I don't know if it's a real plane. I wasn't there, but the idea that the plane is an INFLATABLE prop is plain laughable and false on it's face.
We had that tech perhaps 100 years ago!
For the love of God, it's ANYTHING but an inflatable plane. A skeletonized prop, MAYBE, I don't know, but it's not a blow up slippin slide.
For fuck's sake.
You're making a whole lotta sense over here. No way those dudes/dudettes didn't suffer blown eardrums, at the least!
Not buyin it.