[Biro]

I hate it when this happens...

http://bokeh.digitalrev.com/article/photographer-loses-usd20-000-worth-of-eq...-drops-luggage

[stevebrot]

This is a sticky one. A good rule of practice is to never check your gear unless it is packaged for potential abuse (no a Pelican or Halliburton case is not enough). A second rule is to never make assumptions about acceptable carry-on luggage size*. A third and very important rule is to insure your gear and have back-up kit. The case failure (the immediate cause of the damage) could very well have happened somewhere other than on the tarmac. It is ironic and sad that Mr. Shidler could have avoided this mess by using a less sophisticated, but more compact carry-on solution.


Steve

* This is particularly true with international flights. Some airlines (Air France in particular) are very restrictive on size.

[D1N0]

However well you package your gear, baggage handlers will do their best to break it.

[btnapa]

This is a sticky one. A good rule of practice is to never check your gear unless it is packaged for potential abuse (no a Pelican or Halliburton case is not enough). A second rule is to never make assumptions about acceptable carry-on luggage size*. A third and very important rule is to insure your gear and have back-up kit. The case failure (the immediate cause of the damage) could very well have happened somewhere other than on the tarmac. It is ironic and sad that Mr. Shidler could have avoided this mess by using a less sophisticated, but more compact carry-on solution.


Steve

* This is particularly true with international flights. Some airlines (Air France in particular) are very restrictive on size.

I NEVER check-in any camera gear. I have heard too many horror stories about things magically disappearing when they go done below to the luggage area. Pelican 1550 was my carry on luggage of choice until I got my Vanguard rolling backpack.

In a half a dozen recent travels instance, the only time I had trouble was on a United flight. The flight attendant gave me trouble and insisted that she had to send my camera bag down below. I refused and we got into a standoff. It was the worst flight experience ever. What saved the day was one of her coworkers coming to the rescue.

The bag is a little thick when all the gear is inside. It will not fit the little measurement frame they have when you go through security. Despite the thickness, it fits perfectly in the overhead bin.

I am pins-n-needles every time I have to fly. Flying is not fun anymore. I wish there was an alternative but unfortunately there isn't any other way to cover thousands of miles in a reasonable time.

[LaurenOE]

I fly professionally, all the time.
I check photo gear, all the time.

I have a shoot in Chicago Monday, the UK the following week, as an example, I'm not hypothetical in my opinion.
Direct flights are your friend, as there is less "handling" of your baggage.
Cheaper multiple stops can be the death of your gear.

I use my two carry on pieces to carry the most expensive gear and my fail safe gear.
I do not rely on Pelican or hard cases for most of my gear - my drone and slider cases, and my lighting cases being the exception.

Why?

As soon as TSA goes through those hard cases, often, they do not know how to close the non-standard clasps that are different across hard case manufacturers.
Believe it or not, the time it takes to close some of the clasps seems to be too much trouble for many security folks.
I use TSA cable locks as an additional step to try and assure things get put back together.

I am NEVER 100% sure my hard cases are going to come out alive - even though they are "tougher" than the soft cases I use.

I hate to say it, but the TSA and security folks understand how zippers work, and all of my Think Tank Logistic managers are always closed on arrival.

From a practical flying perspective, in my opinion, Think Tank cases, because they are "soft" and are like luggage, tend to go through the system better than hard cases which have their own size and shape and are often a target for mishandling.
When a Pelican case goes by, people instinctively want to see "What is so expensive that it has to be in one of those".

Photo gear that looks like luggage, is under the radar and is as protected.

https://www.thinktankphoto.com/

https://www.thinktankphoto.com/pages/rolling-cases

https://www.thinktankphoto.com/collections/manager-series/products/logistics-manager-30

[btnapa]

TSA steals stuff all the time. Perversely, one of the best ways to protect it is to pack an unloaded and declared handgun with it and lock it, since by law TSA agents are not allowed to unlock or open cases containing firearms. Obviously this is a bit harder to do on international than domestic flights.

Thanks for the tip. I did know that. Although by law they are not supposed to take anything anyway!

Unfortunately, a Pelican or similar protective bag or case screams, I have something worth protecting inside. And usually that something is expensive. What a cat-n-mouse game we have to play just to get from point A to point B to get our job done.

