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Lost items at the airport can sometimes be found

BY JANE ENGLE | Los Angeles Times

July 13, 2008

Jeffrey R. Neuman had flown halfway to Chicago when he glanced at his wrist and "got a sinking feeling." His vintage Cartier watch, which his wife gave him two decades ago, was missing. Panicked, the marketing executive asked his wife to call lost-and-found at Los Angeles International Airport. She called the Transportation Security Administration.

"I knew it wouldn't be at the TSA," Neuman said.

He was wrong. He had left the watch at a security checkpoint, and TSA staff offered to express-mail it to him.

Like Neuman, thousands of passengers leave behind treasures at airport security checkpoints every year. Also like him, many assume their stuff has been stolen or is gone forever. They might be wrong, too.

The TSA and Los Angeles airport police maintain lost-and-found departments that hold hundreds of items left by harried fliers at checkpoints, terminals, washrooms and other public areas. They try to reunite what they find with the owners. With staffs in single digits, "try" is the operative word.

"We do what we can," said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the TSA, which has a five-person lost-and-found department for LAX. "We don't have the manpower to call on all these." But officials say they make a mighty effort.

TSA employees said they had traced owners of keys by phoning stores listed on attached magnetic-stripe tags; contacted owners of driver's licenses through social-networking Web sites; and tracked down cell-phone owners by dialing the last number on the call log and asking, "Do you know this person?" Los Angeles World Airport Police recently returned a Rolex watch to its owner after taking it apart, getting the serial number and contacting the manufacturer to trace the sale, said Sgt. Jim Holcomb, a spokesman.

The top five items left elsewhere in the airport: cell phones, luggage, assorted electronics such as cameras and DVD players, laptop computers and clothing, Holcomb said.

Less commonly, the TSA has retrieved false teeth, funeral urns with ashes and a $350,000 bag of jewelry that was never claimed.

The agency holds most items for 30 days and then arranges to have unclaimed ones donated to government bodies, such as schools, and unusable ones destroyed, Melendez said. Unclaimed cash, he added, eventually helps fund the TSA.

And yes, theft happens. Nationwide, the TSA has fired about 250 officers (out of about 115,000 employed during the past six years) accused of theft, Melendez said.

Here's how to reduce chances of losing your stuff at the airport and increase chances of recovering it:

Carry on valuables. Most thefts by TSA staff involve checked bags, Melendez said. For every TSA employee who handles a bag, seven to 10 airline or contract employees also might handle it, he added.

Mark everything with a phone number and an e-mail address. Tape a business card to your laptop.

Consolidate items. Melendez said he puts his keys and cell phone in his laptop case before going through security.

Know whom to contact. Each airport might work differently. If you thought the loss happened at a security checkpoint, you would call the TSA. (For more information, visit tsa.gov.) If you think you left your item somewhere other than a TSA checkpoint, contact your airline or the airport police's lost and found.