Musicians Face Tougher Airport Security

Increasingly Forced To Leave Instruments, Many Of Which Are Centuries Old, At Mercy Of Bagage Handlers

(CBS)  For four decades, wherever jazz trumpeter Valery Ponomarev flew, his rare 1961 Constellation trumpet flew with him ... as carry-on luggage.

"This is the prized possession of Valery Pomonarev," says Pomonarev as he points to his trumpet.

So prized, reports CBS News correspondent Trish Regan, that when screeners at a Paris airport told him he needed to check his trumpet as cargo before boarding a plane home to New York City recently, he refused.

"For me or any musician to put an instrument under, it's the same like for a mother to put her baby into luggage compartment," says Ponomarev.

Unfortunately, for Valery, those feelings were not shared by the French police.

"They just smashed me against the wall like that and ripping away the horn from me," adds Ponomarev. "Imagine this, four big guys, one of them lines up my arm behind me like that and breaks it, just like that."

Musicians like Valery are getting caught in the cross hairs of increased security. They need to get to their concerts but they can't bear the idea of leaving their instruments, many of which are centuries old and often worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, at the mercy of baggage handlers.

"That's not how you take care of works of art and these are all works of art, useable works of art," says Krista Bennion Feeney.

Krista Feeney practices her art on a 230 year old, handmade Italian violin. Rather than risk checking instruments, she and her fellow musicians with St. Luke's Orchestra in New York cancelled a European tour this fall, amid a heightened security alert.

The Transportation Security Administration does say instruments are permitted as carry-ons, but the final decision on whether an instrument will wind up in the cargo hold or under a seat is up to the individual flight crews.

As for Valery, a metal plate now holds the bones in his arm together and he's beginning to play again. But his travel nightmare was not over. When he finally boarded his flight to New York, French authorities insisted that his prized possession come home…as cargo.

One last sour note to end the worst gig of his life.