Incredible details of Alaska Airlines’ horror flight are revealed from an intact iPhone found on a grassy edge near Portland after being sucked from the flight when the door blew out at 16,000 feet
- Sean Bates found the phone intact with the luggage tag from the Alaska Airlines flight
A phone belonging to a passenger aboard an Alaska Airlines plane whose door had blown open after takeoff was found on the side of a road in Portland, Oregon.
The phone was found by a man named Sean Bates, who said he found the iPhone on a grass verge after it fell from the plane at 16,000 feet, and that he accessed it because it was unlocked without any security.
Taking to #Alaska Airlines ASA1282. Perfectly survived a fall from 5,000 meters!’
It involved an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to Ontario International in California and had to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff.
Toys, phones and clothes were sucked into the night after the plug door ‘exited the plane’, causing an immediate decompression with 171 passengers aboard Flight 1282 on Friday, January 5.
A phone belonging to a passenger aboard an Alaska Airlines plane whose door had blown open after takeoff was found on the side of a road in Portland, Oregon. The phone was found by a man named Sean Bates, who said he found the iPhone on a roadside after it fell from the plane at 16,000 feet.
It involved an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to Ontario International in California and had to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff
The fact that the device was able to survive a fall from 16,000 feet in the air was made all the more remarkable by the fact that the end of a charging cable was still attached after Sean discovered it.
Mr Bates replied to his original post by saying: ‘In case you didn’t notice, it still had a broken charging plug!’
The fact that the phone’s charging cable was still intact despite the wire breaking left some people in disbelief.
Sean’s account of the incident left users in awe, as one user replied to
Commenting on the cable’s durability, a second said: ‘Oh that’s crazy, maybe that’s why it had a charge in the first place. I’m surprised it worked at all.’
Another simply marveled: ‘Wow. That’s incredible!’
A fellow X user wrote: ‘Wow! I can’t believe he survived such a fall!’
After Mr Bates said he had access to the phone, another user was alarmed by the phone’s lack of security, as they wrote: ‘The craziest part is you don’t have a passcode! no FaceID?? Disturbed!’
A third saw the funny side of the phone’s miraculous survival, writing: ‘Of course it survived on airplane mode? What else is the mode for if not to turn the phone into an airplane when dropped????”
Another joked: ‘Their Apple Health stats for the day must be NUTS ‘Climbed down 1600 flights of stairs’.
Later, Sean posted on TikTok: ‘[He] went for a walk and found an Alaska Airlines passenger’s phone sitting on the ground.
‘[He] found a phone on the side of the road that had apparently fallen 5,000 meters and was obviously a bit skeptical at first.’
He added: “So there was no screen lock on it [he] opened it and it was in airplane mode with a travel confirmation and baggage claim for Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.