UPDATE: In a fortunate turn of events for rocker Dave Schneider, whose vintage Gibson guitar was banged up after he was forced by Delta employees at Buffalo’s airport to check the instrument, he’s getting a brand new guitar.

Not only has Delta agreed to pay him back for destroying his ax, but Gibson has stepped forward to repair his damaged guitar and give him a new 50th anniversary reissue of a 1963 Gibson ES-335, Yahoo News reports.
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PREVIOUSLY REPORTED:

Dave Schneider “begged” Delta employees at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport to let him carry his vintage guitar onto the plain bound for Detroit, but they insisted he check it.

And then it was smashed to smithereens in transit.

Schneider, guitarist and singer for the LeeVees, told Yahoo News that his 1965 Gibson ES-335 was jammed in an elevator at a Detroit airport after being forced to check it at the Buffalo-area airport.

“I’ve always carried it on,” Schneider told Yahoo News. “Never been a problem before.”

Schneider even offered to buy a separate seat on the plane for his guitar before boarding, but Delta denied him that option. When he arrived in Detroit and went to retrieve his prized instrument, he heard a screeching noise, what he described as “metal on metal.”

“Delta Airlines, next time I beg you not to make me check my 1965 Gibson ES335, please do so. You had the space, darn darn darn,” he wrote on Facebook, including the following picture of his guitar jammed in an airport elevator shaft: