iPhone sucked out of Alaska Airlines plane found still working after 16K-foot fall

globalnews.ca:

A curious citizen out on a Sunday stroll says he found an intact iPhone — still in perfect working condition — that appears to have been sucked out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which suffered a catastrophic failure to its fuselage on Friday.

Approximately six minutes into the Alaska Airlines flight a plug covering an unused exit door blew off of the Boeing 737 Max 9, taking the entire door with it. At that point, the plane had climbed to about 16,000 feet (4.8 kilometres). Videos posted online by passengers showed a gaping hole where the panelled-over door had been.

The plane managed to safely land back in Portland, Ore., where it took off, after only 13 minutes in the air. None of the 171 passengers and six crew members were seriously injured. The plane was supposed to fly to Ontario, Calif.

A few days after the incident, Washington resident Sean Bates said he “wanted an excuse to go on a walk” and learned that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was appealing to the public to report anything that may have fallen from the plane when the door blew off.

Before long, he found something miraculous.

Bates included photos of the iPhone, which appeared to be without a scratch, as well as pictures of a person wearing an NTSB jacket examining the device. Bates was told by the NTSB that the iPhone was the second phone to be found.

In a follow-up post, Bates noted that the phone still had a broken-off piece of an iPhone charger stuck in its port.

“Thing got *yanked* out the door,” Bates wrote.

The NTSB confirmed in a press conference that two cellphones appearing to belong to passengers of the ill-fated flight were found and turned in to the agency. One was discovered in a yard and the other was found on the side of