NextTrip

There is absolutely no excuse for TSA destroying your property. You should be compensated for the tubes.

I don't know if you are aware that at most airports, checked baggage is not x-rayed in the same manner as carry-on bags. An automated inline screening system is entirely different than what you see at the checkpoint. It is possible that the tubes were either too long or too light to go through the system as a typical checked bag would and required a visual/manual inspection. I suggest you carry it on next time. It can easily go through the checkpoint x-ray machines and fit in an overhead bin once you are on the plane. If the gate agent thinks the tube is too big, it can be gate checked and picked up at the other end.

MisterTanaka

Good luck. When I complained to TSA a couple years ago about my TSA-approved lock disappearing from my suitcase, whoever was answering my emails told me that they had "reviewed the video footage" and that the TSA had "replaced the lock" after inspecting my luggage. Yeah, right. They then blamed it on the airline.

WillCAD

So, essentially, TSA is saying that someone at the airline has somehow gotten hold of a set of TSA luggage lock keys, opened the lock after the TSA inspector replaced it, and left it inside the bag - all without actually stealing anything?

And they are not pursuing this horrendous violation of aviation security?

Sweet. Send that one to the offices of Congressmen Mica and Chaffetz; I'm sure they'd love to bring it up next time they grill a TSAbot for re-election publicity.

eyecue

There are a several factors in this scenario. The object technically is OVERSIZE and therefore is subject to physical inspection, or the object is too light or unstable to be checked with EDS. Therefore it ends up being hand inspected.
That process dictates that it needs to be opened. You should get a NOTICE OF INSPECTION in the tube. It may be time stamped. That gives the ability to look at it on camera and see who inspected it, then you have recourse to make a claim for damage or loss. I cannot see the need to cut the end off the tube. Nor can I explain why the end cap on one was not tightened properly. File the claim and see what happens. You have nothing to lose.

eyecue

That is a stretch, those keys are inventoried at the beginning and the end of each shift, so that would be 6 times a day.

chollie

That's true at your airport now, but it most certainly isn't true at all airports. Other 'good apple' TSOs have posted about key problems in the past.

Besides, if I work baggage screening and I report a key 'lost' to my supervisor, how is he/she going to prove otherwise? Busy day, lots of bag checks, sometimes items even get returned to the wrong bag (I've gotten someone else's items in my bag), locks don't get put back on the right bag - it's easy to see how a little key really could get 'lost' - or deliberately kept and passed on to a crooked baggage handler.

WillCAD

Which means that, if something is missing from a bag that is not damaged and has a TSA lock on it - then a TSO with access to those keys must be the thief.

Either that, or TSA has lost one of those keys.

Of course, in MisterTanaka's case, the lock was simply gone, which means that someone either opened the lock with a key or cut it off. TSA says it was done AFTER the TSO replaced the lock, which means that a luggage thief took the risk of opening a bag - either by opening it with a key or by cutting it off - and then stole nothing. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Same thing happened to me a few years ago; when I arrived at my destination, my lock was just gone. No notice of inspection in the bag, nothing missing from the bag, no damage to the bag, just a missing lock.