The film opens at Spirit of the Frontier, a summer camp for kids with attitude problems. Friends Dabney and Cosmo tackle hikes, obstacle courses, and chores, all while ribbing their counselor Bruce. By the end of the season, the boys take pride in how their attitudes have worsened, even as they dread another summer they’ll have to endure.
The next summer Dabney and Cosmo are reunited at the airport, where they meet three other campers and a counselor, with whom they remain unimpressed. Nearby, the wealthy Norman Decker strolls with his pet doberman and is met by Mr. Bane, who delivers him a briefcase. Russian criminals Katyana and Jurgen watch the pair and discuss their plan to kidnap Decker for a one-billion-dollar ransom. Decker and Bane board Decker’s private jet, stash the briefcase and the doberman on board, and take off.
While preparing to board their own flight, Jenny, one of the campers, pays the counselor to get lost. James reveals that Bruce was sent to escort them but James tied him up and left him in a cleaning closet. The fifth camper is Angela, who is up for anything, always wears headphones, and rarely speaks. Now enthusiastic about their new cohort, Dabney and Cosmo join the group as they are chased around the tarmac by security before escaping onto Decker’s plane. Katyana and Jurgen, thinking Decker is on the jet, board the aircraft to kidnap him. Caught in the process, they exchange gunfire with the police as they seal the door. Although the hijackers can’t find Decker aboard the plane they believe they have his children and demand one billion dollars in ransom over the radio. Cosmo reveals his dad’s pilot sometimes lets him fly, and while attempting to taxi around the airport he inadvertently takes off.
The children’s parents and counselors are alerted to the hostage crisis. Humorously, the adults assume the large police response is mainly to control their children and believe the hijackers must be in over their heads. The parents are shown to be wealthy, self-absorbed, and generally lacking in concern for their children. On board, the kids take charge through a series of pranks and by exploiting the power dynamic between the hijackers— Katyana is dominant and Jurgen enjoys being disciplined by her. Jurgen, however, grows self-conscious about the lack of respect he receives from Katyana after being teased by the kids. Eventually the kids subdue the hijackers, steal their weapons, and tie them up using the aircraft’s flotation devices, with Angela bonding with the doberman to stand guard. The children then decide to fly to Brazil to start a new life.
Interspersed with this are scenes of Bane and Decker having covert conversations in the airport while wearing a series of disguises. It turns out that Decker is broke and hired Bane to build a bomb so he could blow up his plane and collect insurance money. Now that the children are at risk, Bane loses his nerve and turns himself in to the police, who arrest him and Decker.
The children are contacted by the police with instructions on how to defuse the bomb. It turns out that only the timer and detonator are in the briefcase, and James has to bungee jump out of the emergency exit to physically detach the bomb from the landing gear while in flight. With the bomb crisis averted, the group learns that Cosmo doesn’t know how to land the plane. Exhausted by their ordeal, the children decide they are ready to return home, and they contact air traffic control, which guides Cosmo to a safe landing. Fearing trouble for their wild escapades, they release Katyana and Jurgen in an attempt to show that the hijackers were in control the whole time. Yet the hijackers hurry to surrender to law enforcement to distance themselves from the kids. Once they are safely off the plane, the children are hailed as heroes and happily reconcile with their families.
