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Most of us for sure know the feeling of a phone falling from our hands, pockets, desks, or whatever and having a screen shatter. It’s usually not even a major fall, just a slight one, and bam! The screen is destroyed.
Well, apparently, sometimes phones survive bigger falls without any injuries. For example, this phone, which fell from a plane at 16,000 feet high with not a scratch on it! Unbelievable!
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It couldn’t be anticipated at the beginning of the year that an average flight from Oregon to California would soon be discussed all over the internet
Image credits: SeanSafyre
On January 5th, an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California took off. It reached around 16,000 feet (around 4.8 km) in altitude. And very soon, six minutes into the flight, it had to make an emergency landing. And that is because a part of the aircraft blew out while it was in mid-air.
To be more specific, that part was a door. Yes, you read that right, a door blew out mid-flight. How scary! Luckily, the plane landed safely back in Portland. And so, none of the 174 passengers or six crew members were injured. Only a few items, such as clothes and phones, were sucked out from the plane and it was thought they’d never be seen again.
It became a topic for discourse after only 6 minutes into a flight, a door was blown out of the side of the plane
Image credits: SeanSafyre
Later, some passengers from the plane recalled their experiences of a flight they will likely never forget. One woman recalled hearing a big bang, but not understanding where it came from. Then the oxygen masks dropped down and she took a look to her left and saw a part of a plane missing. And, of course, how could she have missed the extreme wind blowing everywhere, sucking out stuff from the plane?
And it didn’t only try to suck the stuff out of the plane. Some passengers remember that in the same row where the panel blew out, a kid was seated. His shirt was sucked off his body and out of the plane. His mom had to hold him so he wouldn’t be pulled out too. Sounds like something from a movie, doesn’t it?
Luckily, the plane landed safely and no one was injured
Image credits: SeanSafyre
Well, to add even more movie-like details, what if we said that at least one of the phones that were sucked out of the plane survived? Because it’s true. A few days after the events, X user SeanSafyre came online to share that he found an iPhone on the road in Oregon.
What was most interesting was that the phone still had half of the battery charge, airplane mode on, and the baggage claim page opened. Also, it looked absolutely fine – no major scratches, not even a cracked screen. How is this possible? The phone had fallen from 16,000 feet (nearly 5 km)!
But before landing, the hole in the side of the plane managed to suck out several things from the plane, including a few phones
Image credits: SeanSafyre
And that’s not even the end. The phone came unscratched, but it also still had its charging cable. And the charging cable was still in the port. Again, yes, you read that right. While getting sucked out of the plane, the charging phone took part of the charger along.
In the same post, Sean notes that it wasn’t even the first phone that was found from the flight (but we aren’t sure about the other phone’s condition). What we are sure of is that this flight ended up being kind of good publicity for Apple, and not so good for Boeing.
Phone owners were likely pretty sure they would never see their phones again
Image credits: strawberr.vy
And people online have similar thoughts about it too. Someone even called it “the most expensive Apple ad ever.” Others wondered how this phone managed to survive this fall without a scratch, but others break anytime they fall from a pocket.
But not everyone was interested in the phones. Some other people wondered about the door, and where it landed. Or how the people who were on that plane, or anyone who heard this news, really, could ever board a plane again? After this news, the seat near the window doesn’t sound as nice as it used to.
But a few days after the flight, it was reported that some of these phones were found scattered around Oregon
Image credits: avgeekjake
Well, to the question about the door, we have an answer. Even later after the event, it was reported that the door that was blown out was found too. A teacher named Bob sent photos of the object in his backyard, which was quickly recognized to be a door. It is believed that the door will be the key in the investigation trying to find out what exactly happened and why. Well, let’s hope the investigation will do just that and people will be able to feel safe on planes again.
One of these phones was found by an X user and it had no scratches, not even a broken screen
Image credits: avgeekjake
And not only was it intact and had some battery left, it also had a charging cable and the port from the plane along with it
Image credits: Miguel Ángel Sanz (not the actual photo)
People online took a chance to joke about how this accident could be called the “most expensive Apple ad ever”
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