MacBook Air proves its mettle in plane crash

(Credit: Macenstein)

Despite its ridiculously slim profile, the Apple MacBook Air is apparently tougher than tough. According to a report by blog site Macenstein, a survivor of the Turkish Airways crash in February this year, Sefer Baris, closed his Apple laptop and put it in a slipcase moments before the plane hit the tarmac.

Surprisingly, the notebook's chassis was merely bent, not broken (refer to image). Though the LCD panel was damaged, the MacBook Air still managed to boot up and allowed access to the precious data within. If you thought the reason it survived was because the laptop happened to be far away from the damaged sections, the owner suffered a fractured neck and required a series of surgeries before he could walk again.

While we can't say the unibody MacBook Air is as hardy as a ToughBook or ThinkPad just from this isolated incident, it's good to know that its premium design isn't as frail as it looks.

(Via Crave Asia)

[J.G.]

I found my first generation MacBook Air to be fairly sturdy, enduring one drop of about three feet on an uncarpeted floor without any damage. It also helps that the hard drives in Mac laptops 'park' when there is sudden motion.

[xX_BLAM_Xx]

Well, I can sleep better at night knowing that the 5 MacBook Air owners don't have to worry about their laptops getting damaged during the safest form of travel.

[Jonnygthedrummer]

u forgot about 9 zeros after ur 5

[perontopsp]

@Jonnygthedrummer

No he didn't. And actually xX_BLAM_Xx miscounted, I am sure he meant " ...that the 4 MacBook Air owners don't..."

[Rick Cavaretti]

Hhmm. Two graduates of the 'No Child Left Behind' program. OK Class, let's count to 10. One, two, four...done!

[myles taylor]

So obviously you're not being reasonable since this post is completely ridiculous so to try to reason with you is pointless?

[myles taylor]

My old Wallstreet Powerbook made it through two car accidents....those old machines were tanks! It's nice to know that some of the new machine are fairly tough as well, even if I know they aren't the same as the old ones.

[strange1889]

my 2.5 year old HP17 inch dv9000 has made it through a car crash, being dropped twice, and being hauled around in a book bag for the last 2 years with a load of books on it with no damage. the laptop was in a laptop bag in the passenger side of the trunk, when the car hydroplaned at 80 into the guardrail. the point of impact was the passenger side trunk, not to mention the 70 pound suitcase and that was in the trunk which undoubtedly sandwiched my laptop during impact.

[Wingates]

Well, anything thats weighs over a ton and 10 inches thick should at the very least survive what you were involved in! : )

[dreamworks21]

I think a major opportunity was missed here to include a pun linking "Airplanes" and the "Air" in Macbook Air. What say you, general public?

[streamline35]

Agreed - that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the article. Still not exactly sure what the pun would be (I'd have to think about it for a while), but I'm sure there's some good ones out there that could've been used.

[dreamworks21]

Maybe something like: "Even when airplanes crash, MacBook Air doesn't" or "Crash Proves One Thing: MacBook Air = Plain Awesome"

[jaycustom]

Sefer Baris, closed his Apple laptop and put it in a slipcase moments before the plane hit the tarmac.

"This is your Captain...please buckle up and place you head between your legs, we're going down hard!" And this as*hole takes time to close his Macbook AND put it in his case?! Just goes to show how anal some Mac owners are huh?

[ikramerica--2008]

Do yo know ANYTHING about this crash?

It happened without warning, you moron.

[pcfish]

I think it may be because he doesn't want the Air fly around and kill someone. Apple hater.

[Wingates]

obviously this idiot didn't read about the crash. Oops! I'm sorry, he probably doesn't know how to read.

[viper396]

The chassis is bent, the LCD screen is cracked. No matter how you try to spin it the system is unusable. The fact that you can still retrieve data is more luck then anything.

People died in that plane crash and stories about computers surviving some sort of accident or tragedy are not new and certainly not unique to Mac. Only a bunch of superficial Mac owners would latch on to this like it's some kind of real accomplishment.

[Wingates]

Tell you what...how about getting a life? Sheesh, talk about anal. Some of you PC users have your Windoze so far up your arse that you can't even just read something that means nothing and not get worked up about it. Take a vacation.

[ikramerica--2008]

You could always plug in an external monitor and external keyboard and mouse and use this machine as a very expensive mac mini. :)

[osxdude]

No, definitely not new or unique. However, you are wrong. The system is usable. An unusable machine would be in the case where the logic board gets cracked in all the bending, and the hard drive or solid state drive breaks somehow. Because all of this, it's still usable. In fact, the thing has a USB port, which allows for a USB hub for a keyboard and mouse to be connected. In fact, there is also bluetooth. To see the screen, you can also plug in an external monitor with the mini-DVI port, or micro-DVI, whichever it is.

A new MacBook Air is definitely in store here, but this one isn't internally dead. Heck, you could have the enclosure and the LCD replaced, and have it be like a brand new computer.

[cyclonica1980]

Yeah seriously guys why are we talking about a computer surviving a crash, when people lost their lives? Who cares about the computer your life is more important.

[Renegade Knight]

We can talk about all aspects of that crash. Including the data on the laptop surviving which could contain infomration your surviors need.

It would be lunacy to only be able talk about one angle.

[sting7k]

What do you mean it survived? The screen is half destroyed. The system is unusable. All you have to do is pull out the internal drive if you want to try and save the data. Looks dead to me.

[Gryever12]

No Just plug it in to another computer via USB and Start Up in Target disk mode. It let you access the hard drive as you would any other external HDD. Windows can't do it. Maybe they will copy it on W7.

[Uturnaroun]

@Gryever

You do realize that the MacBook Air and all of the new aluminum MacBooks do not have target disk mode. Apple dropped the feature.

[peep1973]

i just registered. i feel compelled to post how distasteful and disrespectful this article is. i'm very disappointed cnet even posted this article. discussing how a laptop "survived" a plane crash, while humans lost their lives? appalling.

[wrupp]

That is far from survived, its mangled and half the screen doesn't work....far from usable. It couldn't even be used for daily use without difficulty. The article title made it out to be totally unscathed.

[wiredchicken]

How would a dell survive????? Perhaps a Gateway???

[BlitzBoy1120]

That totally survived -_-

[suren69]

This is just a stupid article.

If you want the real test, we should drop the laptop from 5 storied building onto a concrete pavment and see what happens.

Lets see how many Mac owners will volunteer for this. Its utterly ridiculous to base the sturdiness of any laptop on a remote possibility of a plane crash.

[Renegade Knight]

It's utteryly reciculous to not talk about the sturdiness of a laptop. Yes any one way to have an incident may not be likley but that there will be one is very likely.

I'd say more laptops crash with planes than fall out of the upper stories of buildings. But I could be wrong.

[iroq321]

sure, but will the mac book air survive the economic crash??? hmmm...

[BlackTaxi2d]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i created an account on here just to laugh so long at this comment, after all the other completely retarded ones HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[pithenumber]

lolz

the Mac Air will survive the economic crash because
1 its a luxury item and rich people still exist
2 its an apple item and apple devotees still exist

[rnaoncfixd]

Is everyone seriously not understanding the point of this article? This is just stating how the perception that the Macbook Air is frail is possibly false. This is in no way undercutting the fact that 9 people died and 121 people were injured. It is not stating that this laptop is more important than those people's lives. It is not stating that Macs are better than PCs.

This is just stating an anecdotal case where a seemingly frail Macbook Air remains usable after a horrific accident. THAT IS ALL. Anything more you read into it is up to you.

[pickles319]

See, you get it. This has nothing to do with anything else that happened in that crash.

[Gimpymw]

Well I drop my 17" lead brick, running Vista, all the time and nothing seems to affect it's performance. When I need it to prop a door open or to keep my papers from flying off of my desk it performs flawlessly even after all the abuse it's taken.

[Nooorm]

If you want to see some really interesting laptop "survival" videos, type "legends of thinkpad" on Youtude and watch some of the videos. Personally, I think "Melted" is pretty amazing.