In yet another testimony of the iPhone’s durability, a pilot has shared that his iPhone X survived a fall from over 11,000 feet and worked perfectly afterwards. The claim is made even more astonishing by the fact that iPhone X comes with a glass front and back panel.

The incident has been shared by a pilot named David on the Diamond Aviators forums. In a post, David writes that as he flew his Diamond DA40 plane from Colorado Springs to Atlanta, he tried to take a picture of an interesting cloud formation on his right.

He took out his iPhone X to click a picture of the clouds through the small side windows on the Diamond DA40. He mentions that the side windows on the plane can be opened in flight and allow a way to take pictures without the distortion of the large plexiglass canopy of the plane.

As can be judged, there is a very strong airstream generated when these windows are opened in flight. Holding objects too close to the window can mean that the slipstream will suck out anything you are holding. Even though David had “taken hundreds of pictures” this way, he lost his iPhone X through this window on that day.

“I hit a small pocket of turbulence, and my right hand moved too close to the open passenger window. In a millisecond, the iPhone was sucked right out through the window, and it was gone! ”

It was only the next morning that David got the surprise of his life. As he wished to delete the data on the lost phone remotely, he realised that his iPhone X had transmitted its location that morning from “near Blythe Arkansas.” So, out of curiosity, David decided to fly back to Arkansas to see if he could find the phone.

He did manage to find it after hours of slogging in a field of soybeans from where the phone had last transmitted its location. “Picking up the phone, there was not a scratch on it, just dust on the back of my Otterbox case. The screen was perfect.”

David notes that his iPhone X was largely protected from the 11,250 feet fall by the Otterbox Defender Series case he bought in 2018. Still, the fact that the iPhone did not have a single scratch on it deserves praises for Apple, as much as Otterbox.

David acknowledges this in his post – “All credit to Apple and Otterbox for some spectacular products!” He even mentions that the iPhone functioned properly after charging and that there was seemingly no damage to the battery from the impact.