An iPhone that has been located perfectly intact is believed to have fallen out of an Alaska Airlines flight when its door blew off.
The device was found in a Portland, Oregon, resident named Sean Bates, who shared images of the shocking find on Twitter.
“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!” Bates wrote, adding that he had not located the door yet.
Bates also said in his tweet that he reached out to the National Transportation Safety Board, who confirmed this was the second phone to be located from the accident.
“Certainly, this is very rare, to have any object flying out of the airplane at that altitude, 16,000 feet, and falling and remaining intact,” Dr. Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, explained to People. “And I think the investigators will have to take a hard look and ensure that that’s actually the phone from a passenger onboard.”
On Friday, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was headed to California when a panel of a Boeing plane blew out. This led the pilot to make an emergency landing in Portland. Thankfully, the seats adjacent to the blowout were not occupied. The missing door plug was also located in the backyard of a Portland, Oregon-area home. This could be the key to determining what caused the panel to detach.
