This iPhone fell from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282

Game designer Sean Bates found an iPhone in a bush on Sunday that had fallen from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which lost a portion of its torso shortly after takeoff. The phone was undamaged, still on, and the end of the cut charging cable was plugged in. Bates posted photos of his discovery that afternoon, one of which showed a screen containing a still-open email with the luggage receipt.

The phone fell out of the plane when, just minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 737 Max 9 explosively decompressed, causing the plane's fuselage plug to burst and forcing it to turn back and make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport. Had to happen. Had to happen. From where it originally flew.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed during a Sunday briefing that two phones were recovered after they fell from a Boeing 737 Max 9 — one found on the side of a road and the other in a yard. Additionally, a teacher at a Portland school found a torso plug in his backyard.

But how can the phone still remain intact? Terminal velocity partially explains this, as does standstill, or negative, acceleration. Wired published a story in 2011 that an iPhone 4 fell 1,000 feet from a plane and survived. As Wired wrote, when an object is falling, it eventually meets terminal velocity—the maximum speed it can reach before the resistance of the medium it's falling into (in this case, air) increases. . , Which opposes gravity.

The conclusion of the story is that a phone can only go so fast, and how the landing surface of a falling phone reacts is important - in a wooded area the ground will deflect much more, absorbing and spreading the impact. More, say, concrete. Additionally, the iPhone 4, like the phones that fell from Friday's flight, was in a case, increasing its chances of survival.

On Saturday, the FAA grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes pending an investigation to see if it is indicative of a broader issue. On the same day of the incident, The Seattle Times reported that Boeing had requested a safety waiver for an unrelated defect that could have caused catastrophic engine damage.