With the thousands of extras battling on the ground, dozens of airplanes flying around in the sky and hundreds of explosions going off everywhere, the only two injuries on the entire picture were incurred. One was by veteran stunt pilot Dick Grace. A plane he was crashing was supposed to completely turn over, but it only turned partly over. Instead of being thrown clear of the plane as was the plan, Grace was hurled against part of the fuselage and broke his neck. He returned to the company after six weeks in the hospital. The other was by one of the army pilots helping out on the shoot. His crash was fatal and director William A. Wellman feared it would shut down production, but the army held the pilot, not the director, responsible.
This played for 63 weeks at its first engagement cinemas. One of the reasons why it was such a resounding success was because the public had become obsessed with aviation following Charles Lindbergh's successful transatlantic flight.
Was the only silent movie to win the Best Picture Oscar until The Artist won Best Picture in 2012.
Wings was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.