Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) awakens in the jungle, disoriented, battered and bruised. He doesn’t know where he is, but notices a yellow Labrador retriever darting through the bamboo forest. As he forces himself up and winces in pain, he discovers a small bottle of vodka in his suit pocket. Finally able to stand, he crashes through the jungle vegetation, begins to hear sounds of people screaming, then emerges onto a beautiful beach, where he is confronted by the carnage of the airplane crash of Oceanic Flight 815.
All is in chaos. People are screaming. Once out onto the beach Jack sees the plane crash and the survivors in shock. In the confusion, one survivor gets sucked into a still spinning turbine. Jack, a distinguished surgeon, darts from one survivor to the next, organizing them, giving orders and administering medical aid. In quick fashion, he rescues a man pinned under wreckage, assists the pregnant Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin) and enlists Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge Garcia) to watch her, and administers CPR to Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell), saving her life.
After the initial shock of the crash passes, Jack retreats to a quiet area beyond the beach to tend to his own minor injuries when he notices Kate Austen watching him. He asks for assistance, which she reluctantly gives by helping suture the wound on his back. During the procedure, Kate reveals that their plane had broken apart in mid-air. Hours later on the beach, while Kate curiously observes Jack tending to a critically-injured unconscious passenger, survivors Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and his ten-year-old son, Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley), discuss what to do with the bodies in the wreckage, while an uninterested James “Sawyer” Ford (Josh Holloway) looks on. Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) organizes a clean-up crew, while Hurley salvages meals from the plane’s galley and distributes them to the survivors. Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace) refuses chocolate offered by her brother Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder), believing that rescue is imminent.
That night, the peacefulness of the camp is disturbed by loud roaring noises and crashing trees emanating from the nearby jungle. In the morning, Jack decides that the survivors need to send a distress signal to have any hope of rescue, and he believes the best solution is to use the plane’s transceiver, located in the cockpit of the plane. Kate claims to have seen smoke from somewhere within the jungle and asks to come with Jack to find what is hoped to be another part of the plane’s wreckage. With Kate and Charlie Pace, Jack sets off into the jungle to find the cockpit. As they move deeper into the jungle, they encounter a sudden rainstorm. When the trio finds the plane, resting against a tree, they are forced to climb through the rows of seats to reach the cabin. Inside, they find the pilot still in his seat. Charlie disappears into the bathroom while Jack and Kate find the pilot (Greg Grunberg) awaking with a start from a concussion. He tells them that the plane had lost radio contact six hours after take off, where it turned back for Fiji and hit turbulence. The plane was a thousand miles off course when it crashed.
Meanwhile, on the beach during the rainstorm, a group of survivors takes refuge in the wreckage. While huddled there, a young Korean man, Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), tells his wife, Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim),in Korean that she should remain close to him at all times. Even though most of the survivors have taken shelter, John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) remains outside and sits alone in the rain on the beach with his arms outstretched and seems to enjoy the moment. Back in the plane’s cockpit, the conversation is interrupted when the strange roaring noise that the group heard from the jungle the previous night returns. When the pilot investigates, he is seized by something outside, which drags him through the cockpit window, prompting the trio to grab the transceiver and flee. During the escape, Charlie falls. Jack returns to help him, while a terrified Kate runs on. After the monster disappears, Kate, Charlie and Jack reunite and find the pilot, his bloodied corpse suspended in a tree top.