Find My IPhone Used To Locate Plane Crash In Chile 95
spagiola writes "Late last week, a military transport aircraft with 17 people on -board went missing near Robinson Crusoe, Chile. The relatives of one of the crash victims logged into Find My iPhone and were able to isolate the coordinates of the last known whereabouts of the plane before it crashed. From the article: 'Rear Admiral Francisco García-Huidobro explained the founding that
garnered a lot of attention today, and it has to do with an iPhone belonging to
one of the victims of the aereal accident in Juan Fernández, in a beach
in Bahía Carvajal. The phone signal could be captured thanks to the GPS system, however, water
ended up shutting it down. Nevertheless, García Huidoro explained that they
managed to plot the last position from where the signal was last generated, which
will be made public tomorrow.'"
Uruguayan Air _Force_Flight_571 (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571 [wikipedia.org]
Hearing of a crash in Chile brings up memories of the Andes flight accident in 1972, or better known to some people as the movie, "Alive". Ok, so this time the crash was nowhere near the Andes, but an island.
But I've always wondered what would've happened if in 1972, they had GPS and mapping technology the way we do today. They could've easily seen where they were without the guesswork and literally strolled off the mountain to the east in less than a day, perhaps. A 20km walk to the east would've gotten them to the highway at least... and at least they would've been off the mountain into thicker and a warmer atmosphere. Not to mention they may have been able to forage for food quickly. ( http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=Uruguayan+Air+Force+Flight+571+-+Mendoza+Province,+Argentina&hl=en [google.com] )
I hope technology will improve our chances of survival with accidents like this in the future.
I call shenanigans. (Score:1, Interesting)
For this scenario to be true, the iPhone would
A) Have to be intact and not hung post-crash
B) Not be submerged to any depth
C) Be connected to the cellular network in order to get the self-location push request
And this happened at sea? After a massive impact that shredded everyone? I don't buy it.