'Perfectly Intact': Man Miraculously Finds iPhone on the Side of the Road That Reportedly Flew Out of Airplane The iPhone is believed to belong to a passenger from Friday's Alaska Airlines flight where a door flew off the aircraft.
By Emily Rella
An Oregon man found an iPhone on the side of the road that's believed to have dropped from the Alaska Airlines flight that lost a plane door mid-flight.
Related: United Airlines, Alaska Airlines Find 'Loose Bolts' on Plane Doors Following Inspections
Portland, Oregon resident Sean Bates shared photos on X of an iPhone he found on the ground on the side of the road that had, somehow, appeared to have come from the plane and survived the fall.
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!
— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024
When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet? pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd
"Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282," he wrote. "Survived a 16,000-foot drop perfectly intact!"
In a follow-up photo, he showed part of a phone charger plug that was broken off but still inside the phone's port, showing the strength of the force that "yanked" the phone out of the plane.
Bates also said that when he contacted the National Transportation Safety Board, he was told that it was miraculously the second phone found on the ground from the flight, which he explained in a separate TikTok.
@seansafyre quick story of how I found a phone that dropped 16,000 feet ? definitely belonged to a passenger on #alaskaairlines #asa1282 ♬ original sound - Sean Bates
"I was, of course, a little skeptical at first. I was thinking this could just be thrown out of a car or someone dropped it while driving," he told viewers. "But I found it. It was still pretty clean, no scratches on it, sitting under a bush, and it didn't have a screen lock on it."
Related: Alaska Airlines Brewing Coffee That Tastes Better In the Air
The missing door plug was located over the weekend, something investigators said could be the key to figuring out what went awry onboard Friday night's flight.
As of Tuesday afternoon, United and Alaska Airlines have grounded all of their Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft for investigation and have canceled a combined 317 flights.
If you've ever dropped your iPhone and picked it up to find a broken screen, we also find this unbelievable — and want to know what kind of case, if any, was on the phone.
