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Have you ever heard a story, say a piece of news that’s everywhere, where you eventually become saturated with every little detail? And then, months later, you hear one more piece of the story that you never heard the first time around?

That happened to me with one detail of the Alaska Airlines plane that had the door fall off mid-flight.

Of course, chances are excellent that you already know about the big piece of news. Back in January, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 was traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California. Suddenly, a panel of the Boeing 737 MAX 9’s main body, called the fuselage “plug door,” including a window, blew off. The incident caused an immediate uncontrolled decompression of the aircraft.

Recap of what happened

The plane was newly built and had just earned its certificate of airworthiness in October 2023. However, it kept having little problems, usually warnings about cabin pressure. The details of “something’s not quite right with this plane” are detailed in this article.

Again, you probably know the details of the event, from the door coming off to the hot water Boeing is still in because of that and other incidents. But here’s a piece of info I didn’t know until now, which you might not have been aware of, either.

When the door panel blew off and the cabin became depressurized, a lot of things happened. The door of the cockpit slammed open. The captain’s and first officer’s headsets got pulled off their ears/heads. Headrests got pulled off passengers’ seats. A boy sitting near the doomed door had his shirt sucked off from the pressure.

The miracle phones

However, one other thing happened that wasn’t mentioned nearly as often. At least two cell phones were sucked out of the hands of passengers who were using them at the time of the incident.

Two days after the plane’s door came off, an Oregon social media user named Sean Bates wrote on Twitter/X that he had found an iPhone that appeared 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 in tact!

When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet😅 pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd

— Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024

Amazingly enough, the iPhone 14 Pro Max STILL WORKED! Bates said it was still on airplane mode, with half a battery charge left, and open to a baggage claim for Alaska Airlines flight ASA1282.

Sean contacted the authorities, and the NTSB told him the phone he found was actually the SECOND one allegedly from the Alaska Airlines flight that had been found in the area.

Here’s a TikTok video Sean made that explains how he found the phone:

@seansafyre

quick story of how I found a phone that dropped 16,000 feet 😅 definitely belonged to a passenger on #alaskaairlines #asa1282 pics are on X

♬ original sound – Sean Bates

Of course, the big question everyone had was what kind of case the phone was in, but Bates said he turned the phone in before he had a chance to look.

It took a few days, but the mystery was eventually solved when phone case manufacturing company Spigen replied to Bates’ original message. They wrote “MYSTERY SOLVED: IT WAS US” along with texts and photos confirming the case was on the phone.

Spigen said the exact case is from its Cryo Armor line and sells for $65 on its website. Hopefully, Spigen’s stock prices rose significantly. 😉

Alaska Airlines did send the phone (and its case) back to the original owner.

The investigation into Boeing continues.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary