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He's very fortunate that it landed on the beach, rather than in the ocean or on concrete. This is one of the great times that Find My iPhone comes in especially handy!

I know the Nokia has a solid reputation for being durable. I never thought of the iPhone being tested for durability, but it seems this is a pretty well known thing:

[0] https://wccftech.com/iphone-12-pro-durability-test-ceramic-s... [1] https://www.cultofmac.com/297808/5-methods-apple-uses-test-i...

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Honestly, he is lucky he didn’t kill anyone on the beach. Pretty unprofessional of everyone involved to stick something out of a plane without properly securing it.

The pilot was pretty irritated about it: "yet another one?"

The phone: “Oh no, not again.”

Dropping any phone on a pile of sand at any height is unlikely to damage it too much. Terminal velocity is low and drag would slow it down, plus the sands loose structure would absorb much of the impact.

I would be surprised if terminal velocity is much below 400mph...

Judging from some search hits for the terminal velocity and coefficient of drag for phones, it is closer to 40 mph.

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