iPhone 16 Pro survives 2,600-foot fall from German plane without a scratch

KOBLENZ: Most of us panic when our phone slips from our hand and hits the floor. We flip it over, holding our breath, praying the screen isn’t cracked. Now imagine watching your expensive iPhone 16 Pro disappear out of an airplane mid-flight.

That’s exactly what happened to conservationist Ashley Prange while flying over Germany this summer. She was leaning out of a small aircraft window, filming the picturesque Rhine Valley, when a sudden gust of wind yanked her iPhone 16 Pro straight out of her hands. In seconds, it was gone, tumbling more than 2,600 feet as the plane cruised at 110 knots.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ashley Prange (@ashprange)

For Prange, the loss seemed permanent. “Obviously, I thought the phone was gone forever,” she later said. But curiosity got the better of her. She opened Apple’s Find My app and was stunned to see a last-known location, deep in a sprawling forest not far from her cousin’s house in the Rhine Valley.

That forest was no walk in the park. It stretched for miles, dense and wild. But with her credit card and driver’s licence tucked inside the phone case, Prange decided the search was worth it. So, she and her cousin set off, winding through thick undergrowth and uneven paths.

Hours later, in a moment she still can’t quite believe, Prange spotted the phone lying on the forest floor. It looked… perfect. No shattered glass. No dents. It powered on without a hiccup, as if it had simply been placed there.

Read more: US clears Nvidia to resume H20 chip exports to China

She credits its miraculous survival to two things: the Bellroy wallet case protecting it, and Apple’s solid build quality on the iPhone 16 Pro. “I don’t know how this is even possible,” she said. “The phone works with no problem!”

As she shared her story, she couldn’t resist a laugh: “Meanwhile, I drop my AirPods from three feet and nearly lose them both.”

Airbus wins landmark Polish airline order in Europe ‘reset’

What she ended up with wasn’t just an intact phone, but an accidental “skydiving” video, all without ever leaving her seat in the plane.