A daring prison break from an airliner at 30,000 feet leaves U.S. Marshal Pete Nessip (Wesley Snipes) mourning a brother and gunning for revenge. After being ordered to turn in his badge, he seeks out Jessie Crossman (Yancy Butler), a noted skydiver, and offers to sponsor her crew for the annual Independence Day parachuting show in Washington, D.C., if she trains him. Meanwhile, the mastermind behind the mid-air jailbreak (Gary Busey) is planning a daring computer theft on Independence Day.