iPhone Recovered With ‘Find My iPhone’ Feature After Surviving 1,000-Foot Fall Without Scratches
A fun ride aboard a vintage biplane turned into what could have been a disappointment at first, when one of the passengers accidentally dropped her phone, which fell 1,000 feet to the ground, ostensibly never to be seen again, and most probably damaged due to the height from which it fell. However, the woman was reportedly able to find the device with her unit’s Find My iPhone feature, without a single scratch and still working as normal.
According to a report from Iowa NBC affiliate WHO-TV, Sarvinder Naberhaus and Donna Johnson, who had both known each other since high school, went to the Ames Airport earlier this month to take part in the American Barnstormers 2018 tour. As the two women were riding on the biplane, Naberhaus took her iPhone out to take photos, only for her to lose the device as a strong wind blew while she was holding the phone outside the windshield.
Although seemingly losing one’s iPhone in such an unlikely manner could prove to be “tragic,” pilot Rob “Waldo” Lock recalled that Naberhaus laughed about the apparent loss of her phone, as she had “such a good time” on the flight. Still, the Ames, Iowa native remained hopeful that she would be able to find her iPhone, especially since she and Johnson had to be on a flight to Dallas the very next day.
“I was going out to buy myself a new phone, and I thought I’ll check one more time and there it was, located!” Naberhaus recalled.
The stroke of luck came when Naberhaus used the Find My iPhone feature a second time after yielding no results in the first attempt. With the app pointing her to a street on Ames’ east side, she narrowed down the scope of her search and went to a few houses, borrowing a cell phone to see if she could ring her missing phone. Eventually, she spotted her iPhone, lying down face-up in a field of tall grass, with no scratches and working perfectly as it notified her of an upcoming meeting.
iPhone dropped from airplane found with no damage in Iowa https://t.co/gTc2xdBi1a pic.twitter.com/lhdWSFwdE8
— WBIR Channel 10 (@wbir) July 12, 2018
Speaking to WHO-TV, Johnson expressed surprise that her friend’s iPhone was still working despite the fall, referring to it as a “miracle phone” that could still work even it gets dropped at a height of 1,000 feet. Likewise, Naberhaus added that the incident was proof that “God has a great sense of humor.”
According to Apple Insider, Sarvinder Naberhaus’ story is just the latest example of an iPhone surviving extreme conditions. In England, an iPhone 7 survived despite spending about two days submerged some 30 feet underwater, though as the same publication noted in a report earlier this week, the device was protected by a waterproof case. Such cases were being reported as far back as 2011, according to Cult of Mac, as U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Ron Walker claimed that year that he used the Find My iPhone app to locate the iPhone 4 he accidentally dropped while getting ready for a 1,000-foot static line jump, with no scratches and no other signs of damage.
