The phone was found switched on, with the charging cable connected but broken, and an email with a baggage claim from the airline displayed on the screen.
The Boeing 737 Max 9 took off from Portland on Friday and, while at an altitude of 5 km, suddenly lost part of the fuselage reserved for additional doors. Fortunately, 20 minutes after takeoff, the pilots were able to successfully land the transport with all 171 passengers and 6 crew members on board, although some suffered minor injuries.
At the same time, as game designer Sean Bates reported on social networks, during the walk he managed to find an iPhone that probably survived the fall from the same flight, judging by the baggage claim, which was displayed on the phone’s somehow unlocked screen. Outwardly, the device looks completely undamaged – only the charging cable was damaged, the ragged remnant of which was sticking out of the connector.
Found an iPhone on the side of the shore… Leave the plan in the summer with half the battery and prohibit the discharge 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
During a briefing on Sunday, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that two phones were found after the Boeing 737 Max 9 crashed, one on the side of the road and one in the yard. Additionally, a Portland school teacher found the same fuselage plug in his backyard.
So how could the phone remain intact after falling from a height of 5 km? This seems to be negative acceleration or deceleration, a process in which an object’s speed decreases over time. During a similar incident in 2011, when an iPhone 4 fell from a plane from 300 meters, Wired detailed the process – any object falling to Earth reaches a point known as terminal velocity, where the force of gravity no longer can accelerate it due to air resistance in the atmosphere. In addition, the iPhone 4, like the phone that fell during Friday’s flight, was in a case, which increased its chances of survival.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes pending an investigation. According to Boeing, the Max is the most popular plane in the company’s history, accounting for a fifth of all orders since 1995. Of the nearly 2.9 million flights scheduled worldwide for January, 4.3% were expected to be operated by Max 8 aircraft and 0.7% by Max 9 aircraft.
