‘Gonna intercept ur ass’: NSF’s 3-hour search across S’pore for missing AirPods goes viral
When 22-year-old NSF Ethan Chia realised his missing AirPods Pro 3 had somehow ended up in Jurong Point, he was not about to spend money on replacing them.
Instead, he embarked on a three-hour cross-island mission to track them down himself — documenting the entire journey in a series of four TikTok videos that have since racked up more than 507,900 views in total.
Chia told Stomp he lost his AirPods Pro case on June 5, either at a gym in Beauty World or at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
The following day, he tried locating the missing item using Apple’s Find My feature.
“When I checked at about noon, it was at Jurong Point,” he said.
“I was like, why was it even there? Did someone sell it or something?”
Having bought the AirPods just a month earlier using money from his National Service allowance, Chia was unwilling to replace them.
“I checked how much a replacement would cost and saw it was $139 for the case. I was annoyed and pissed.”
Following the digital trail
Despite living in Serangoon, Chia immediately set off to pursue his AirPods.
Using the Find My feature, he tracked the device from Jurong Point to Toa Payoh.
He then used Google’s Gemini AI tool to analyse the movement pattern and “deduced” that the AirPods were likely travelling on bus service 157, which operates between Boon Lay Interchange and Toa Payoh Interchange.
At Toa Payoh Interchange, Chia spent more than 30 minutes searching for the AirPods before noticing that they had moved again.
Looking at the route history, he theorised that whoever had possession of the AirPods was heading back towards Jurong.
Thus, he decided to “intercept” the bus. “I took the MRT first but couldn’t make it in time,” he said.
“I then took a TADA and used the live location from Find My together with the Singabus app to figure out where the bus was.”
When he finally boarded the bus, Chia began using the Find My feature to pinpoint the AirPods’ location.
“I managed to locate it beside a guy,” he said.
Chia believes the AirPods may have been discarded after he repeatedly triggered the device’s pinging sound.
“I suspect he tossed it aside after hearing the ringing.”
However, the NSF acknowledged that he could not be certain what had happened.
After retrieving the AirPods, he spoke to the bus captain and later checked with staff at Boon Lay Interchange whether the bus had changed service numbers in recent days and was told it had not.
“The probability is either the guy near my AirPods took it and tossed it aside when I boarded and rang it, or someone else took it and later dropped it on the bus,” he said.
Mixed reactions online
In his latest TikTok video, captioned “gonna intercept ur ass”, the 22-year-old documented the final leg of the recovery of his AirPods.
Many commenters praised his determination and detective work.
“This would be a great AirPod ad,” wrote one TikTok user.
“When (Singapore’s) bus service is efficient enough to do this 😂 very smart of you to make use of it ! Genius! Glad you got it back,” said another commenter.
One other commenter, however, criticised the remark Chia made about how the male commuter near his AirPods was “autistic looking”.
The commenter said, “Not a good enough reason to misuse actual conditions, (already) 2026 let’s do better.”
Speaking with Stomp, Chia said, “I didn’t confront the guy sitting right at my Airpods as he looked a bit — really not trying to be offensive — intellectually disabled.”
The NSF ultimately decided against making a police report or pursuing the matter further.
“After all, I managed to retrieve (the AirPods),” he said.
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