A phone that was sucked out of an Alaska Airlines flight, where a door tore off mid-flight Friday evening, survived its free fall of more than 5,000 meters and was even found still working by a resident of Washington State.
This is an advertisement that Apple should not have expected: the iPhone that fell from the plane was found by the side of the road “still in airplane mode with 50% battery and opened to a complaint page of baggage,” explained Sean Bates on X, who got his hands on the phone.
In a video on TikTok, Mr Bates explained that he came across the iPhone while out for a walk and initially thought it had been thrown from the side of the road.
“It was still quite clean, without any scratches, under a bush,” he pointed out. “I opened it and saw that it was in airplane mode, with a travel confirmation and baggage claim for Alaska Flight 1282.”
The man called the National Transportation Safety Board, a U.S. federal agency responsible for investigating the flight that took off from Oregon International Airport.
According to an agent, this is the second phone that was found after flying off the plane. Headrests, a seat back, a table and even the door in question were also located.
Since the accident, Boeing 737 Max 9s, like the one in flight Friday evening, have been grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is certain they are safe.
