Hi AppleTvHelp480,
It sounds like you've done some incredible troubleshooting trying to remove the AirPods from your iPhone. It's possible Find My and/or other devices is preserving the AirPods connection and syncing it back to your device.
First, if you have additional Apple devices that use the same iCloud account with Find My capabilities (e.g. other iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac devices or computers), gather those and power everything down except your iPhone. Then follow these steps in this order (on your iPhone) to see if you can get the AirPods to disappear permanently.
- Unpair the AirPods from Settings > Bluetooth > tap the info (i) button next to the name of the AirPods > Forget this device.
- Remove the AirPods from the Find My app again.
- Disable Find My on your iPhone at Settings > [your Apple ID] > Find My > Find My iPhone. This may temporarily remove other accessories from Find My, so you'll want to make sure any accessories like AirTags are nearby in case you need to pair them again.
- Restart your iPhone.
- Enable Find My again using the same path we outlined in #3.
Do the AirPods return? If they do, you may need to reach out to the Apple Store that you visited to see if they can locate and reset the AirPods for you.
We hope this helps.
Kindest Regards.