This iPhone fell 14,000 feet and lived to tell the tale

iPhone falling through the air
(Image credit: Hatton Smith)

You know how sometimes you drop your iPhone from barely any height but watch helplessly as it explodes into a million pieces? Well, someone dropped their iPhone out of a plane at 14,000 and it lived to tell the tale.

The iPhone was in skydiver Hatton Smith's back pocket when he took a leap out of an airplane apparently forgetting that it was there. Smith's helmet camera captured the moment the iPhone went for a skydive of its very own while a video posted to TikTok shows the whole thing.

Amazingly, the iPhone was recovered when everyone was back on the ground and it worked just fine.

A lucky day

The phone apparently fell around 14,000 feet and landed in what appears to be nice, soft mud. That might explain why it survived so well, as might the Catalyst case that it was in at the time. We're not saying that might now be the best iPhone case for dropping your iPhone out of a plane, but we aren't not saying that, either.

@capt_rumcoffee

♬ original sound

We're also absolutely not suggesting that anyone should consider this a sign that they can go throwing their iPhones out of planes, and we have to imagine that the end result would have been very different if the iPhone had landed on something a little firmer like concrete.

Apart from being a good ad for a good case, this is perhaps another example of why something like AppleCare+ could be a good shout for people who do things that some of us wouldn't dare dream about. If you're going to go throwing yourself out of a plan with your iPhone — whether on purpose or not — at least make sure you've covered should something go awry.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.