Delta investigates spoiled meals that led to emergency landing

According to Delta spokesman Anthony Black, service on the flight was about a third complete, but it is not known how many people had eaten the food. Medical experts consulted by the flight crew recommended making the stopover in New York City.

Paramedics awaited Flight 136 at John F. Kennedy International Airport after it landed around 4 a.m. Wednesday to treat the travelers. About a dozen people were evaluated, but no one was taken to the hospital, Delta said. The airline said the flight crew did not eat the food.

“Delta’s food safety team has instructed our suppliers to immediately isolate the product and begin a thorough investigation into the incident,” the airline said in a statement. “This is not the service Delta is known for and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and delays to their travels.”

Delta “switched to a pasta service” on about 75 international flights on Wednesday and Thursday as it reviewed its meals, Black said.

Airlines use meals prepared by outside providers; hot meals are cooked in advance and either frozen or kept cold before being reheated on the plane.

Black did not name the catering company responsible for meals on Wednesday’s flight, but said “several catering components are under review.”

The service disruption came in the middle of the busy Fourth of July travel week, when Delta expected to carry nearly 6 million passengers. In an interview with CBS Mornings, CEO Ed Bastian said the airline’s teams were ready for the holiday.

Health experts say that airplane food, like food on the ground, can become contaminated in a number of ways, including contact with dirty water, improper handling or preparation, improper heating, or being left outside for too long. While food poisoning does occur on airplanes, it’s not a very common problem.

If the travelers had accidentally eaten food contaminated with mold, the incident might have been uneventful, says Mark Gendreau, a physician and chief medical officer at Beverly, Addison Gilbert and Anna Jaques hospitals in Massachusetts.

Unless you ingest “huge amounts of mold,” people with healthy and intact immune systems can tolerate eating some molds without major problems, he says.

Even if people have symptoms, they may experience nausea, vomiting and diarrhea within a few hours. Although this is rare, symptoms can also appear a day or two later, including allergic reactions, rashes and, in even rarer cases, weakness, fatigue and difficulty breathing, Gendreau added.

However, Ali A. Khan, a gastroenterologist at Gastro Health in Fairfax, Virginia, said that consuming mold can be far more dangerous for people with weakened immune systems because of the greater risk of developing a serious fungal infection.

You should be able to tell if your meal is contaminated. Khan said signs of mold include unusual white or black spots, a softer-than-normal texture or unpleasant odors. If you spot mold, throw the entire meal away rather than trying to cut off the moldy part, he said. It can be difficult to tell exactly how deep the mold and adjacent bacteria have actually penetrated.