It’s taking place in fantasy-land but it’s deadly serious: the FBI and a host of emergency services from all over southern California taking part in an exercise to simulate the investigation of a major plane crash.

So where’s the fantasy in that? Well, it’s all taking place at Universal Studios on the set used by Steven Spielberg to film scenes involving the crash of a 747 jumbo jet. The scene and the plane (a real 747 bought and broken up for the movie) have been kept intact as part of Universal’s studio tour for tourists. I guess Hollywood has a bigger budget than the FBI!

It’s about as realistic as you can get without actually crashing a plane into a small town. Fake body parts are strewn across the scene, luggage is thrown everywhere, smoke billows across the wreckage and the rubble of homes. And among it all the FBI has placed certain evidence items that the investigators have to find. So it’s an exercise that mimics real-life as closely as possible, although as the FBI admits, the one thing they can’t do is recreate the adrenalin that would be pumping through agents in the real thing. But it’s an exercise that officials say will help every agent do his or her job better if they are ever faced with a real crash.

And here’s another good thing - for all of us who wasted two hours of our lives actually watching War of the Worlds it’s nice to know the movie’s finally performing a useful function.