If you need anecdotal stories about a phone’s durability, there won’t be that many that can top surviving a fall from a flying plane. And it looks like an iPhone has suffered just that fate, and escaped relatively unscathed.
A user of X, formerly Twitter, with the handle @SeanSafyre shared the discovery of an iPhone on the side of a road with a baggage claim receipt for Alaska Airlines flight ASA 1282. The user claims that the iPhone was unlocked and in airplane mode when he found it.
Found an iPhone on the side of the road… Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly in tact!
When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet😅 pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024
While the exact model is not mentioned, the presence of the Dynamic Island indicates that it is either an iPhone 14 Pro or later. It also had a hard case attached, but the exact brand and model is unclear.
For context, Alaska Airlines flight ASA 1282, a Boeing 737-MAX 9, had over the weekend suffered an accident that saw a window panel getting blown off the plane mid-flight. CBS News reports that the plane got up to about 16,000 feet before descending, but it’s unclear when exactly the failure occurred. With the flight depressurised, the iPhone in question may have been among the objects sucked out in the as a result, as it still had part of a charging plug attached when it was discovered.
Just walking down Barnes Road pic.twitter.com/P3eHITAnpY
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 8, 2024
While it is very impressive for a phone to have survived relatively unscathed from what may have been a fall of nearly 5km in the air, there may be an explanation for this. Images of where the iPhone was found as shared by @SeanSafyre shows shrubbery which may have broken the fall of the fruit phone.
(Source: @SeanSafyre / X, CBS News)
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