After being sucked out of an Alaska Airlines flight that lost its door plug, an iPhone set to airplane mode successfully survived a 16,000-foot plunge.
Living in Oregon, Sean BatesIt was one of two cellphones that blew out of the gaping hole in the Boeing 737 MAX 9 as it depressurized on Friday.
“I found my iPhone on the side of the road…still in airplane mode with only half battery, but the baggage claim area for #AlaskaAirlines flight ASA128 is open.” Bates wrote about Xwhere he posted an image of the phone.
“Survived a 16,000 foot fall completely unscathed!” he added.
He reported the discovery to the National Transportation Safety Board and said he was informed that it was the second phone found on the plane.
“In case you didn't notice, the broken charger plug was still inside. The thing was *dragged* out the door (I couldn't have taken a better photo before handing it over. Sorry for that lol),” Bates wrote after being spotted on Burns Road.
“Of course I have to think airplane mode helped me survive the fall,” he added with a laughing emoji.
Bates too I posted a video In it, he explained how he found the phone after the NTSB urged people to be on the lookout for items that may have fallen from aircraft.
“Fortunately, no one was hurt or sucked in, but they did lose some belongings. I found a phone lying on the side of the road that appeared to have been stolen,” he says.
“Obviously I was a little skeptical at first. I thought this was something that could be thrown out of a car,” Bates said, adding that there wasn't even a scratch.
“The screen wasn't locked, so I opened it and it was in airplane mode, showing my travel confirmation for Alaska Flight 1282 and baggage claim. So I had to call the NTSB. “I did,” he added.
Social media users were surprised to find the iPhone, which appeared to be in a case with its screen exposed, unharmed.
“How is that possible? I dropped my iPhone off the kitchen table and it didn't work,” one user wrote.
“If you drop your cell phone under a seat at Rogers Arena, finding it in the clutter beneath it can take up to an hour of intense searching. Sometimes it's never found. ” wrote another.
“But here two mobile phones fell from the sky and were found with a perfect landing?'' he added.
Mr. Bates replied: “In particular, it's very likely that we found these cell phones before we found the old door panel.”
The other cell phone was found in the backyard.
As of Monday morning, Bates' post on Sunday had garnered more than 10 million views.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy announced Sunday that the door stopper was discovered by a school teacher, two days after a plane from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, was forced to make an emergency landing.
The agency earlier appealed to residents and business owners to check their doorbells for footage, peek into their backyards and jump onto roofs to look for door stoppers and other items that fell from the plane.
