Seemingly every year, the Transportation Security Administration announces that there’s a new record for guns seized at airport checkpoints and berates air travelers for not following the rules. A U.S. Army veteran and her husband followed said rules to the absolute letter however and still had a problem; their handguns went missing at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday, presumably stolen.
Chelsey Simoni and her husband were flying home to Boston Logan International Airport with Delta Air Lines after assisting the recovery efforts in western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene. Simoni, who has traveled often with firearms, had her handgun locked inside a case alongside checked baggage. When she and her husband arrived in Boston, they found the cases but the locks were missing and both their handguns were gone, according to WBTV.
The Massachusetts State Police told Simoni that the weapons were removed from the cases in Charlotte before the cases were put on the planes. Charlotte-area police, the TSA and Delta are investigating the incident. The customized handguns are valued at around $4,000, but Simoni is more concerned about the potential harm. She told WBTV:
I’m not so frustrated for the fact I’m going to lose $4,000 or so odd dollars. I’m more frustrated for the fact peoples’ lives are at stake because we have someone who A, we don’t know who it is, and B, has two firearms they can do whatever they like with. That’s what I’m frustrated about.
Baggage being stolen isn’t a rare occurrence for air travelers. A Spirit Airlines passenger tracked down her missing bags earlier this year using an Apple Watch’s Find My Device function. The watch was inside a bag and it led her to the home of someone who worked at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where she landed. Apple is currently preparing an update to allow passengers to more easily share AirTag and other device locations with airlines.