United Airlines flyer's film gear goes missing from checked bags

@errolwebberus/Instagram

A United Airlines flyer is fighting a missing items claim after his filming equipment suspiciously went missing from his checked luggage.

Luckily, the traveller — documentary filmmaker Errol Webber — had recently bought a four-pack of Apple AirTags and lodged them in his items instead of throwing them in his bags willy-nilly.

Webber took a United Airlines plane from Anchorage to Denver on the night of October 29. The next morning, he travelled to Burbank from Denver via the same carrier.

The award-winning filmmaker was travelling with a lot of filming equipment, including lights, cameras, and tripods. His flight and airport experience was uneventful, and he managed to get home with all his bags.

Upon arriving home, he noticed that some of his luggage had been unzipped and didn’t think anything of it. But a scary surprise was in store for him just in time for Halloween.

Hey @united, one of your employees at Anchorage Airport rummaged through my luggage and took some film equipment home with them. They inadvertently took my Apple AirTag that I had hidden.

Can you tell your employee who lives at: 210 Clover Hollow Court to give me my stuff back? pic.twitter.com/duwDAm0Igi

— Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) November 1, 2022

On November 1, while the filmmaker was preparing his camera gear for an event in LA, he noticed that he couldn’t find some of his equipment. Webber was certain he had packed his light stands, tripods, and other smaller filming essentials in a long bag.

Then he remembered that he had used Apple AirTags on his items, which could help him solve the mystery.

Apple AirTags have shot up in popularity recently as flyers around the world have been using them to track their checked baggage amid airport chaos.

Puzzled, Webber looked at the location of the AirTags via his iPhone, and it turned out that one of the four AirTags was still in Alaska. It had been embedded in one of the items that were taken out of the bag.

Then it clicked! After which, I pulled out my phone and started tracking my luggage, and sure enough, the Find My app on my phone told me that one of my four AirTags was still in Alaska, embedded in one of the items that was taken out of my bag. pic.twitter.com/S1Sea1UrHo

— Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) November 2, 2022

“I ran a Google Street View search for the address on my computer, and it was a residential address many miles from the airport,” Webber revealed in a long Twitter thread detailing the incident.

“I connected the dots. All my small electronics with a battery was taken out of my luggage. But none of them were Lithium batteries; they were all NiMH rechargeables, so what gives?”

It looked like baggage handlers who scanned the items helped themselves to some cool camera equipment.

Webber reached out to United Airlines, who told him to file a missing items claim.

“They apologized and assured me that, while they’ve already begun looking into it, if they find that it was a United employee, they would be held accountable.”

After a few hours of studying the matter, United Airlines’ customer care team confirmed that the address did not match any of their employees’ addresses in the Anchorage area.

The filmmaker suspects a TSA baggage handler could be behind the theft, or perhaps the address was slightly off, but further investigation is underway.

Webber maintains that his correspondence with United Airlines was smooth and satisfactory. He is, however, seeking reimbursement.

“The items taken are worth just a couple hundred dollars. It costs more money in my time and productivity to pursue these items,” he said.

It certainly helped that Webber has over 200,000 followers on Twitter, where he first complained about the missing items, tagging United Airlines. Now, he’s urging flyers to buy trackers in case something similar happens to others, so they aren’t left in limbo wondering what happened to their stuff.

“I think it’s important for everyone to make the small investment NOW into tracking their belongings,” he said. “AirTags make great stocking-stuffers!”

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