 Aboard a commercial airliner, U.S. Marshall Pete Nessip and his brother Terry, a fellow marshal, are escorting prison inmate Earl Leedy, who is a computer wizard, to a high-security prison. When an apparent terrorist hijack attempt blows a hole in the airplane, Terry is sucked out to his death, and the terrorists parachute out of the same hole, taking Leedy with them. A devastated Pete is blamed for overreacting to the incident, and he s forced to turn in his badge. Pete believes that the assault may have been an elaborate prison break meant to free Leedy. Renegade skydiver and former DEA agent Ty Moncrief is the mastermind behind the attack, which culminated in the first-ever parachute jump from a commercial jet at 30,000 feet. Ty plans to use Leedy to hack into the DEA mainframe computer in Washington DC, so Ty can auction off the names of undercover agents to drug cartels worldwide. Ty has scheduled this to be accomplished during an Independence Day parachute exhibition and fireworks display, which is the one day every year when security is loosened around the airspace above Washington DC. Because skydiving played a part in the airplane hijacking, Pete finds his way to Jessie Crossman, a world-class skydiver and ex-con, whose ex-husband Jagger, unknown to all, is part of Ty s crew. Jessie agrees to train Pete how to skydive, if he will sponsor her team for the parachute exhibition. When Jessie s parachuting friend Selkirk is severely injured after using a faulty parachute that Ty had intended for Jessie to use, Pete is appointed to take Selkirk s place. When Jagger is found dead, tangled in some high-voltage power lines, it s obvious that his death was a murder engineered by Ty, and with Pete s help, Jessie seeks revenge on Ty.