ST. LOUIS — Ben Frank is a Florida physician. He was traveling on Frontier Airlines from Denver to St. Louis last week and was alarmed to find a locked case with his firearm inside.
“I think it’s something that really needs to be addressed,” Frank said.
He said the firearm was properly checked at the airport in Denver. When Frank arrived in St. Louis, he went to the area designated for retrieving a checked firearm. The gun was not there.
Frank eventually discovered the locked case carrying his firearm on a carousel in the general baggage claim area at the airport. He said, “There was no safeguard that anyone could have come and picked it up.”
FOX 2 reached out to Frontier Airlines Monday. We are awaiting a response addressing how the firearm ended up where it did.
When we asked airport officials about security in the general baggage claim area, an airport spokesperson said closed-circuit security cameras are monitored.
Frank believes that with all the scrutiny that goes into checking a firearm when departing from an airport, more should be done to ensure it ends up in the hands of its rightful owner when they land.
“I think there needs to be a better procedure,” he said.
A TSA spokesperson told us the agency handles security in situations where a firearm is not properly packed, but it’s individual airlines that handle the transport of a checked firearm.
Frank believes more needs to be done to ensure checked firearms do not end up in the wrong place. For more information about traveling with firearms, visit TSA.gov.
