Man sues Qantas over airline food

QANTAS is being sued by a man who claims he almost ate a hypodermic needle that was in his butter chicken served on a flight from Brisbane to Sydney.

Although Qantas insists it is impossible for a metal object to make its way into in-flight meals, Ben Sabeto, 51, of Bribie Island in Queensland has filed a lawsuit for damages in the New South Wales District Court.

The Statement of Claim lodged by Shine Lawyers’ solicitor David Adams said Mr Sabeto was in seat 29B of flight QF553 on December 19, 2016 when he was served a meal of butter chicken with cauli pea masala.

After a few mouthfuls, Mr Sabeto felt a sharp pain on the tip of his tongue and spat out what was in his mouth into a serviette.

“Upon inspecting the serviette, Mr Sabeto saw the remnants of his meal, droplets of his own blood and the tip of a hypodermic needle,” said the claim.

The cabin crew was notified and the supervisor took the serviette and needle and photographed the material.

Mr Sabeto asked that they be returned to him, and he was told someone from Qantas would be in touch to discuss the incident.

The Statement of Claim said no contact was forthcoming.

Mr Adams said Mr Sabeto would be claiming the “full scope of damages under both the Civil Aviation (Carrier’s Liability) Act and the Australian Consumer Law for his injuries and consequential loss”.

“Having come across a myriad of obscure cases in the past, I can confidently say that

I have not come across a case such as this before — and can only sympathise with

Ben for the amount of stress and anxiety he has had to endure because of this

incident,” said Mr Adams.

He said as far as he was aware, no apology had been offered to Mr Sabeto — nor any meaningful compensation for his injuries, which included post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

“Rather despicably, however, they did offer Ben another meal immediately following his complaint on-board and insisted he take a bottle of wine for his concerns,” Mr Adams said.

However a Qantas spokesman said they had been in contact with Mr Sabeto “to inform him we have rejected his claim based on reports by our crew on board the aircraft as well as an investigation of our catering supplier”.

“There is no evidence to show that a syringe was in the meal at any stage during preparation

in the catering centre or on-board,” he said.

Qantas meals are scanned twice by metal detectors before being loaded on board an aircraft, a process that would identify a foreign object such as a hypodermic needle.

News Corp understands the machines used for meals on that flight were tested and found to be working normally.

Qantas-owned catering company Snap Fresh has been named as the second respondent in the case. Along with Qantas they now have 28 days to formally respond to the claim.