Stuck Bag American Airlines Drama At D/FW Airport

Miss Puerto Rico's return to Texas was a bit bumpy. In San Juan, American Airlines insisted she check in the bag that she had carried on in Dallas.

Miss Puerto Rico had resolved to never check in a bag with American Airlines again after they lost a bag filled with all sorts of goodies and despite multiple filings of claims for restitution, American Airlines did not make good on their mistake.

I knew Miss PR's plane was late. When she landed she called me. I was barely on my way and was surprised she was on the ground. She told me, no problem, we are stuck on the tarmac til a gate opens.

The traffic jamming was terrible on the way to the airport. I was sure I'd be late, even though Miss PR was stuck on the tarmac,

I arrived at the terminal. D. The new International Terminal. I called. Miss PR was off the plane and waiting at Baggage Claim D16. This is when I learned she had been forced to check in a bag with the notoriously incompetent American Airlines baggage handlers.

I got to Baggage Claim D16 to see the bizarre sight of a guy standing on the moving baggage carousel, yanking on what looked like a briefcase stuck in the baggage conveyor belt.

Multiple attempts were made to get the Emergency Shut Off button to turn off the conveyor belt. But it would not stop.

Eventually someone somewhere was able to stop the thing.

Various people tried to pull the stuck bag loose. To no avail.

After about a half an hour the woman you see in the picture, above, took off her stiletto heels and climbed up on the carousel to try and extract the stuck bag. She was on the phone at the time. She had some connection to American Airlines and was making all sorts of phone calls to all sorts of people to get someone to come fix this.

Eventually a guy showed up with tools. There was a lot of secret agent type communication between the guy with tools and someone in control of the conveyor belt about reversing the motor to reverse the conveyor belt and free the briefcase.

After what seemed like a really long time the conveyor belt reversed, to no avail. It's resistance detection shutdown feature worked.

So, then the guy with the tools used a jackknife, which none of the fliers had, due to those, you know, flight safety rules to combat terrorism, to free the briefcase.

Then he told the guy on the other end of his secret agent communicator to put the conveyor belt back in forward mode.

Soon the baggage moving sound was heard, lights flashed and the conveyor belt and carousel were moving again. There was some cheering and applause

Miss Puerto Rico's unwillingly checked in piece of luggage was 3rd to arrive.

A happy ending to a very weird visit to D/FW Airport.

Now, to be clear, I do not believe this bizarre incident was an American Airlines problem. It was a D/FW Airport problem.

Why did the Emergency Shut-off not work? Why was the design of the conveyor belt such that something could slip through and jam up the conveyor belt? Why was the conveyor belt not designed in a way that if something did get stuck that it could easily be released, by, I don't know, maybe pulling a lever and creating a gap between the belt and the chunk of metal that the briefcase got stuck in.

Anyway, yet one more Airport Adventure courtesy of Miss Puerto Rico. And due to all this aggravation it cost 2 bucks instead of 1 to escape the airport, due to being detained through no fault of our own. Outrageous. I want my dollar back.