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iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

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Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#111

Post by hobs »

dannyw wrote: post #103
hobs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple, and Apple doesn't plan the accident, they just help the story move when their brand is involved - I mentioned it in another thread, but when that kind of stuff happened (at least in 2008) they got moved into a special queue and instead of T2/Customer Care they would get moved to the CCT2 who would often escalate to executive service peeps. Apple is actually pretty good at this stuff.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but this is absolutely common corporate PR 101 practice. They follow social media, reddit, etc all the time, and if there's an organic story that's good for their brand, they forward it to friendly journalists, provide context on background, etc. If it's bad for their brand, they search all their internal systems using whatever information they can find and/or correlate, escalate…

I say this from direct corporate experience working directly with Apple, so I don't mind the downvotes, just people who have no idea what's going on.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#112

Post by ivan_gammel »

foota wrote: post #100
neilv wrote: post #91

I would've preferred that the identifying information of the person had been edited out. The phone's owner experienced a traumatic incident. Which furthermore is under investigation. Posting some kind of photo feels OK, however, since finding the phone is arguably newsworthy. And the Twitter poster says that it was open to that email, suggesting that they didn't go snooping through the phone. A little privacy redacti…

Maybe they did this to help the phone find it's owner?

Posting it online to find owner is absolutely unnecessary. The phone could be returned to the owner by contacting the airline.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#113

Post by xivzgrev »

This isn’t surprising - there was a wired story about phones surviving from planes back in 2011 (1)

The gist is that it’s a light object and due to that + broad shape, its terminal velocity is not very high. Coupled that with the mass and there’s not a lot of force on landing. Of course the phone itself is fragile so it might not take a lot of force to break. Still, as long as it lands on something soft it might be ok, as we’ve seen!

(1) https://www.wired.com/2011/04/what-is-the-terminal-velocity-...

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#114

Post by lethal-radio »

bagels wrote: post #106
dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a bit of research I found a few sources that say that the terminal velocity for a generic smartphone is ~20-40mph, which isn't that much. Lots of phones survive car crashes with higher speeds than that. Add to that landing on softer soil and maybe even breaking fall with branches and I'm not shocked it survived. No screen crack is pretty good though. Smartphone screens have gotten crazy good recently

There's no way it's 20-40 mph. They're dense enough for much higher velocities.

Confirmed on wolframalpha. Terminal velocity is about 9mph

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=terminal+velocity+of+an...

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#115

Post by irrational »

8ig8 wrote: post #72
irrational wrote: post #29

It is strange two phones have been found, but not the door. Most of the Cedar Hills/Beaverton area is houses and shops with sporadic green spaces that aren’t that large in comparison. It is possible the door fell into a green space, but the odds are it did not. I imagine it is in someone’s backyard, but it is January in rainy Oregon. People aren’t doing yard work right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t found u…

They found it… https://lite.cnn.com/2024/01/07/us/alaska-airlines-faa-plug-...

So it was found in someone’s backyard.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#116

Post by pxeboot »

foota wrote: post #100
neilv wrote: post #91

I would've preferred that the identifying information of the person had been edited out. The phone's owner experienced a traumatic incident. Which furthermore is under investigation. Posting some kind of photo feels OK, however, since finding the phone is arguably newsworthy. And the Twitter poster says that it was open to that email, suggesting that they didn't go snooping through the phone. A little privacy redacti…

Maybe they did this to help the phone find it's owner?

I imagine this will end up in an NTSB evidence warehouse for years.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#117

Post by ivan_gammel »

CyanBird wrote: post #108
spirit557 wrote: post #93

Obscured the credit card # but didn't think to grant the passenger some privacy and obscure their full name?

Likely because the aim is to find the actual owner of the phone?

It is not very smart to find owner this way, when you can just reach the airline, which has contacts of all passengers.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#118

Post by kstrauser »

bagels wrote: post #106
dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a bit of research I found a few sources that say that the terminal velocity for a generic smartphone is ~20-40mph, which isn't that much. Lots of phones survive car crashes with higher speeds than that. Add to that landing on softer soil and maybe even breaking fall with branches and I'm not shocked it survived. No screen crack is pretty good though. Smartphone screens have gotten crazy good recently

There's no way it's 20-40 mph. They're dense enough for much higher velocities.

They’re also broad and flat, and very likely to tumble unaerodynamically on their way down.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#119

Post by pants2 »

olliej wrote: post #4

My first thought was if that hit someone it could kill them, and then i remembered an entire door fell off as well, and all apparently landing in a suburban neighborhood.

There are a surprising number of injuries every year from phones falling out of roller coasters and hitting people!

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#120

Post by bagels »

lethal-radio wrote: post #114
bagels wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way it's 20-40 mph. They're dense enough for much higher velocities.

Confirmed on wolframalpha. Terminal velocity is about 9mph https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=terminal+velocity+of+an...

Exactly one iphone had a mass that low, 5s. None of them have >1m^2 surface area.
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