We need to find out which company made the following case for this lucky iPhone.
The smartphone from Apple was found intact on a Portland, Oregon roadside, having survived a 16,000-foot fall from an Alaska Airlines flight. Sean Bates, who discovered the phone on Sunday, shared that it was still in airplane mode, half-charged, and displaying a baggage claim email for Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.
Bates says he found the iPhone while he was “just walking down Barnes Road.”
The phone, belonging to a passenger named Cuong Tran (based on the image of his email), was one of two mobile devices recovered after being ejected from the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet during a sudden decompression event on Friday night, which saw a piece of the plane’s fuselage blow off at 16,000 feet in the sky.
The incident occurred minutes after takeoff, forcing Flight 1282 to return to Portland. Remarkably, none of the 171 passengers aboard were seriously injured.
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
Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), confirmed the phone’s recovery and stated that such findings assist in verifying the search area’s accuracy. The NTSB is currently in possession of the phone and plans to return it to the passengers after examination.
@seansafyre quick story of how I found a phone that dropped 16,000 feet 😅 definitely belonged to a passenger on #alaskaairlines #asa1282 pics are on X
The discovery of the functioning iPhone, complete with a broken-off charger plug, suggests how violent the device was sucked out of the airplane. The incident has prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground over 170 Max 9 aircraft for safety checks before they resume service.
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Since the terminal velocity would be reached rather quickly, a 16,000 foot fall isn’t necessarily any different than a much shorter fall. If I were to guess, I’d also assume that this height means that the horizontal inertia won’t be a factor as that will taper off until the object is falling reasonably straight to the ground (unless the wind was a factor).
What likely saved the phone is it not falling on a hard surface and maybe even having some it’s energy dissipated by branches prior to hitting the ground (it looks like grass here).
The falling orientation would also be important, if it falls in a mostly flat orientation that would reduce its speed significantly. We’re also dealing with something close to sea level air density in this location by the time it gets close to the ground so the phone would have more resistance by virtue of that metric compared to somewhere like Denver or Mexico City (around 5,000 and 7,000 feet respectively above sea level).
You must be a staunch follower and indoctrinated user of Android devices… I’m betting Samsung is your device of choice. Lol.
I’ve never read anyone doing this level of mental gymnastics to try and discredit what could only be the longest unintentional drop test ever performed. Do you suppose Apple had wings pop out, and staged this event to perhaps help slow down the drop and mitigate any further damage that may have occurred? For Chr sake the glass didn’t even break, and you’re postulating every possible antithesis to say that this was a gentle fall that one shouldn’t expect any damage from whatsoever, and would fare far worse in a different corner of earth…
Give me a break. So much hot air moving around in your post that it really does come across as beyond stupid, even if there is a minute chance that some of your fluff is actually a thing.
I use an iPhone and my point stands. The phone won’t fall any faster once it has reached terminal velocity in a matter of seconds and would, in fact slow down slightly, with increasing air density as it falls. Everything else being equal, a 100m fall is no different than a fall from 5000m. So if an iPhone hits some spongy ground from 100m and doesn’t break, we shouldn’t be surprised that it survives a much higher drop on the same surface.
You offered no rebuttal to the crux of my thesis and resorted ad hominem attacks in a long winded post about nothing. I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.