An Alaska Airlines plane lost a door panel last week, causing an iPhone to fall as much as 5,000 meters. And the surprising thing: the iPhone still works!
Airplane loses door panel
Last week, an Alaska Airlines plane lost part of its fuselage while it was already at an altitude of 5,000 meters. The Boeing 737 Max 9 was en route from Portland to Los Angeles when a door panel suddenly came loose. As a result, the plane immediately returned to Portland, but an iPhone fell from the plane during the flight.
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There is normally an emergency exit where the door panel is, but Alaska Airlines does not use this exit. This has to do with the number of seats that are placed in an aircraft, but this exit must also be used for a certain number of seats. Instead of the emergency exit, a door panel was installed, which became loose at an altitude of 5,000 meters. This caused a hole in the fuselage of the plane, causing a passenger to lose his iPhone.
iPhone survives fall from plane
As a result, the iPhone fell no less than 5,000 meters and ended up somewhere near Portland. Not long after, Seanathan Bates found a phone on the side of a road in the American city. The iPhone was still in airplane mode and had opened the checked baggage account with Alaska Airlines. It turned out to indeed be an iPhone that had fallen from the plane.
The bizarre thing about the story is that the iPhone was found virtually undamaged, despite falling from the plane. The housing and even the screen did not sustain any major damage and the battery still worked properly. The only part that was broken turned out to be the charging cable. It broke off, probably when the iPhone was sucked out of the plane at a high altitude.
Phone returned to passenger
Another email had been opened on the iPhone, which also contained the passenger’s details. This allowed Bates to easily get in touch with the phone’s owner. The iPhone is now back in the hands of the passenger, who is probably happy that he survived the flight and has his phone back.
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Seanathan Bates also reported to the NTSB, an organization that investigates traffic accidents, that he has found the iPhone. The organization said that this was already the second phone that had fallen from the plane. It is not known whether that phone, like the iPhone, survived the fall from the plane. In any case, it is a miracle that no one was injured in the plane incident and that the iPhone was found virtually undamaged.
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