13 votes

iPhone survives falling 16,000ft (4,876m) from airplane

Posted by feanne
Tags: apple, phones.smart, iphone, disasters.transport, aviation, aircraft, author.seanathan bates, source.twitter
https://x.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685?s=20

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Title
Seanathan Bates on Twitter: "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!When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet😅 pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd / Twitter"
Authors
Seanathan Bates

3 comments

  1. [3]
    feanne
    (edited )
    Link
    I linked to the original tweet of the game designer who found the iPhone on the side of the road. There's also an article with a bit more info:...

    I linked to the original tweet of the game designer who found the iPhone on the side of the road. There's also an article with a bit more info:
    https://80.lv/articles/an-iphone-survives-a-16-000ft-drop-after-falling-from-an-airplane/

    • Alaska Airlines ASA1282 had an accident that caused a hole which sucked items out of the plane (including a door, a shirt, and the aforementioned iPhone)
    • The plane successfully made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured

    Wow. What are the odds that a phone would land intact in a non-remote location, and that it would be easily identifiable thanks to being unlocked to a note with a baggage claim for that flight. I'm waiting for this one to be debunked, but incredible if it's for real. I would also want to know the owner's reaction. Imagine having your phone falling out of an airplane... then being told it's been found intact!

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      vektor
      Link Parent
      I'd imagine that for smartphone-sized objects, terminal velocity isn't terribly far away from everyday drop velocities. I'd expect the thing to tumble through the air, which means it's flat side...

      I'd imagine that for smartphone-sized objects, terminal velocity isn't terribly far away from everyday drop velocities. I'd expect the thing to tumble through the air, which means it's flat side in the airflow at least a good amount of the time. Add a soft-ish ground, maybe a branch or two to cushion the final impact on grass, I'd say that's not too crazy. I mean, the drag-to-mass ratio was high enough to be sucked out of the aircraft in the first place.

      This redditor quotes what I presume is this article (paywall) with 20m/s, which would be reached after 2 seconds of free fall in vacuum, which the phone would've reached when dropped 20m.

      16 votes
      1. vord
        Link Parent
        There's plenty of recorded incidents of humans surviving 10,000+ ft drops, and I'm fairly certain our terminal velocity is much higher.

        There's plenty of recorded incidents of humans surviving 10,000+ ft drops, and I'm fairly certain our terminal velocity is much higher.

        7 votes