iPhone 6S captures descent after it falls 2,000ft from a plane

Phone continued filming for an hour and a half 

Chelsea Ritschel
New York
Thursday 17 December 2020 17:16 GMT
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iPhone captures 2,000ft fall from plane
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A man has recovered his iPhone 6S after it fell 2,000ft from a plane, during which it managed to capture footage of the drop.

In a YouTube video uploaded to his account Monday, Brazilian documentary filmmaker Ernesto Galiotto could be seen flying over a beach in Brazil in the passenger seat of a small plane.

During the trip, which was captured by a camera in the single-engine plane, Galiotto captured photos using his camera, before switching to his iPhone.

However, while holding his phone towards the window with one hand, the iPhone slipped out of his grasp and towards the beach below.

According to Brazilian news outlet G1, Galiotto assumed that the phone had been lost for good after its 2,000ft descent, with it landing on a beach.

But, the filmmaker was actually able to recover the phone, which came away from the drop with a few minor scratches despite only being protected by a screen protector and a silicone case, by using the Find My iPhone app.

"I had faith that I was going to recover. I thought: 'If he didn't fall into the water, we will find it,’” he said according to a translation, adding that the iPhone’s fall could have been potentially tragic if it had hit people on the beach below.

According to Galiotto’s friend, Victor de Oliveir a Tostes, they were able to find the phone within five minutes of searching.

“We walked for about five minutes until we got close to the cell phone. It was in a region of sand, with the screen facing downwards. The brightness of the sun reflected on the cover, and I was soon able to identify in the middle of the sand. It seems, it was intact, working perfectly, with only a part of the protective film of the screen cracked,” he recalled.

In addition to surviving the fall, the phone also managed to record more than an hour of video, including its blurry descent, which Galiotto included in the YouTube video.

The video of the phone’s fall and its recovery has since been viewed more than 433,000 times on YouTube, where people have joked that the clip would make a good advertisement for Apple.

“And this video is brought to you by Apple,” one person wrote, while another commented: “These phone case ads are really getting out of hand.”

The iPhone 6S was first released in September 2015.

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