Thank you for the link. I was searching the TSA site for this last night, and couldn't come up with it. This should be required reading for anyone flying with a horn. Note that there is no reference to any "legal right" to be present during an inspection, but the tone of the document suggests that they expect you to be present.
Also, be aware that the TSA officers at any airport have to adapt their inspection routines to the constraints of the facilities in which they work. One of the regulars at my bar gig in Baltimore is a TSA section leader in the Southwest Airlines concourse of BWI airport. In an e-mail, I asked him whether or not someone could be with their tuba at an inspection. His reply...
my buddy in the TSA wrote:The answer is: It depends.
At some airports checked baggage is screened at the ticket counter, in full view, as soon as you check it in. (If memory serves me, Orlando is set up like that.) At other airports like BWI, checked baggage is screened downstairs, where it is sent after you check it in. In the former scenario, you would be there when it is screened, in the latter scenario you would not be there. In some special situations, our checked baggage people might need a passenger to be present when his/her bag is inspected in checked baggage, but that is very rare.
A tuba, however, should not have to be "inspected" in the sense that someone would want to open the case and handle it. All checked baggage is x-rayed by very sophisticated machines, and much of the process is automated. Musical instruments are surprisingly common, and there would be no need to open and inspect a tuba, or other similar instrument, unless something else was in the case that caught the x-ray operator's attention and required inspection.
Regarding the handling of peoples' property: We do that all day long, and are very careful for the most part. Now, I will not defend the airline baggage handlers, who do indeed toss luggage onto the belts with no regard for how it lands. But TSA personnel handle passengers' property very carefully.
Obviously, if you ask for a TSA inspection at the check-in counter, where there is no x-ray equipment, a visual inspection is the only alternative, and the horn will get handled by TSA at that point. I have not asked to be present at the TSA inspection at BWI. If I did, I'm certain the TSA officer would have to come up from the inspection area to the counter, as passengers are not allowed into the baggage loading area. If this is your situation, be prepared to wait. I've not flown through Orlando with a tuba, but I have flown through San Francisco a bunch, and the terminal at SFO I usually get has a separate inspection point for oversize checked baggage. There is no x-ray at that station at SFO, inspections are visual only.
The last time I went through the SFO inspection point, the guy handled my horn very carefully, and this dude was NFL-sized and lifted my hard case over three dog kennels like it was a shoebox. With those three angry mutts waiting for his attention, he was happy to look at a harmless instrument. The time before that, the TSA officer knew it was a tuba on first sight without looking or asking. Turns out he had a nephew who was a percussion major at Julliard. In both instances, the case was opened, the mouthpiece box was searched, but the horn was not removed from it's place.
Since my horn/case combination comes awfully close to the 50 lb. limit enforced by most airlines, I don't put extra stuff in the case as many of us would wish to do. That probably spares my horn from being opened for visual inspections at BWI. I often get the TSA inspection notices in my suitcase, which routinely carries my folding music stand. Let's face it, a folded stand can't look too promising on an x-ray readout. I usually pack that right on top, in front, for easy access.
I'll ask my buddy more about this when we play up in Baltimore next week. Much of his actual procedural routine applies only to his station at BWI, but he knows the regs inside and out.
