Videos on Tiktok have sparked a nationwide conversation about abandoned vehicles sitting for months, even years, inside major airport parking garages. FOX SA went to the San Antonio International Airport to investigate what is happening locally and what the risks might be.
You have seen the videos on Tiktok. So we came to investigate why some vehicles have been sitting at the San Antonio International Airport for more than a year.
Across the country, social media posts show the same images. Cars covered in dust. Windows marked by strangers with handwritten dates going back months or even years. TikTok users have filmed similar scenes in Boston, St Louis, Hawaii, and Houston.
Raven Slaughter, an employee at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, said she first noticed the trend when she saw a dusty car covered in dates.
“It was really dusty, and everybody had started writing dates on it. So there were dates all the way from August up until, like, when I saw the car in about October,” Slaughter said.
After posting her video online, she quickly realized that this was happening in other Texas airports as well.
“I was like, Man, this is funny. And then I saw someone post on Tiktok one that they saw in San Antonio,” she said.
At the San Antonio International Airport, FOX SA cameras found multiple vehicles showing no signs of recent movement. One was marked with dates going back to July.
A traveler who passed by the vehicle asked, “So where do they come from?”
“We do not know,” I responded.
But security experts warn these vehicles should not be dismissed.
“Anytime you have abandoned vehicles, especially in a place like an airport, it certainly poses a threat. There could be a criminal element. It could be national security. It could be pre-operational terrorist activity. It could be drug activity, trafficking, even evidence of a crime,” said retired FBI agent Abel Peña, who now works as a private investigator.
FOX SA asked Peña to walk the airport garage with our cameras. He pointed out heavy dust buildup, layers of cobwebs, expired plates, and no signs that some vehicles had been checked.
“So anytime you have abandoned vehicles, especially in places, soft spots, like the airports, where they are considered just a transportation hub, you have vehicles like this that are abandoned. It certainly poses a threat. There could be a criminal element. Could be just somebody forgot their vehicle,” Peña said.
FOX SA provided Peña with several license plates from vehicles discovered on November 7 to aid in tracking their owners. One had markings from late July, early August, and even 2023. All but one plate returned an owner. When FOX SA called the numbers associated with those owners, no one called back. One person who did answer said the owner had been deployed years ago.
“They were plates that came back to a person in Mississippi. There was another person living in New Braunfels, Schertz, just various parts of South Texas. And so just a variety of people leaving their vehicles here for whatever reason, we do not know,” Peña said.
Peña says that while deployed service members may leave vehicles behind, arrangements should be made to prevent security risks.
I found one vehicle with cobwebs, thick dust, and something else unusual.
While some cars are extremely dirty and have cobwebs, this vehicle has something very different: the key fob was still visible.
The airport does have a 30-day limit for parking in its garages, but what happens after that is not clear. Airport officials told FOX SA there are procedures for abandoned vehicles. Some of the cars FOX SA documented were towed the same day we began asking questions. The city says that it was a coincidence and claims the removals had already been scheduled.
The city says 27 vehicles were towed between November 14 and 16. But several others, including the Utah plate vehicle, remained in place.
“That one comes back to Utah, October 25, so it already expired. Plates are expired again,” Peña said while reviewing one vehicle. I asked whether it could have been used in a crime and dumped at the airport. Peña responded, “Absolutely, it could have been involved in any kind of even criminal activity.”
Airport officials say all vehicles are reported to the San Antonio Police so officers can run the plates. FOX SA asked SAPD for the number of abandoned vehicle calls at the airport. SAPD records show at least 26 calls in a five week period. Some calls were logged within minutes of each other. In four sample reports reviewed by FOX SA, three license plates were cleared, and one received a citation.
But when it comes to national security, the airport confirmed that abandoned vehicle cases are not reported to the FBI airport liaison unless SAPD flags something criminal.
Peña believes they should be.
“The FBI, along with the other federal agencies that are here, should certainly take a hard look at these vehicles that are parked and determine what kind of threat these pose. Is this vehicle a vulnerability if it has been here for a while?” he said.
FOX SA contacted the FBI. A spokesperson said the agency is working on a response.
For travelers, the discovery raises new questions about who is monitoring what comes in, what gets left behind, and what might be sitting just feet from a terminal.
Nationally, airports handle abandoned cars differently. Boston auctions them, Springfield, Missouri, confirms that some vehicles sat at their airport for years. Hawaii has a written removal process. Currently, the city of San Antonio says they will try to recover the parking garage fees from the vehicle owners if they can contact them, or by having the cars auctioned off.