MacBook Air Falls 1,000 Feet From an Airplane, Still Works

Daniel Bean
·Assistant Editor
Updated
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Call it the MacBook Airborne. (Photo: av80r/imgur)

You’ve probably grimaced at the thought of accidentally knocking your expensive laptop off a coffee table or desk. But imagine the fear you’d feel in the pit of your stomach if it were to take a 1,000-foot tumble out the hatch of an airplane.

This is what one pilot claims happened to his poor MacBook Air.

First spotted by 9to5Mac, Redditor av80r uploaded several photos that show surprisingly little serious damage to his device, save for a shattered trackpad, a couple of bent corners, and a broken cooling fan.

According to av80r’s post on Reddit, the canopy on a small plane he was flying popped open during a trip over South Africa. Out flew a Thule bag that contained his computer and a few pieces of ID. (We’ve reached out to av80r and will let you know if we hear back.)

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(Photo: av80r/imgur)

A farm worker happened upon the mysterious bag and found the ID, which helped him track down the pilot’s Facebook profile and return his laptop. (Faith in humanity restored!)

The grateful pilot wrote that he was “thoroughly impressed” by the upstanding man’s effort to return the bag and Mac to him, and he gave a nice reward to say thanks. Perhaps even more impressive, though, is the condition of his laptop after plunging from such a height.

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Angela Dalton shows off the iPhone she accidentally dropped out of an airplane over Dothan, Ala., which landed in the front yard of Eric Hall, at left. (Photo: AP)

In 2013, an Alabama woman lost her grip on her iPhone while trying to snap a picture out the window of a three-seat airplane. Though it fell an estimated 1,400 feet, it also survived the long plunge, and it was also returned to its owner in working condition. The woman has given credit to the sturdy build of the iPhone and the SYSTM phone case.

No word on whether Apple, SYSTM, or Thule, makers of the rugged bag carrying the South African pilot’s MacBook, have reached out to these gadget owners for promotional brainstorming. But we think pictures of the surviving devices set against Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” would make for some swell ads.

Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com. Follow me on Twitter at @danielwbean.