The device was discovered by residents close to where the incident occurred.

Two cell phones were recovered from the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 jet that had an inflight explosive episode as it flew across Oregon over the weekend.

The incident occurred on Friday just as the plane was making its way to Ontario, California.

During a news conference on Sunday, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy confirmed that the devices were recovered by residents in the area where the door plug fell from the structure.

“Some community members found a cell phone in a yard and a cell phone on the side of the road and contacted us and handed them in,” she said.

One of the devides, which appears to be an iPhone, still appeared to be completely intact and functional after it dropped from 16,000 feet in the sky. The cell phone still had part of a charger attached to it.

One of those residents appeared to have posted his discovery to X, formerly Twitter, writing, “found an iPhone on the side of the road… Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282.”

  • MicroWaveOPEnglish
    272·
    9 months ago9 months ago

    Can we talk about how the phone did not have a screen lock? What?

      • MicroWaveOPEnglish
        120·
        9 months ago

        Face ID keeps your phone unlocked as long as you’re looking at the screen. Does that not do it for you?

          • BorgDrone
            60·
            9 months ago

            One situation is that I want my phone to show me the traffic congestion whilst I drive so I can alter my route dynamically. The screen locks every five minutes (longest setting available), but my commute is ~40 minutes.

            That’s not an iPhone problem but a bug (or missing feature) in the app you’re using. Apps can disable screen lock while they are active with a single line of code. This is commonly used in video players, navigation apps, games, etc.

          • Labototmized
            30·
            9 months ago

            Depending how much you want to play around with it, you may be able to configure something with Shortcuts to get the desired behavior. I have something similar set up for screen brightness and media volume based on what WiFi networks I’m connected to or places I’m at.

          • brbposting
            20·
            9 months ago

            Bet you they’re protecting themselves against battery life complaints. Apple Knows Best!

            Not a custom lock option, but to make your life marginally easier:

            There are no shortcut actions as of Mar’23 to trigger auto-lock. The closest thing I can think of (which I use personally) is this shortcut to quickly open Auto-Lock in settings menu.

            So that would save a second… “Hey Siri, I’m commuting // autolock” -> the settings pop open. Source

            From up that thread as well:

            I always set my auto lock default to never. Then whenever I need the screen to lock automatically I’ll just toggle low power mode from control centre.

        • cryostars
          10·
          9 months ago

          Keeping a recipe up while cooking for 20+ minutes is something I do frequently. Seems the iPhone would kinda annoying to try to use for this. Android has a 30m option and that’s just fine.

      • EmpathicVagrant
        42·
        9 months ago

        A custom or 30 minute would be so nice honestly. That’s one setting that irks me most.

    • thorbot
      64·
      9 months ago

      It was likely locked. There’s a thing called Live Activities that displays things like flight details on the screen even when it is locked. Its very handy.