Epic Climax of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ filmed at Lake Tahoe Airport

NV – Turns out Lake Tahoe is on the highway to the danger zone. Top Gun: Maverick was just released in theaters, and it’s been a massive hit with critics and audiences alike. While the location for the third act of the film is supposed to be in a foreign location, skiers may recognize the scenes as being in Lake Tahoe.

The air battles in the third act take place in South Lake Tahoe and in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, which is meant to represent the steep and mountainous terrain of a foreign adversary who is never mentioned explicitly in the film. Various shots during the air scenes were filmed in Lake Tahoe; a parachuting scene was shot at Washoe Meadows Park, and the airport that Maverick tries to escape from is the Lake Tahoe Airport. Location manager Mike Fantasia said the following about the Lake Tahoe airport:

“We needed a mountaintop that overlooked the airport. You don’t have mountains close to most airports, but it just so happened there are a couple of knobs of rock sticking up, called Twin Peaks, that are just sitting south and west of the airport.”

Working with the U.S. Forest Service, the crew built platforms on the side of the mountain that helicopters could land on to bring in the equipment needed to shoot an epic scene overlooking the airport, which had been transformed into a military base.

Another element that cinched the deal was the ability to make the area look like a war zone. Due to forthcoming renovations to the airport, the crew was given nearly free rein to do whatever they liked with the site. That meant infrastructure upgrades like adding military hangars that could house fighter jets but also do enough damage to make the area look like it had just suffered a tactical air strike.