The routine usually goes as follows when going through security at the airport; you take off your shoes, your belt, empty your wallet and then rush to gather everything back up. Sometimes your most valuable item is the one you just left behind, your laptop.

It seems more and more often, with security getting tighter and tighter, people are accidentally leaving laptops behind.

"My coworker actually heard someone getting paged: if you lost a laptop, I thought, surely it can't be me, it turned out it was," said traveler Joanne Nelson.

According to a new study, it turns out she's just one of 12,000 people who every week leave their laptops behind even only for a few minutes.

TSA says it successfully returns a large number of them, many, before people get on flights. But whether they set them down getting a cup of coffee, or running the security gauntlet, some are never seen again. Lingering in lost and founds, or even for sale at the unclaimed baggage center in Alabama.

Gordon Bunn works at the airport electronics store where he says he sees laptops being forgotten all the time. "All day long, all day long."

For computer users it's the ultimate fear.

"It would be terrible, oh i'd be terrified, absolutely."

Reagan National Airport (web|news) ranks eighth on a list composed by the study's conductor, Ponemon Institute, of top ten airports where the most laptops are lost. Los Angeles International (LAX) is ranked first while Washington Dulles sits at the bottom of the list.

The study analyzed the number of lost laptops in American and Canadian airports each week.

• At major US airports such as Los Angeles International, Miami International and John F. Kennedy in New York, up to 1,000 laptops were lost per week and nearly 70% are never reclaimed.
• Airport areas that laptops are most likely lost by passengers include security checkpoints, departure areas and passenger clubs or lounges.
• Over 70% of business travelers feel rushed when trying to get on their flights and 60% worry that delays due to security checkpoints will cause them to miss their flight. 
• Over 53% of business travelers say that their laptops contain confidential or sensitive information. However, 65% of these travelers admit they do not take steps to protect or secure the information contained on their laptop.