Hey everyone, check out this wild story from Oregon! A local guy, Sean Bates, stumbled upon an iPhone that had dropped a whopping 16,000 feet from an Alaska Airlines flight – and believe it or not, it was still working just fine.
So here's the scoop: Last Friday, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 had to make an unexpected stop in Portland because a door plug came off while flying. It was headed to Ontario, California from flight 1282.
Bates found this phone on the side of the road on Sunday. He shared on social media that it was still in airplane mode, had half its battery left, and was showing a baggage claim ticket for that same Alaska Airlines flight. Crazy, right? It looks like it survived the fall without a scratch!
He even posted pics of the phone, which had a bit of morning dew or rain on its screen, but no damage at all. The email app was open and everything.
Turns out, this isn't the first phone they've found from that flight. Bates mentioned in a TikTok video that he was out for a walk, looking for anything that might have fallen from the Alaska Airlines flight, as requested by the NTSB. And there it was, just sitting by the road.
At first, he wasn't sure if it really fell from the plane. But the emails on the phone linked it to the flight, and it was unlocked too.
Bates did the right thing and handed it over to the NTSB. He was a bit doubtful initially, thinking maybe it just got tossed out of a car or dropped by someone running. But when he checked it, there it was in airplane mode with all the flight details.
So there you have it – a phone takes a free fall from the sky and lives to tell the tale. Only in Oregon, right?
