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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nA California woman was left heartbroken after her carry-on backpack containing nearly $40,000 worth of heirloom jewelry disappeared during a Southwest Airlines flight to the Bay Area in mid-August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie Arrues said she was traveling to attend her niece’s wedding in Hawaii when the theft occurred on a connecting flight that landed in Oakland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What she lost goes far beyond monetary value \u2014 the stolen jewelry included irreplaceable family heirlooms from her deceased loved ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was bawling. I felt violated. Someone had taken a piece of me,” Arrues said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incident began when Arrues, who was recovering from an arm injury, asked a flight attendant to help place her black backpack in the overhead bin after boarding the Southwest flight. She had secured a first-row seat but was told there was no room for her bag in the nearby bins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s a valuable bag. I’d rather not be separated,” Arrues said she told the flight attendant, who responded that “it will be fine” and motioned to bins about seven rows away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite her concerns, Arrues’ backpack ended up in a distant overhead bin. Arrues said she once again voiced her reservations, yelling out her concerns to the flight attendant at the front of the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the flight landed in Oakland and she looked at the open bin, her worst fears were realized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I don’t see my bag, and something inside me fell in my stomach,” Arrues said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said she raced off the plane, scanning all the deplaning passengers, but her bag was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI knew my bag is gone,” Arrues said, describing how she felt as the last passenger left the aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An airline employee searched the plane and found a similar-looking backpack filled with men’s toiletries and some car keys. More than a month later, that backpack remains unclaimed, suggesting a not-so-accidental swap occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stolen jewelry included approximately 10 pieces, most of them family heirlooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the missing items was a diamond necklace from her deceased grandmother and a diamond pendant from her sister, who also passed away. One piece featured “18 to 20 diamonds around a heart,” Arrues said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arrues filed a police report with the Alameda County Sheriff\u2019s Office and submitted two complaints to Southwest Airlines. The airline responded with an email stating the lost item couldn’t be located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m never going to see my jewelry again,” a tearful Arrues said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, she’s sharing her story to help protect other travelers from similar losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Don’t separate. Put it at your feet, directly above your head. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Arrues said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also wishes she had put a baggage tag on her backpack and placed an AirTag inside it for tracking purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Southwest Airlines spokesperson issued this statement: “The customer filed a lost item report the following day, but the bag did not turn up. Southwest does not track personal carry-on items, so any reported theft would most appropriately be investigated by police.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Don’t separate. Put it at your feet, directly above your head. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.” A California woman was left<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/557602079_1358928585832601_6781517283754662687_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1678,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions\/1678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}