US woman left AirPods on plane, tracked them at airport worker’s home: Report

San Francisco, March 26

A woman in the US has tracked down her lost Apple AirPods to an airport worker's home two weeks after she left them on a plane, a media report said.

Earlier this month, Alisabeth Hayden, who lives in Washington state, was on her way back from a trip to Tokyo to visit her husband in Seattle was separated from her AirPods during the layover from a plane in San Francisco, reports CNN.

At San Francisco International Airport, she realised she had left her jacket behind, with the AirPods in its pocket.

Hayden inquired about retrieving it, but a flight attendant informed her that only a crew member could do so.

The attendant did indeed bring the jacket to her -- and she boarded her next flight to Seattle, according to the report.

"A child was screaming next to me, and I thought at least I have my AirPods,'" Hayden was quoted as saying.

She then reached for her jacket pocket and found that the pocket was open and the Airpods were not there.

Hayden utilised in-flight Wi-Fi to monitor the earphones using the "Find My" app, which tracks Apple devices, after the plane had already taken off to Seattle.

She then realised that the AirPods 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," Hayden said.

The headphones ultimately stopped moving at an address in the Bay Area in the US.

Hayden marked her headphones as "lost" on her app, pinging an alert and her number to the person who had them.

Moreover, the report said that she enlisted the help of a detective at the San Mateo police force who was working at San Francisco Airport.

The detective traced the address from where the AirPods were pinging to an airport contractor who was loading food onto planes.

When questioned by authorities, the airport worker stated that the headphones were given to him by a cleaner, who denied knowing anything about the scenario, the report mentioned.

When the AirPods were returned to Hayden 12 days later, she remarked they looked trodden on.

She stated that after complaining about the condition of the headphones, United Airlines (which she was flying) handed her $271 and 5,000 air miles.

United Airlines verified that the employee was hired by a vendor rather than the airline.

--IANS