iOS 17.4.1 AirDrop crash destroyed 93 photos and videos

I was on a cruise trip (without internet connection) with family and friends. We took a lot of photos and videos of precious moments with kids going to events on the Disney cruise. On the cruise, I took photos of friends and tried to airdrop the photos to my friend's phone. Airdrop stuck on "preparing". My previous experience told me to reboot the phone. The phone took longer than usual to reboot. Upon rebooting, I opened Photos to try AirDrop again - shocked to see the photos I tried to airdrop disappeared, alongside with all the photos and videos AFTER the photos being airdropped. I then took a fresh photo, and determined by the file name sequence that the phone destroyed 93 files (combination of photos and videos).

IMG_7675 - 4/9/2024 12:36pm

[...LOST FILES...]

IMG_7767 - 4/9/2024 5:39pm 

I contacted Apple Support via Chat, and then scheduled a call back. Escalated to a senior advisor, and was told "Apple has no way to recover the photos, due to the images are not backed up to iCloud or other devices", despite the acknowledgement of AirDrop crash caused the files being lost.

I have too many photos and videos, hence I backup using my own NAS. During the cruise, even if I had iCloud Photo, the phone did not have internet connection to run the back up. The files are gone by the time the internet is available.

The situation is very frustrating as the family photos and videos are lost and irreplaceable.

Model: iPhone 14 Pro Max.

iOS: 17.4.1