Fragile Or Robust? iPhone Allegedly Survives Fall From 16,000 Feet But Yours Will Break After Falling In The Toilet Or Off A Table

One of the most staggering things to come out of the mid-flight incident in which the door of an Alaskan Airlines flight ripped off moments after take-off is that one passenger's iPhone was allegedly found under a bush in working condition after plummeting 16,000 feet.

This is wild because other iPhones have been unable to survive getting knocked off the table.

According to CBS News, a man named Sean Bates stumbled across a phone sitting under a bush in Washington. He said that the phone was in airplane mode and was displaying a baggage receipt for Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. That's the same flight that had that whole issue with the door flying off.

Bates also said that when he called the NTSB to report the phone, an NTSB representative named Zoe told him that this was the second phone from the flight that had been called in.

Now, this would be a weird thing to make up, but people make up all kinds of weird things in a bid to go viral.

An iPhone that has cracked in half. Who knows how it happened but it probably just fell off of a kitchen counter. (Getty Images)

Notoriously Fragile iPhones Couldn't Survive That... Could It?

What surprised me is that I never considered iPhones to be particularly robust. I've had several but I haven't broken one. However, I did have an iPod Touch take a fatal dip in the toilet on January 2, 2012. The only reason I can remember that is because it happened on the same day the Flyers lost to the Rangers in the Winter Classic. That day sucked.

The reason I've got an otherwise perfect record of unbroken iPhones is that I treat them with immense care. I act like I'm carrying a Faberge egg in my pocket.

I've known people who have had to spend hours at the T-Mobile store because their phone fell off a counter. I've known some bumped into something with it in their pocket and it ended catastrophically. My own brother broke a phone by forgetting it was in his pocket and wading into the ocean.

This is to say that when I think of the iPhone, the word "rugged" doesn't pop into my head.

That was why I got suspicious when I heard about this phone that plummeted several miles and came out unscathed.

But it turns out it might be a little more believable than I thought,

That Phone May Not Have Been Going As Fast As You Think

However, according to Duncan Watts, from the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, that 16,000-foot free-fall may not have had the phone in question moving as fast as you might think.

Watts told The Washington Post that an iPhone's terminal velocity — its maximum speed before it stops accelerating while freefalling — is only about 30 miles per hour under normal conditions.

“The larger the iPhone, the lower the terminal velocity,” Watts explained. “The maximum is around 100 mph, but that would only happen if the phone’s screen was perpendicular to the ground.”

Of course, you'd have to assume that a phone that was sucked out of a fuselage at 16,000 wasn't dropping straight down, perpendicular to the ground.

Hitting the ground at 30mph is still a hefty wack for something made mostly of glass. However, if it's got a decent case and hits the ground right, it seems like it could survive.

Now, who knows if Bates is telling the truth or pulling a stunt. All we know is that a phone making it through a fall like that might be more plausible than we think.

Follow on X: @Matt_Reigle