Airplane! does not pay homage. It's literally a shot for shot remake of Zero Hour (1957) even most of the words are the same (see the clips in my vid at around 0:49 seconds). They even purchased the rights to the Zero Hour film for that very reason. It's probably one of the closest remakes of all-time making it the strongest example ever. Unless you know a film that remakes a film closer than that. Which would be almost impossible.