Jing Lusi’s Detective Constable Hana Li boards North China Air 357 expecting to escort Richard Armitage’s vascular surgeon Matthew Nolan to a Beijing manslaughter trial. Instead the cabin becomes a crime scene as bodies drop and every passenger appears to carry security clearance. Shot almost entirely inside a mocked-up fuselage in a London studio, the six-episode first series keeps the action claustrophobically airborne while MI5 boss Lesley Sharp and CIA London chief Mido Hamada duel on encrypted calls from the ground.
The thriller’s second series, subtitled Crimson Icarus and released on New Year’s Day 2026, widens the lens. Martin Compston arrives as Clay Brody, a former SAS Regional Security Officer now stationed at the US Embassy, while UK Defence Secretary Nicholas Rowe orders a drone strike that downs a Chinese surveillance jet above the Arctic. The chessboard has become an icefield and Hana, promoted to Detective Sergeant, is no longer a passenger.
Created by Peter A. Dowling for Bad Wolf and Sony Pictures Television, the show averaged 6.46 million viewers in spring 2024, enough for ITV to recommission before the finale aired. Critics called it derivative yet bingeable, awarding middling stars and promptly forgetting it until the next time Armitage widened his eyes at thirty thousand feet.
Production Details
ITV1 / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2024 - Present
Created by: Peter A. Dowling
Showrunner(s): Peter A. Dowling, Julie Gardner, Lachlan MacKinnon
Writer(s): Peter A. Dowling, Jingan Young
Producer(s): Letitia Knight, Kristian Dench
Cinematography: Oli Russell
Music: Ian Arber
Main Cast
Jing Lusi as DC Hana Li
Cash Holland as Ruth Banks
Lesley Sharp as Director General Madeline Delaney
Steph Lacey as Megan Campbell
Jemma Moore as Jess Li
Jonathan Aris as John Tennant
Richard Armitage as Dr. Matthew Nolan
Robert Gilbert as Supt. Simon O'Brian
Martin Compston as RSO Clay Brody
Nicholas Rowe as DSEC Alex Peterson
Mido Hamada as Mike Maxwell
Trevor White as US Ambassador Ronald Tillman
