COEUR d’ALENE — It’s usually airlines that lose luggage.

But Barbara Brill and her daughter, Laura Little, managed to lose a suitcase before they even got to the airport.

“It was like somebody swept down and picked it up in a helicopter,” Brill said. “It just disappeared so fast.”

Brill was driving her daughter to the Spokane Airport Friday morning to catch a plane bound for North Carolina.

They had left the Mill River development and turned left on Seltice Way when Brill said she thought she heard a noise. A few minutes later, Little noticed the back hatch of the Subaru had popped open.

They pulled over to shut it, and Little saw that one of her suitcases, a large, hardback green one, was gone.

Brill quickly turned around and they retraced their route, but the suitcase had vanished.

“It’s usually the airline that loses the luggage,” Brill said, laughing.

There wasn’t anything of great value inside. Clothes, towels, a pickleball racquet and a few other things, but Little would still like to get it back.

Usually, Little would have had an identification card attached to the suitcase, but because she had recently lent it to a friend, she did not.

They reported the loss to police and Brill called the Press Friday afternoon, asking if anyone had happened to call about finding a wayward green suitcase. But no.

The good news is that Little still had her other suitcase and despite the brief delay for the search mission, caught her plane.

And the airline did not lose her luggage.

If anyone happened to see a green suitcase along Seltice Way Friday, they are asked to contact Little at [email protected]