Apple iPhone intact and working just fine after 16,000-foot fall from Alaska Air flight

An Apple iPhone was found intact and working just fine after 16,000-foot fall from Alaska Air flight (photo: Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) via X)

An Apple iPhone has been recovered intact and working just fine after 16,000-foot fall from an Alaska Air flight in which it was sucked out of a Boeing 737 Max that suffered a fuselage panel failure.

Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) via X:
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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

Kate Duffy for Bloomberg News:
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Among the harrowing details of the blown-off fuselage panel that triggered a sudden decompression event on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, one revelation seemed to defy the laws of physics: one of the mobile phones that had been sucked out of the Boeing Co. 737 Max 9 jet’s cabin remained in functioning condition after a 16,000-foot tumble.

A new-generation Apple Inc. iPhone landed intact, unlocked and with hours of battery life remaining on a Portland, Oregon roadside, according to a post on X by a user calling himself Seanathan Bates, who said he discovered the device. The screen showed an email from Alaska Airlines about a baggage claim for the flight, based on Bates’ photos.

The phone was in airplane mode, Bates said in a TikTok video. “It was still pretty clean, no scratches on it, sitting under a bush and it didn’t have a screenlock on it,” he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed at a briefing on Sunday that one phone was found on the side of a road and another in a yard. The people have handed in both of the devices, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters.

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MacDailyNews Take: This isn’t the first time an Apple iPhone has survived a fall from great height:

• iPhone plummets 11,000 feet from an airplane, still works – August 23, 2021
• Woman drops her iPhone 2,500 feet out of a plane – it still works! – August 8, 2016
• Texas man finds his iPhone that fell 9,300 feet from plane – it still works! – July 31, 2015
• iPhone 4 plunges 1,000 feet from airplane – still works perfectly – March 23, 2011
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