IPhone Found in Perfect Condition After 16,000Ft Fall From Alaska Airlines

A social media post saying that an iPhone which had fallen off an Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight on Friday was found in perfect condition "sitting on the side of the road" after a 16,000-foot drop has become viral.

On Friday, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane had to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, after a cabin panel was ripped off the aircraft and blown off in the air. The flight to Ontario, California, had reached 16,000 feet when it began its emergency descent towards its starting point in Portland due to the depressurization of the cabin.

While none of the 177 passengers and crew were injured, several of those on board reported that the strong wind caused by the gap in the fuselage led to chaos inside the plane.

One witness told British broadcaster BBC that a phone was blown off a passenger's hands by the wind. On Sunday, an Oregon social media user called Sean Bates wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had found an iPhone appearing to belong to one of the flight's passengers while taking a walk.

"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 intact!," he wrote, sharing a photo of the phone. The post has received over 5.8 million views.

"When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB [the National Transportation Safety Board] said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet," he added. The door was later found by a school teacher from Cedar Hills named Bob in his garden in Portland.

According to the NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy, the door was "a key missing component" in understanding what caused the incident on Friday. Newsweek contacted the NTSB, which is investigating the incident, for comment by email on Monday.

In a video published on TikTok, the same social media user said he had gone for a walk after the NTSB had "asked people to go and report anything that looks like it had been fallen out of the [...] Alaska Airlines incident."

Bates said he was initially "a little skeptical" about the phone actually belonging to one of the passengers on the Friday flight, but he found that the device, which had no screen lock, was still on airplane mode with the travel confirmation for that exact flight.

He added that the NTSB had already found another phone before him in the same area.

Right after the incident, Alaska Airlines grounded all of its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in order to thoroughly inspect the aircraft. On Saturday, U.S. regulators have since ordered the temporary grounding of nearly 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft, asking the planes to be inspected before being allowed to fly again.

"The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight," Mike Whitaker, a Federal Aviation Administration (FFA) administrator, said on Saturday. "Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB's investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282."

"Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers," Boeing said in a statement shared with Newsweek.

"We agree with and fully support the FAA's decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane. In addition, a Boeing technical team is supporting the NTSB's investigation into last night's event. We will remain in close contact with our regulator and customers."

In response to a request for comment, Alaska Airlines shared a video livestream of the NTSB media brief on Sunday.

Update 01/08/24, 6:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a comment from Boeing.