Does find my iPhone still work if I transfer my number to another device? My phone is currently trapped under a collapsed building. It is showing up on find my iPhone so it's still alive! I ordered a new phone as I don't know when or if they can recover it. If I activate the new phone with my old number, will I lose the ability to track my old phone? I'd like to keep watching it to see if it continues to survive.
If you transfer the number to a new cellular data plan, and the phone is not connected to a wifi hotspot, your phone won't be able to report current GPS coordinates to Apple's Find My Phone servers. In short, I think the answer is no, but as @HLLB pointed out, your phone's battery will probably die before the phone number port is completed, so better get to digging!