Ms Hayden used inflight WiFi to track the earphones using the “Find My” app. (Rep image)
A woman recently tracked down her lost Apple AirPods to an airport worker’s home two weeks after she first left them behind on a plane.
Speaking to CNN, Alisabeth Hayden said she was flying with United Airlines from Tokyo, where she had been visiting her husband, to Seattle earlier this month. Shortly after getting off the plane on a layover at San Francisco International Airport, she realised she had left her jacket behind and her headphones too.
“I realized before I was even off the plane,” Ms Hayden said, as per the outlet. “I was the third from last off the plane, so I asked the flight attendant if I could go and get it. He said no – I was required by federal law to get off the plane and stand beside it, where the strollers are brought to. I was tired, he said he’d bring it to me, I said OK,” she added.
The flight attendant indeed bring the jacket to her, following which she boarded her next flight to Seattle. “A child was screaming next to me and I thought, ‘At least I have my AirPods,'” she recalled. However, she said that when she reached for her jacket, she realised her AirPods were gone.
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The plane had already taken off to Seattle, but Ms Hayden used inflight WiFi to track the earphones using the “Find My” app, which tracks Apple devices. The headphones were showing at a cargo terminal at SFO, before moving to different terminals and then down Highway 101.
The earplugs ended up at what appeared to be a residential address in the Bay Area and stayed put there for three days. Ms Hayden marked her headphones as “lost” on her app, pinging an alert and her number to the person who had them.
She told the outlet that she enlisted the help of a detective at the San Mateo police force who was working at SFO. He matched the address the AirPods were pinging from to an airport contractor working to load food onto aircraft.
When questioned by the cops, the airport worker said the headphones had been given to him by a cleaner, who denied knowledge of the situation. When they were returned to Hayden 12 days later, she said the AirPods looked like they’d been stomped on.
She told the outlet that United Airlines gave her $271 and 5,000 air miles after complaining about the condition of the headphones. The airlines also confirmed that the worker was employed by a vendor and not the airline.
The matter is now being handled by the San Francisco Airport Police Department, which plans to submit the case to the San Mateo District Attorney’s office.