Today I flew BR's HKG-TPE leg to connect to TPE-YVR, and ran into something absolutely unbelievable. Posting it here to give everyone a laugh and a heads-up.
When we landed at Taoyuan, my AirPods slid off the tray table onto the floor. After the seatbelt sign went off, I searched everywhere and couldn't find them—figured they were stuck in the seat tracks or some crevice. I pulled out my phone to use Find My, but my main phone back home has its Apple ID switched to the China region, so of course it failed me at the critical moment—couldn't connect to Precision Finding at all, just showed "at Taoyuan Airport." The BR flight attendants and maintenance crew were incredibly nice, spent 20 minutes searching with flashlights and still couldn't find them. I saw my connection time was a bit tight, and the flight attendant suggested I go ahead—they took my info and said they'd send them to the next flight's gate if found.
Once I got to TPE and settled into the lounge, I pulled out my iPad (logged into my US account), opened Find My, and was stunned: the earbuds were just a few meters away from me?
I even wondered if I was losing my mind and had absentmindedly stuffed them in some pocket, so I turned my bag inside out—nothing. So I walked around the lounge in circles with the iPad, furiously tapping Play Sound.
Then I turned toward a corner, and the earbuds' sharp beeping really did start ringing. The sound was coming from an older man sitting there speaking Japanese.
I walked over and stopped dead in front of him with a death stare. The sound was surrounding him in stereo from his pants pocket. The guy's eyes darted around wildly—pretending to look at his phone, the ceiling, anything but meet my gaze. I couldn't be bothered to waste words on him. I stood at his table expressionless and kept furiously tapping play, the sound getting louder and louder, and people at nearby tables started turning to look. After nearly a minute of standoff, the guy's psychological defenses finally crumbled. Red-faced, he silently reached into his pocket and handed me the still-chirping AirPods, not daring to say a single word the whole time.
So it turns out they were never stuck in a crevice on the plane—he'd taken advantage of the chaos and pocketed them. The crew spent 20 minutes sweating and searching for me, while he probably just strolled off the plane with the stolen goods like nothing happened.
When it's time to get off the plane, everyone's crowding the aisle, and if your earbuds slip to the floor, they can easily get scooped up by someone passing by. It's best to tuck small valuables into your bag ahead of time rather than waiting until the seatbelt sign goes off to start looking for them.