Against All Odds: Alaska Airline Passenger’s iPhone Plummets from the Sky – And Emerges Unscathed

by Gary Leff

With the Boeing 737 MAX 9 grounded following a panel coming off of an Alaska Airlines plane inflight, and pilots making an emergency landing we still have more questions than answers. We don’t know yet whether there was a faulty part or faulty manufacturing. We don’t know whether this was truly a one-off or whether it’s a risk that inspections will uncover in other aircraft.

But we do know that we got lucky. A kid had their shirt pulled out the missing piece of fuselage, while his mother held onto him. There were lap infants on the plane being held by their parents, while flight attendants assisted with oxygen masks. Luckily there wasn’t anyone seated in the seat beside the inactivated exit door the came off of the plane.

There were two cell phones that flew out of the plane. Here’s one, an iPhone that dropped from more than 16,000 feet and was found on the side of a road. It was in airplane mode and had details of the owner’s checked baggage up on the screen. It had apparently been plugged in to charge, and was yanked off of the charger and out the side of the aircraft.

There were “no scratches on it.” It didn’t have a screen lock on it. The phone was still working with plenty of battery after falling from the sky.

Steve Jobs famously cared about the detail in manufacturing of every part. Even the inside of a device, that a customer would never see, had to be organized and finished. Walter Isaacson in his biography of Jobs seemed to suggest this was an obsession he got from his adoptive father who took this same approach to quality in building furniture.

Tim Cook became CEO of Apple nearly 13 years ago. It’s good to know that quality manufacturing continues today.

(HT: Hans)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. GARY LEFF FELL ASLEEP IN PHYSICS 101?

    The terminal velocity of an iPhone is not very high. The iPhone pictured was also in a case and screen protector, neither of which were manufactured by Apple. The iPhone landed in what looks like a soft grassy area.

    Remember there are people who drop their phones from waist height onto concrete and the screen shatters.

  4. I bet this is never done before… a drop test from above 15,000 ft. May be 5000 ft from a Cessna but definitely not from a pressurized jet. Most general public won’t care to understand the physics… terminal velocity etc… they will just remember… that an iphone flew out of a commecial jet and servived a 16,000 ft drop without a scratch. Yup, Apple marketing team will be all over this.

    but I can’t help but to notice that guy paid $70 in baggage fee!!! get an alaska card already.

  5. Wow this would be a great advertisement for the case and screen protector brand. I wonder if the former was made of TPU

    Personally would not have exposed the name of the owner of the phone but that’s just me

  6. That is the first iphone I have ever seen that was dropped more then 1” that didn’t have a cracked screen.

  8. @tjp at the time the phone left the airplane , it was no longer pressurized:)

    Crazy story for sure. Wind and air resistance kept the phone from its normal acceleration as dropped.

  9. Great story Gary! The best part is this is my old neighborhood where we spent many days exploring on our bikes. My family home and my wife’s childhood home are only a mile or two from where that phone was found…the phones or door plug could easily have landed in the yard of our old homes.

  10. Like they always said @bout a Timex watch…
    “It took a lickin and kept on ticking”.
    Picard

  11. It is possible that the ground and the grass were enough to soften the deceleration enough for the phone to survive. It is also possible that the phone first hit the branches of the nearby trees first, causing a lot of deceleration before the phone hit the ground. What I find amazing is that the phone landed in a place that someone walking by could see.

  12. @jns: Indeed, odds it falls on the side of a well-walked (based on the footpath worn through the grass) roat and not in the middle of the forest to the right….

    But maybe 20 phones got sucked out and this is just a ‘lucky’ one.

    Personally, I had no idea how much force an explosive decompression actually created! Obviously know that someone nearby who isn’t restrained might get sucked out, but the shirt off the back of a passenger not in the same row? Amazing.

  13. A kid had HIS shirt pulled out …

    1. There was only one kid.
    2. The kid was known to be male.

    There, fixed it.

  15. After an explosive decompression from an Alaska Airlines jet, when an iPhone is blown out, plummets 16,000 feet and hits you in the head, it will leave a mark and ruin your afternoon.

  19. @carletonm… What’s fascinating is that Gary uses the term “him” at the end of the sentence. So why use “their” vs. “his” at the beginning? He can’t seem to keep his virtue-signaling consistent.

  21. So how did he unlock the phone and show the email with the baggage receipt??? I am surprised no one is asking that question. Sorry but this seems impossible.

  22. tjk, reread the article or if like many Americans you just like to be fed videos, watch TikTok video at the end. You’re welcome.

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