Talankin, who co-directed the best documentary winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin, didn't expect to have to check his statuette for a flight from New York's John F Kennedy Airport bound for Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday.
But a Transportation Security Administration agent said it couldn't go on board.
"At the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon," Talankin's co-director, David Borenstein, said on Thursday night in a post on Instagram.
"Pavel didn't have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane," added Borenstein.
"It never arrived in Frankfurt."
After Borenstein's announcement prompted an international outcry, the airline Lufthansa said on Friday it had found the precious cargo.
"We can confirm that the Oscar statue has now been located and is safely in our care in Frankfurt," the airline said in statement.
"We are in direct contact with the guest to arrange its personal return as quickly as possible. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologised to the owner."
Lufthansa added that an "internal review of the circumstances is ongoing".
In March, Mr. Nobody Against Putin won the Academy Award for best documentary, and Talankin and Borenstein's acceptance speech supplied one of the most memorable moments of the ceremony.
Talankin -the 'Mr Nobody' of the film - was a teacher and activities director in a small-town school in Russia who captured on video his students' lessons, chants and songs promoting President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
He smuggled his hard drives out of the country to collaborate with Borenstein, who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Talankin, speaking in Russian through a translator, made a heartfelt plea from the stage.
"In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now".
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