News Digest

Find My iPhone, find me: App guides rescuers to woman trapped in ravine

A driver who crashed into a remote ravine and was left stranded for 17 hours was discovered after police used the Find My iPhone app to pinpoint her smartphone’s location. Melissa Vasquez, 28, lost control of her car in San Jose, California, and tumbled more than 150 metres down a steep slope. Her car’s on-board safety system OnStar sent an alert message to the emergency services, but its GPS feature could not pinpoint her location.

We are currently conducting a complete investigation, including information we have received from our call centres, our cellular network provider, our engineering team…

OnStar spokesman

Police officer Dave Cameron asked her family if she had an iPad with the device-tracking app on it. Her stepmother handed him the iPad, and he tried just four common password combinations before cracking it. Then using the feature - which allows a user to remotely track down their phone if they lose it - he pinpointed her location and sent it to his team. A Coast Guard helicopter was sent to the scene and airlifted Ms Vasquez to hospital. She had suffered injuries to her legs and abdomen. A spokesman for OnStar said it was looking into why the GPS location was not sent to emergency services by its software. He said: “We are saddened by this incident involving one of our subscribers. Our subscribers’ safety and security is OnStar’s utmost concern.”