[osv]

camera bodies with lenses broken off at the mount can't happen when it's properly packed and secured in one of those hard cases.

it sounds to me like some jackass just opened the case and tossed everything out onto the tarmac.

years ago i boated out to the channel islands to shoot some giant surf... i packed $4k worth of gear in a case, strapped it tight, then got caught in 6ft shore pound that scattered everything across the beach, it looked like a yard sale in the middle of nowhere, lol

but the case never opened up, it never leaked, i was able to do the shoot with no problems.

[monochrome]

There is something seriously wrong with a system that obligates a passenger to employ Game Theory choosing luggage so as to keep the government from screwing up his gear while performing their Kabuki Theater security 'checks'.

Private Charter looks better every day.

[Davidparis]

This is a sticky one. A good rule of practice is to never check your gear unless it is packaged for potential abuse (no a Pelican or Halliburton case is not enough). A second rule is to never make assumptions about acceptable carry-on luggage size*. A third and very important rule is to insure your gear and have back-up kit. The case failure (the immediate cause of the damage) could very well have happened somewhere other than on the tarmac. It is ironic and sad that Mr. Shidler could have avoided this mess by using a less sophisticated, but more compact carry-on solution.


Steve

* This is particularly true with international flights. Some airlines (Air France in particular) are very restrictive on size.

AF is no more stringent than any other airline. There are international norms concerning overhead compartiment sizes per a/c type and according to your ticket class (for the number and weight of carry-ons). If a bag is sold as having the proper dimensions for carry-on, it will fit, especially so on long-haul wide-body a/c. AF is exactly like the others.

[chuck_c]

I had a similar incident with this same carrier (American Airlines), but fortunately with not the disastrous ending that this poor guy experienced, but still scary enough.

Last October I flew to New York City to attend the Photo Plus Expo. In anticipation of that I purchased the Think Tank Airport Roller Derby, already planning ahead for not checking any bag. I am a light packer so I figured for this short trip (fly out Wednesday afternoon, fly back Sunday afternoon) I could get whatever clothes and gear that I wanted into this one bag, thinking "keep my gear with me and no checked luggage". I packed a small kit, two K-3's, the 15, 31 and 77 Ltd's, the D FA 100/2.8 WR and the HD DA 1.4x TC. I packed the clean socks and underwear, three clean shirts and one extra pair of pants to act like packing, just to be on the safe side.

Well it's a good thing that I did. As we walk down the ramp up to the airplane door a flight attendant, standing just outside the door, is telling everyone that there will be no carry-ons permitted on this flight, and to just leave them there right by the door, and they will be put down a ramp, right there by a door opposite the one where she was standing, and sent down a belt ramp and placed onto another belt ramp up into the airplanes cargo compartment, inside a door at the rear of the plane. And, that this same process would be repeated, in reverse, at the other end of the flight. I tried to remain calm, as I told her that that little roller bag contained roughly $6K worth of photo gear, and that the bag had been purchased specifically to avoid just this scenario. Needless to say, she claimed that it was beyond her control and there was nothing that she could do change the directive.Luckily, everything survived the ordeal. But the possibility of damage weighed heavily on my mind the entire flight there, and I was already thinking ahead as to how I was going to deal with this, as it would likely be the same flying back.

As it turned out, part of the swag package that came with the PPE floor pass upgrade, included a small camera bag that was just the right size to fit my gear and small enough for me to carry on the flight back home. Which was a good thing because they pulled the same crap on the return flight.

There is one last episode that needs to be included here. Especially since I was reassured, by the flight attendant, that my gear would be "just fine" since it was only going from the front, to the rear of the plane, right there on the tarmac in plain sight. I arrived early at the airport for my return flight. I went to a food court to grab a snack while I waited for my departure time. As fate would have it, the food court that I was sitting in had a clear view of the gates from which my "American Airline's" flight would be departing from. As I am sitting there, I am watching the very same process through which my bag had gone, and would soon again be going through, right before my eyes. Well it couldn't have been more than about 20 minutes into it and sure enough, as I am watching a handler from inside the airplane cargo door, tossing bags onto the downward moving, sloped ramp, there goes, flying onto the tarmac, about a 10-12 foot drop, a black roller bag resembling the very one which, right at that time, I had sitting next me.

Suffice it to say, that will be my last American Airlines flight EVER. And if I am going to travel anywhere, at least domestically, I will consider driving first and leave flying as a last resort.

[yucafrita]

Reminds of "United breaks guitars"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars