Are iphones particularly tough?

was the seat right next to the missing door 'plug' really unoccupied, as is claimed ? :-(

Well it is now.

Yep, but even the copilot lost his headset, so presumably one of the pax seated close to the hole had it in their hand and lost it when it got sucked out of the hole.

The son of a pax seated in the row next to the unoccupied row next to the plug that blew out, lost his shirt, with his mum hanging onto him like grim death to stop him being sucked out the hole. All the pax still had their seatbelts fastened.

According to a Google search, it was reported in 2011 that the terminal velocity of an iPhone is about 60mph A lot would depend upon what it hit when it landed at that speed.

From the number of passengers on board, there should have been half a dozen or so seats empty. Perhaps, along with not allowing that aircraft to fly over water, Alaska Airlines had an unreported policy of not putting anybody in the seats near the plugs.

Somebody reported seeing a phone being sucked out of the hole.

Colin Bignell snipped-for-privacy@bignellremovethis.me.uk> wrote

There is no such number. It depends on whether it is falling with the phone vertical or flat and whether it is naked or in a case.

Duh.

Possibly if it floated down in the horizontal position, much like a leaf falling from a tree, its descent may have been quite slow.

The figure, which is unverified, was given for an iPhone, so I think it is safe to assume that meant without a case. There will be a stable configuration for the shape and, over that distance, it will have ended up in that configuration. I would expect that to be falling vertically, one end first, but I don't have an iPhone or a wind tunnel to test that.

Colin Bignell snipped-for-privacy@bignellremovethis.me.uk> wrote

But the one from the plane is less likely to be naked.

Don't believe that.

No reason why it should given they are pretty uniform weight wise. And even less likely when not naked.

And even if you bought an iphone and jumped from

How the f*ck would anyone here know? It would seem to be a strange thing to lie about though.

I believe two phones went out

There is a photo of it on this page, which also shows that it probably landed in bushed or on grass.

Even if you did, you would argue the opposite on principle.

Weight would be far less important than the aerodynamics. Vertically, end on should produce least drag.

Whatever it as doing when it left the aircraft, it had more than enough time to stabilize on the way down.

Colin Bignell snipped-for-privacy@bignellremovethis.me.uk> wrote

But it isnt clear if that is the way it left the plane.

Yeah, more likely a bush imo unless it landed flatish.

Nope.

Not as far as how it ends up is concerned.

Yes, but there is no reason why it would end up in the least drag config.

There is a reason bombs have fins at the back.

Not necessarily. We know that doesnt happen with bits of a plane that come off.

No evidence that the door plug ended up vertical as it hit the ground and speared into the ground.

One was reported as being seen to be sucked out. Two have been found, but we don't know whether any more went.

Since the pressure in the cabin was higher that the outside air, I can't see 'sucked out' as being correct. 'Blown out' more likely.

In the same way that a glass of coke is blown out via the straw into your mouth?

Looking around the area where the missing window panel was found it is highly wooded with conifers, but there was no snow. The guy who found the panel said that the trees might have acted as an airbag and slowed the panel down. There was evidently little damage to it. If the iPhone acted similarly, then the trees would have slowed its impact.

Exactly what I as taught at school, the action is caused by the higher pressure.

A picture with one of the news stories about the phone, which I can't find again, showed people looking at tall bushes.