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It’s ‘not super far fetched,’ experts say, ‘because impacts are complicated’
It is not common for aeroplane to lose a door midair and yet demesne safely . That ’s what come about toAlaska Airlines 1282,which landed in Portland , Oregon . But wonders never cease .
In a viral post , X exploiter Seanathan Bates documented how he had foundan iPhone on the side of the roadthat came from an Alaska Airlines rider and had ostensibly survived the 16,000 - base drop “ perfectly intact . ”
incur an iPhone on the side of the road … Still in airplane modal value with half a battery and undefended to a luggage title for#AlaskaAirlinesASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly in tactfulness !
When I call it in , Zoe at@NTSBsaid it was the SECOND speech sound to be find . No door yet 😅 pic.twitter.com / CObMikpuFd
— Seanathan Bates ( @SeanSafyre)January 7 , 2024
As Bates lateradded , there ’s some shade to how intact the twist may have been , but “ the blind did n’t have any damage . ”
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In an email to TechCrunch , the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board confirm that it was n’t just one machine , but “ two jail cell phones likely from the trajectory ” that had been recovered and turned over to Alaska Airlines . The most spectacular point is that “ they were both functioning iPhones . ”
How is it possible that a smartphone could survive such a massive fall , when there are multitude walking around with shattered screens from much small incident ? “ Many readers oppose to Bates ’s post by quipping that their phone had unwrap after downslope of only a few foot , ” the Guardianobserved .
But while many of us are boggle , experts are n’t .
“Impacts are complicated”
One of these experts isRhett Allain , an associate professor of physics and blogger who also run a YouTube communication channel , Dot Physics . Here ’s the first half of his explanation :
It ’s potential your speech sound could weaken if you drop it from 3 foundation but not from 1,000 feet . Why ? It ’s because impacts are complicated . Suppose you cast your phone off the table and it lands on something hard . Since hard thing do n’t “ give ” during the collision , there will be a very short impingement time . A short encroachment time would require a large force to check it . It ’s this larger effect that can make the phone break .
Wait . It get even bad . Imagine you drop your phone out of your pocket and it lands on a tiny rock . Now the impact force will be magnanimous ( just like hit the story ) and the encroachment area is very small . This intend the force per unit area on impact will be high ( pressure = force / area ) . This is dissimilar from the phone landing place flat on a flat surface with a orotund impact area .
SinceiFixItis illustrious for its repair usher , CEO and self - described fixerKyle Wiensalso have it away a thing or two about broken devices . So not only was he not surprised that a pilot iPhone made it unscathed , he also screw that thiswasn’t the first time . Hence his reaction : “ I would n’t say this is super far bring ! ”
Wiens made the same decimal point as Allain on impacts . “ It looks like [ the iPhone ] landed on soil instead of concrete , which I ’m sure helped a mess . ” But both of them also pointed out another factor : terminal velocity .
Two forces, one phone
“ Theterminal velocity of an iPhoneis slower than you ’d mean . atmosphere resistance specify the maximum velocity , so it ’s not inevitably going any faster falling from 18,000 foot than 1,000 invertebrate foot , ” Wiens explained .
Allain went into a bit more detail with his physics professor chapeau on :
As a earphone falls over a greater distance , there will be two force acting on it . The gravitational force-out root for down and there is also an upwards push air travel resistance force . This tune resistance increase in magnitude as the phone move quicker through the air . So , at some point these two forces ( gravity and air resistor ) will balance and the phone will arrest increasing in speed — thus moving at a constant speed .
TL;DR : “ Once the telephone set extend to terminal velocity , it does n’t matter how in high spirits up it fell from . ”
This look at us back to why a cover will sometimes shatter after a fall , and sometimes not . It ’s the combination of terminal velocity and the surface it put down on that determines whether or not the phone will separate down . Much more than summit . And definitely more than whether aeroplane style was on !
