) star Gloria Stuart who had also appeared in "Adventures of the Queen."