Paraglider Using Selfie Stick Drops Phone from 2,500 Feet

A paraglider was soaring above the world at 2,500 feet recently when he decided to pull his selfie stick out to snap a memory of his adventure. While trying to remove his phone, however, the smartphone slipped from his grasp and fell to Earth. It was all captured in the 1.5-minute helmet cam video above (the drop is at 1:15).

Wired did some calculations back in 2011 and found that the terminal velocity of an iPhone 4 is between 27.2 mph and 95 mph (12.2-42.8 m/s), depending on whether it’s screen-side down or smallest-edge down. Since the phone likely spends the entire trip spinning, it’s likely a speed in between (Wired guesses it’s about 45mph or 20m/s).

It seems likely that the phone didn’t survive the fall — though, there have been stranger survival stories — but hopefully it avoided landing on someone on the ground…