Mystery of the Plane Seats Washed Up on The Beach Has Been Solved

When you walk on the beach, you expect to see certain things—seaweed, sand, maybe a few seashells (though you might want to think twice before pocketing them. It’s illegal to take sand from most beaches, many beaches don’t allow you to take seashells, either). You’ll also find some discarded bottles and other things people should’ve just thrown in the trash.

You don’t expect to stumble upon what looks like old airplane seats washed up after a storm. But that’s precisely what happened to one man in New Jersey.

An Unexpected Discovery

In December, 2023, Matthew Jacob, an actor by trade, was checking out the waves after a storm in Margate NJ; he was trying to see surf conditions. That’s when he came across the seats. He thought it was a tree branch at first, but as he got closer, he realized he was looking at a row of seats, possibly from a plane. He posted a video on TikTok, which quickly went viral, racking up over 17 million views.

Jacob showed a closeup of the rusted seats in the video. You could see that although all the fabric was gone, the seats still had their springs. Some of them even still had a metal handrail between them, and they looked like the ones you’d see on a plane.

TikTok Reacts

Jacob said his first thought was that they were from the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which disappeared while flying over the Indian Ocean in March, 2014. All 227 passengers and 12 crew on board were presumed dead in what was, at the time, the deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777 and the deadliest in Malaysia Airlines’ history.

Here’s Jacob’s video from when he found the seats:

@itsmatthewjacob

♬ original sound – Matthewjacob

The video got thousands of responses, some of which were obviously (or at least people who appeared to be) plane enthusiasts, as well as fans of other types of transportation:

• 4 across means that it has to be from a widebody plane. TWA 800 had a 3-4-3 economy config, just saying — centralmidfield
• Bus or ferry/boarding seats. Plane seats have different brackets and mounting plates. — WanderWomanChristy
• it’s from the subway cars used to make the artificial reef — Joe
• mounting points dont look to be aircraft, possibly train, bus, or something — RJ_Dingman
• I’m an aircraft mechanic, those are not aircraft seats. Mounting rails are completely different. (Seat to floor) — Jet
• hi a lot of debris like that is used to make artificial reefs for marine life habitat. that’s my guess is a bunch was dumped to creat habitat — andrewj0urd4n
• They look like old airport seats. PHL pulled out a ton of those from the terminal about 6 years ago. — beer_flights

Jacob’s next three videos were brief.

One, from Dec. 19th, appeared to be taken from indoors, from when police showed up to check out the seats:

@itsmatthewjacob

Lets see if TikTok can help crack the case

♬ original sound – Matthewjacob

The next, posted on December 20th, was after the police had taken the seats for investigation, but Jacob asked what would happen next:

@itsmatthewjacob

#whatisthis #ineedhelptiktok

♬ Stargazing (Slowed + Reverb) – Marcelo De Carvalho

And the third, which he posted on December 21st, was a brief update that didn’t really advance the story any more, but gave some background of how/why he was out on the beach in the first place.

@itsmatthewjacob

#storytime #planeseatupdate #planeseats

♬ original sound – Matthewjacob

Mystery Solved: Not Plane Seats After All

The day after Christmas, Jacob posted his final update. As it turns out (and some commenters had guessed correctly from the start), the seats weren’t from a plane at all.

The police told him that in the 1970s or ’80s, train and/or bus seats were dumped in the ocean to help form artificial reefs.. Those were the seats he had found.

Here’s the final video (heads up for some adult language):

@itsmatthewjacob

🚨WE HAVE A PLANE UPDATE🚨 #planeupdate #planeseats #planeseatupdate

♬ original sound – Matthewjacob

One of the replies, from a TikTok user named Birdie Savage, to this video said:

If you look up the interior of old city busses [sic], you’ll see these seats. It’s the ones at the front that face the aisle with back to window–4 wide on each side.
Look up interior photos of old AM General Buses. The feet of the “plane seats” you found would be for a bus. Look up Detroit Transit History photos for good photos.

I did search for the photos Birdie was referencing but never did find any. However yes, I could imagine the seats at the front of a bus, and even having those sorts of legs.

So…mystery solved. And they weren’t seats from a plane.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary