Passenger AirPods tracked to airport worker's home

[Airband]

This woman left her AirPods on a plane. She tracked them to an airport worker’s home

Fri Mar 24, 2023 - CNN
by Julia Buckleyo

Quote

“I’m tenacious – but what about the people who don’t have the time, or who give up? "

We’ve had people tracking their bags when airlines can’t find them. Now here’s something new: a passenger tracking an item she left on a plane – to an airport employee’s home.

Earlier in March, Alisabeth Hayden, from Washington state in the US, was separated from her AirPods – Apple’s pricey micro headphones – while disembarking from a plane in San Francisco. She swiftly realized that they appeared to have been stolen.

But after nearly two weeks, she had them back – thanks to her tenacious tracking abilities.

Hayden was flying back from a trip to Tokyo to visit her husband, who is on secondment in the military, when she was parted from the earphones.

Disembarking from the plane at San Francisco International Airport – and a little disoriented after a nine-hour flight from Tokyo – she left her denim jacket on her seat, at the back of the plane.

“I realized before I was even off the plane,” she says. “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.”

He did indeed bring it to her – and she boarded her next flight to Seattle. “A child was screaming next to me and I thought, ‘At least I have my AirPods,’” she remembers. She reached for her jacket – she’d left the two breast pockets buttoned up, one with her earphones, one with some Japanese Yen inside it.

“The pockets were open, and my AirPods were gone,” she says.

The plane had already taken off to Seattle, but Hayden used inflight Wi-Fi to track the earphones using the “Find My” app, which tracks Apple devices. The AirPods were showing at SFO.

Then she realized they were moving.

“I’m a diligent person, and I tracked the whole way from San Francisco to Seattle, taking screenshots the entire time. I live an hour from Seattle, and once I got home, I was still taking screenshots,” she says.

The AirPods by now were showing up at a place on the map called “United Cargo” – still within the airport, but the cargo side of the airline, so not where a passenger would be likely to be.

Then they moved to Terminal 2. Then to Terminal 3. Then they were on Highway 101, heading south towards San Mateo. They ended up at what appeared to be a residential address in the Bay Area, and stayed put there for three days.

Of course, everyone’s gadgets are precious, but Hayden’s AirPods hold particular significance – they’re her link to her husband, who calls her from his deployment on such a bad line that she needs them to hear him.

From the minute she realized they were gone, Hayden was trying to get them back. She messaged United and SFO from the plane, then tried the police in San Francisco, Hayward (where the tracker was showing), and SFO’s own airport police.

She worked out the email format for United employee emails, and “blasted” every single executive she could find, across the globe. “I hit every avenue I could find, and used every possible form of communication, and got the same response: ‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’” she says.

In the meantime, she says, she marked the AirPods as “lost” on the app, so that anyone who used them would hear a message telling them that they were hers, and giving them her phone number.

cont.

United, she says, were “godawful” in their communications with her

[J.O.]

I admire her tenacity!

[Kip Powick]

I used mine to make sure my luggage got off a DELTA flight and onto a WESTJET flight.

They are handy... 

[Seeker]

1 hour ago, Kip Powick said:

I used mine to make sure my luggage got off a DELTA flight and onto a WESTJET flight.

They are handy... 

You have to be careful with this.  As I understand the system the airtag will update it's position when it's in contact with an Apple device but other wise can be moved without the new position being shown to the owner.

A friend of mine (who works for another airline from myself) reported this situation from last week;  all boarded and ready to close the doors and push when a passenger stands up and announces that the aircraft can't leave as her bag is still in the terminal - according to the airtag location.  She says she won't go if her bag isn't going and since it shows in the terminal she wants to deplane.  So, radio calls made to ground crew (flight now delayed) who check the bagroom, various carts, locations and they report "no bag found, must be on the airplane".  Nope not good enough, she's not going because the airtag shows it's location in the terminal.  

The passenger deplanes and is standing on the bridge but now they have to find and locate the bag.  Eventually they sort through the baggage compartment and find her bag - it was on the airplane the whole time!  Who knows what limitations there are to receiving updates - probably just happened that nobody on the ramp crew had an iPhone or the signal wasn't picked up or whatever.  Anyway, now the passenger says, "Oh good you found it, now I want go, put the bag back on the airplane."  I'm happy to report the answer was, "Nope, both you and the bag are off the airplane and we'll rebook you for tomorrow."

Yes, an airtag can be a useful device but I wouldn't be making any go/no-go decisions based on what I'm shown on my iPhone.

For the record, I'm an Android guy and they have a virtually identical system - works perfectly 95% of the time.

[Kip Powick]

2 hours ago, Seeker said:

but I wouldn't be making any go/no-go decisions based on what I'm shown on my iPhone.

If the phone showed bag in the terminal, why didn't  she, or someone else,  track it down using her phone.....it does tell you distance from phone and can be tracked 

Weird story but a good ending.....Agree with the quote  above........if bag  not on board, buy a toothbrush at destination and, then "have a go" at the airline...

[Seeker]

6 hours ago, Kip Powick said:

If the phone showed bag in the terminal, why didn't  she, or someone else,  track it down using her phone.....it does tell you distance from phone and can be tracked 

Well, she couldn't go because she would need a RAIC to get into the bag room or out on the ramp.  Unlikely that she'd give her phone to someone else or that someone else would accept responsibility for it if she did.  The time it would take to patrol through all the possible locations hoping for a "ping" of the airtag would be excessive. 

The thing about these sorts of devices is that they are all extremely low power and use some combination of cell service, wifi, Bluetooth, GPS.  I have had, at some time, problems with all of those communication protocols; don't connect when you know they should.  Then add in the software, updates and the very real possibility that the signal is being shielded by some part of the terminal building or aircraft.

It's a difficult situation but one thing I know for sure is that people are certainly not aware of the limitations believing that the location showing on their phone is 100% "where it is" when, in reality, its simply the last recorded/transmitted location.

[Kip Powick]

An enlightening conversation.....my new toys may fail me  but such is life..I don't know how I survived for over 5 decades  without them .(..wish we had a sarcastic font)

Anyhow here is a good link that clarifies the ins and outs,  and workings of the Apple Air tags and the Tiles..

 

https://www.safewise.com/apple-airtag-faqs/#:~:text=Does Apple AirTag need Wi,t work with Wi-Fi.

[Guest1]

Here is a link to a free Sarcastic Font and it also has the benefit of being in cursive , so some folks will be unable to understand it.

Sarcasm Fonts | FontSpace

Wednesday Script Font | Jimtype Studio | FontSpace

for example

 

[Seeker]

I think it's generally understood that the colour green denotes sarcasm. 

You'd know that Kip if you got out and saw some more of the world!  Haha!

[Kip Powick]

56 minutes ago, Seeker said:

You'd know that Kip if you got out and saw some more of the world!  Haha!

Does the south count ?? Going there very soon 

[Seeker]

1 hour ago, Kargokings said:

Here is a link to a free Sarcastic Font and it also has the benefit of being in cursive , so some folks will be unable to understand it.

Sarcasm Fonts | FontSpace

Wednesday Script Font | Jimtype Studio | FontSpace

for example

 

Well, I read (and write) cursive but that is a very poor example.  It's mostly just printed letters attached to each other; the s, r , t , f, l all incorrect as far as my grade 4 teacher would say.

[Kip Powick]

43 minutes ago, Seeker said:

Well, I read (and write) cursive but that is a very poor example.  It's mostly just printed letters attached to each other; the s, r , t , f, l all incorrect as far as my grade 4 teacher would say.

Remember the good old days.........learning cursive.....

 

[Super 80]

On 3/25/2023 at 3:20 AM, Seeker said:

It's a difficult situation but one thing I know for sure is that people are certainly not aware of the limitations believing that the location showing on their phone is 100% "where it is" when, in reality, its simply the last recorded/transmitted location.

Apple is going to have to work with the airlines to improve visibility. I have reason to believe that United is working on this with Apple directly. The hardware already exists, it isn't even expensive. It just has to be linked to Apple's "Find My" back-end. This is all very mature, it is just a software problem. Although in other settings there is a certain amount of fibbing involved as the location of a container or vehicle is reported rather than that of an individual item.

Although I have found the inconsistency strange. My luggage with an Airtag, in an LD3 on a 787 was able to ping an iOS device either on the ramp or cabin close enough for the tag to report being with me. On a Max this afternoon I saw my bag go up the belt but it didn't ping even as it passed under my feet and reported my Airtag as having been left behind but reported immediately upon landing as residing in the middle of the runway.