This makes you wonder what exactly people do in those official smartphone drop tests where the device cracks after falling only 6 feet. Amid all the recent (and some of it scary) news about a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet operated by Alaska Airlines rapidly depressurizing after an emergency exit door plug came off, here’s at least one good thing to come from it. One passenger’s iPhone was torn from the plane when it depressurized, but managed to survive the 16,000-foot fall to earth.
Seanathan Bates happened upon the device on the ground and reported it was “perfectly in tact.” It still had half its battery life and was in airplane mode, and open on the screen was a baggage receipt for the flight. Perhaps most concerning, though, was the fact that the end of the charging cable (just the end) was still in the phone’s charging port. The rest of the cable had been sheared off when the cabin depressurized.
Bates reported the find to the National Transportation Safety Board, which told him it was the second phone from the plane to be found. The most important find, though, was the actual door plug, which was located in someone’s backyard. Fortunately no one either in the plane or on the ground was injured during the incident, but the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered all airlines operating Boeing 737 Max 9 jets with these door plugs to ground those planes until further notice. An investigation is ongoing.
