I think it would be, and thrown in the water just to make sure it is useless.
I havent heard anything from my contacts about it ever being found.
It's possible with an iPhone, to just remove the sim card. That's a whole lot easier to dispose of than the phone itself, IMO. For all we know, one of the BC family could be using the phone right now. I know it's possible to obtain data from the ISP though. I'm hoping he wasn't that smart and the the QPS have the phone (and sim card.)