Flushing Bride Gets A Gem Of An Assist Thanks To TSA Hero At JFK

QUEENS, NY — A Flushing bride’s honeymoon that got off to a nightmarish start turned out to have a happy ending — all thanks to a Transportation Security Administration agent at JFK Airport who proved that diamonds just may be a girl’s best friend.

John Killian is credited with locating the missing diamond, which had somehow managed to fall from the engagement ring of Madison Durrani. The local woman was was on her way to Guam with her husband for the couple's honeymoon, which had been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

After Amir Khan Durrani and his bride had rushed through the TSA checkpoint at Terminal 7 at JFK, they decided to stop for coffee, TSA officials said. It was then when Madison Durrani realized that the diamond from her ring had mysteriously disappeared.

The blushing bride quickly burst into hysteric tears, her husband wrote in an email to TSA officials, adding that the couple had no idea where the diamond could have disappeared. The couple returned to the checkpoint, where a frantic search began among TSA officials and bystanders hoping to bring some peace to the couple.

"I told them that I knew this was not their job” to help find a lost diamond, although “everyone present helped look for the diamond to no avail,” the groom wrote in the email to TSA officials.

Unwilling to miss their flight, the Durranis arrived in Guam and were greeted by a voicemail message that indicated that the search back at JFK may have turned up a positive match for the missing diamond. The couple immediately sent a photo of the stone back to TSA officials, who were able to determine that Killian had indeed found the getaway gem.

Killian was just coming off a break five hours after the couple reported the missing diamond, TSA officials said in a news release. The TSA lead officer was standing at a supervisor’s podium when he happened to glance back toward the checkpoint where the search had started hours before. In his mind’s eye, Killian tried to envision how busy the checkpoint would have been when the Flushing couple passed through.

And that’s when he spotted the glimmer of the missing diamond.

“I thought, ‘No way that could really be it.’ I walked over and picked it up,” Killian said in the news release. “The stone was on the floor between the metal detector and the X-ray machine. “The shine caught my eye. I was like, ‘Wow, I just found this diamond!’”

When the couple returned from Guam, they immediately made their way to TSA officials, who asked them to confirm that the diamond Killian had found was actually there. Madison Durrani produced the ring with the spot reserved for the diamond to confirm that the missing stone was indeed hers.

It was a match, TSA manager Mishane Henry confirmed.

“Our trip went from a chaotic moment to one at peace,” Durrani wrote in an email thanking the TSA team for their efforts in locating and returning the diamond. “I would like to commend everyone and their efforts for finding our diamond and safekeeping it before our return back to New York. I want to mention deep down in my heart, that this moment put us in relief. I hope everyone understands how much this meant to my wife and me.”

His note included a special message for Killian, the hero that the grateful groom said he may never meet. He wrote that despite the fact the couple and the TSA agent may remain strangers, he wanted Killian to know how much of an impact he had made on the newlyweds.

TSA officials were proud to play a part in the joyful reunion.

“This is a fine example of the integrity of our workforce here at JKF Airport,” John Bambury, TSA’s federal security director at the airport, said in the release. “I know that it is always rewarding when our team is able to reunite a passenger with something that they’ve left behind or lost at the checkpoint. We frequently return a jacket, a Teddy bear or a set of keys that have been left at one of our checkpoints. But returning a lost diamond will certainly be one we will always remember.”