20 minutes into its 2 hours journey on Friday night, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 lost a fuselage panel, causing mid-air panic. While thankfully no passenger was seated near the door plug that blew off, two smartphones, including an iPhone, were sucked out of the plane.
The plane, a Boeing Co. 737 Max 9, was flying from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, and was 16,000 feet in the air when it lost the door plug that left a huge hole in the aircraft.
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
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024
The phone was in airplane mode and unlocked, and there was an email from Alaska Airlines regarding a travel confirmation and baggage claim for the fight, which is how Bates found out that it fell out of the plane. It was working perfectly fine and had hours of battery life left.
The fuselage panel that fell off was found in the backyard of a school teacher in Portland.
All 171 passengers and six crew members aboard the plane escaped without any serious injuries. The US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded some 170 Max 9 jets to carry out safety checks.
While it’s certainly impressive that the iPhone remained unscathed after the brutal fall, we sure wish the incident hadn’t happened and are glad that no lives were lost.
