Stories of smartphones surviving free falls from airplanes are not just marketing exaggerations or cinematic scenes; they are a reality that actually happened to an iPhone 17 Pro user in Canada. Her phone suffered a terrifying fall from the skies of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and returned to her working efficiently and without any notable damage.
Free fall over Saskatchewan farms
The story began when Canadian artist Heather Klein and her husband, pilot David Stanchuk, were flying a small Cessna Skyhawk plane over rural areas in Saskatchewan. While Heather was trying to take photos of the landscape for the launch of her new art project, she held her iPhone 17 Pro out of the window to get better shooting angles.
Unfortunately, Heather was not using a dedicated camera grip but relied on a simple case. Moments later, strong air currents snatched the phone from her hand, sending it flying into the void from an altitude of about 3,600 feet.
The couple did not give up; they circled the plane twice to determine the exact coordinates via the Find My app, which was successfully reading the phone’s location. After landing, they headed in their truck to the lucky canola field, where Heather found her phone lying peacefully on the ground, face up, without any cracks or shattering.
Miracle or Physics
Although the iPhone 17 Pro’s aluminum frame might seem more prone to scratches compared to the steel or titanium of previous models, falling onto a soft surface like a canola field helped protect it significantly.
The phone’s survival depends primarily on the laws of physics and aerodynamics; flat objects like smartphones tend to stabilize in a horizontal position during a free fall. This position enhances air resistance, limits the phone’s acceleration, and causes the impact force to be distributed evenly across the outer surface rather than being concentrated on one of the corners.
Furthermore, the phone reaches what is known as terminal velocity after falling a relatively short distance, ranging between 35 and 181 mph depending on its orientation. This means that the impact with the ground from an altitude of 3,600 feet carries roughly the same effect as a fall from 200 feet or from the roof of a tall building, and the nature of the receiving ground remains the deciding factor.
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