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In Wonder Woman film, There's a relatively large plane in the closing minutes of the film that needs to be stopped.

While I did catch the throwaway line about the payload being on timers, why couldn't Steve Trevor have landed it in a totally desolate/abandoned place or even ditched in a nearby large body of water?

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    The plane was said to have enough gas to wipe out 50km, was that 50 km squared or a radius of 50 km I cannot remember. Going from Belgium to London given the population density of Northern Europe even during the 1914-1918 war I doubt a crash site could be found that would not effect civilians. A water ditching into the North Sea would have been a a possibility though and Steve Trevor could have piloted the plane there. However given that water survive times in the cold conditions are around 10-15 minutes he would probably have died from exposure without rescue.
    – Sarriesfan
    Commented Jun 6, 2017 at 6:08

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The novelisation of the film indicates that his actions were motivated by a lack of understanding about the plane's capabilities and an excess of caution that the plane might crash near to a populated area, noting that the price for failure was potentially millions of innocent lives.

He also seems worried that if he crashes near the ground, that the cloud of poison gas would remain cohesive enough to kill if it blew back over land.

Gathering speed from the powerful tailwind, Steve pulled back on the yoke, putting the plane into a steep climb. He reached out and tapped the fuel tank gauges with a fingernail. The needles read full. How far from civilization could he get? Could he make it out over the Atlantic? Or would the heavy payload drain the fuel so quickly that he’d crash land on the coast of France? He couldn’t come up short, not with so many lives on the line.
The wind ripped at the plane as it continued to climb, buffeting it so violently that the wings flexed and rippled.
An idea popped into his head. If he could climb high enough into the storm, reach the maximum wind stream, if the gas was released then, it would disperse over hundreds, maybe thousands of miles. It would be so diluted that it would be rendered harmless. Pushing the throttles forward to full power, he tried to look out the window but there was no way to see anything. How was Diana doing?

Wonder-Woman: Official Movie Novelisation

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    This is the correct answer.
    – Möoz
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 21:15
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    @mooz - Of course it is. I wrote it.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 21:21
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    And this is a comic book movie, so there is a non-zero chance that Steve bailed out at the last possible second, with a parachute, but was horribly affected by the gas somehow and shows up again later, possibly as an adversary. Just sayin'
    – Paul
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 15:41
  • @Paul it seems you’re right on at least the first count based on trailers for WW 1984.
    – Darren
    Commented Sep 2, 2020 at 7:13
  • @Darren - something something amnesia
    – Valorum
    Commented Sep 2, 2020 at 7:35
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We had already seen WonderWoman was impervious to the gas. She is nearly as powerful as SuperMan.

So the perfect outcome would be for him to grab two parachutes, and bring WW with him. Take off, and then tell WW to grab the stick while he jumped off with the parachute. WonderWoman could survive the explosion, gas and fall.

There are reasons this plan might not work. First he might not be fully aware of Diana's power. At her best he only saw her take down a tower. Then, she had her hearing impaired. Even if she didn't, she was fully focused on Ares, believing he was the responsible for all the war, also meaning it'd be hard to convince her to leave her target behind. And finally, from the character perspective, he was constantly trying to protect Diana, he wouldn't suggest putting her in harms way, not if he could take her place.

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