“In Chile, rescue/recovery efforts are underway to find 17 people who were victims of a plane crash off the island of Robinson Crusoe which was devastated last year by the massive earthquake and tsunami,” Seth Weintraub reports for 9to5Mac.
“We’ve gotten an email from an acquaintance of one of the victims of the accident saying that one of the passengers was carrying an iPhone,” Weintraub reports. “The relatives of the crash victim logged into Find My iPhone and were able to isolate the coordinates of the last known whereabouts of the plane before it crashed. That information was then given to the Navy who are using it to coordinate the rescue efforts to find the fuselage.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Manny S.” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
You got to love the iphone
iRescue!!!
While celebrating the abilities of the iPhone is always reason to smile, let’s not forget that 17 people lost their lives in the tragedy.
Maybe we should hope for iForcefield to protect us from the maladies of the world.
read the article . . . 21, not 17
read the article . . . 17, not 21
Are they saying that the person’s iPhone was operating while the plane was in flight. If so, the iPhone could have actually contributed to or caused the crash by interfering with vital signals to or from the aircraft or causing operating problems with vital aircraft electronics!
No, the iPhone would have helped the plane function more efficiently.
It was the Android phone which caused the problems.
That’s a myth.
What you are saying is that the fourth 9-11 plane crashed in a field because the people on board were phoning loved ones to say goodbye.
Hopefully they find survivors, and not just a fuselage.
While I’m glad the iPhone is helping them locate the wreckage, it is just incredibly sad that these people lost their lives. Imagine if someone you loved was on that plane…
There are some issues with this story:
Find My iPhone doesn’t report the last known location. It reports the current location. His family would’ve had to have logged into Find My iPhone *before* the crash, and maybe even before the flight, which would would give a location that’s of absolutely no use.
It’s worth noting that the plane’s crash location isn’t unknown. They’ve found wreckage and they’ve found bodies.
Some bodies are missing and the BBC is reporting that since the plane broke up so massively on impact on the water, that not all bodies may end up being found.
The story 9to5 is trying to tell is that the iPhone is somehow going to help in recovering one of the bodies still missing.
That’s not going to happen.