Move over, Gulf War Gameboy - there's a new piece of indestructible technology on the block.
On Friday, Alaska Airlines Flight 182 suffered a potentially catastrophic explosive decompression event as a door plug spontaneously blew off the plane mid-flight. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured, but the incident did leave us with a rather unbelievable story: an iPhone that was sucked out of the door-shaped hole on the plane survived the ordeal after falling more than 16,000 feet. It was found fully functional, with its screen still intact.
The iPhone in question was found on Sunday by game developer Seanathan Bates, who posted the discovery on X/Twitter.
"Found an iPhone on the side of the road..." Bates wrote. "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!"
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!
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024
When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet? pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd
A charging connector torn from its cable was still connected to the iPhone when Bates found it, implying the iPhone had been charging when the incident occurred. Rapid decompression can suck both passengers and objects out of an aircraft when sudden changes in air pressure occur - like, say, when a door plug is blown off an airplane. While that didn't happen to any passengers, it's likely what happened to the iPhone.
"In case you didn't see it, there was a broken-off charger plug still inside it! Thing got *yanked* out the door," Bates wrote in a follow-up post.
In case you didn't see it, there was a broken-off charger plug still inside it! Thing got *yanked* out the door
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 8, 2024
(Sorry I didn't get a better pic before handing it over haha) pic.twitter.com/tMQ7XQNHeW
Bates called in his find to the National Transportation Safety Board, and they took possession. In a press conference on Sunday, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy confirmed that two phones from Flight 182 had been found. The other phone was discovered in someone's yard.
As for how the phones survived, that's a matter of physics. In a conversation with the Washington Post, Duncan Watts, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, explained that an iPhone falling from that height wouldn't be going as fast as you might think due to air resistance.
“If the phone is falling with its screen facing the ground, there’s quite a lot of drag, but if the phone is falling straight up and down, there’s quite a bit less,” Watts said. “In reality, the phone would be tumbling quite a bit, and get quite a lot of wind essentially giving an upward force.”
Watts estimated that the iPhone was probably only traveling at fifty miles per hour when it landed. For comparison, an iPhone dropped from about waist-height would hit the ground at ten miles per hour. What likely saved the iPhone here was that it landed in the grass. If it had hit something harder, like concrete or asphalt, it probably would have been damaged.
This isn't the first time an iPhone has survived a long fall. In June 2023, a TikTok user named Hatton Smith posted a video claiming his iPhone survived falling out of his pocket while skydiving at 14,000 feet. That phone also landed in a grassy area.
The moral of this story? The next time you drop your phone, try to have it land in the grass. Your screen will thank you.
Thumbnail credit: Getty Images
