A Delta Air Lines first class passenger was poisoned by a toxic weed in his salad while flying Chicago to Seattle on October 21 enroute back being with his father who passed away from cancer. After reporting the meal issue on board, a flight attendant stole the evidence, he says, in attempt at a cover up.
The reader found black nightshade (solanum nigrum) in his meal – only realizing what it was after he ate some. The flight was met by paramedics on arrival in Seattle.
That is some nasty stuff, with typical onset of early symptoms like nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bitter or burning taste in the mouth 30 minutes to 3 hours after ingestion.
As illness continues, you can experience drowsiness, confusion, slowed pulse, dilated pupils, and — in higher doses — respiratory depression or coma. Usually patients recover within 24 hours. Fatalities are rare but have occurred (mostly in children).
As few as 5–10 unripe berries can cause stomach distress. Neurotoxic effects will generally require eating more than 20 unripe berries (or similar leaf amounts).
1) While eating my entree (Southwest Harvest Salad) in the dimmed cabin, I tasted something “off” as I swallowed a mouthful of my otherwise delightful salad.
2) I turned on the overhead light to look more closely at the salad, and promptly found a sizeable stalk of black nightshade (Solanum nigra), flowers and all.
3) This is a well known toxic plant that is a weed routinely found in agricultural settings.
4) I had unknowingly ingested an unknown amount before noticing it.
5) I became quite ill, with all of the symptoms I now know to be typical: intestinal cramping, diarrhea, excess salivation, nausea, vomiting.
6) Fortunately, I was able to save the uneaten stalk of nightshade. To provide to the paramedics who took me off the plane at Sea-Tac. So they’d know what they were dealing with. I informed lead flight attendant Larisa of my intention to save the specimen
7) Unfortunately, while in the forward bathroom being very sick, Larisa took the specimen. She refused to return it to me. She refused to show it to the paramedics. She claimed it was “Delta’s property now”.
He says he reached out to Delta with concern over the incident, and their response seemed callous – an offer of 3,000 miles. According to a Delta spokesperson,
We take this report seriously and remain in touch with the customer. Our next steps are to investigate what is being said and we’ll go from there. Delta has stringent security and quality assurance measures embedded within our onboard food and beverage operation.
In hindsight, I guess he should have ordered the meatballs. Unfortunately the Delta Shake Shack burger is only available on flights out of the airline’s hubs.
Is Jose Andres aware of this?
The airline is handling this terribly so it’s good he took pictures. Time for a big lawsuit against Delta and its food provider, and bring in the feds and make a media stink.
Premium Poison Salad
Well known? I don’t know many who would know! The fact that he did was impressive.
“This is a well known toxic plant that is a weed routinely found in agricultural settings.”
For a premium travel experience, please consider Delta.
Could be worse…he could have ordered the fish.
Would never have known to watch for that in food
There is the small chance it was a ‘plant’ (pun intended) but who would put themselves through that for some unknown case or compensation
3,000 SkyPesos, worth $30 at break-even. How’s $3,000, sound? The airline should provide a full refund and offer a lot more to make things right. And, if crew members are confiscating evidence, that’s grounds for punitive damages, if the airline condones such behavior. Obviously, not Dr. Dao-level, but I hope this victim gets decent settlement when all is said and done. Now, where’s @Tim Dunn to tell us that other airlines ‘accidentally’ poison their passengers and hide evidence, too.
If this happened to him, it must have happened to others, not necessarily on the same flight. Most folks would not be able to determine the cause. Could this possibly be a one-off? There is also a remote chance that this is a scam.
Wow.
Serving poisonous food is a new low for the airlines.
We already know the airline CEOs couldn’t care less about providing a favorable passenger experience. However, if they kill off the passengers, they kill off their revenue. This is something they definitely should care about.
I’m sure the lib-lawyers are lining up to take his case
This does happen occasionally. Less likely with greenhouse lettuces, but not impossible. The flight attendants should have collected all similar meals and reported the incident to catering immediately. It seems criminal to abscond with evidence.
Add another thing to avoid after Don’t Eat The Fish.
Jokes aside, this is just another example of Delta showing how callous they are about the passenger. Their pretense of caring has become awfully threadbare.
Im not sure Shake Shack would have been the safest alternative, i got bad case of ecoli from a shake shack in nyc due to undercooked burger. They did send me a $50 voucher though, only used it for fries and chicken sandwiches. Though to be told, the burgers ive gotten on airlines (united and alaska) have been cooked very throughly.
Hi,
I’m the guy who got poisoned.
Thanks to Gary Leff at View From the Wing for helping me get this story out there.
My educational/professional background is in horticulture science. I agree with the comments above that the average passenger would likely not have recognized Solanum nigra.
While being quite sick, I attempted to make Delta staff aware that there was a reasonable likelihood that other passengers, possibly on a variety of flights, could be exposed to the same toxic weed.
My impression was that they were more interested in sweeping the whole thing under the rug, so to speak.
I am a big, reasonably healthy adult male. My concern is that some other passengers might have a more serious reaction.
As a big three flight attendant for 40 years, i doubt the fa stole the weed, we have procedures for foreign objects in food including zip style bag, forms, and paperwork that must be collected at the time of the incident and staff that meet flight to retrieve items for reporting purposes and precautions for other flights
I’d just like to note that there is a moron above who’s rabid partisanism made him feel he needed to turn this into a political jab. (“I’m sure the lib-lawyers are lining up to take his case”).
(Yes, we a laughing at you.)
@J.A.R. — If you’re actually the guy, I’m glad that you’re alright (and well done on documenting this!) Thank you for seeking to prevent further harm to others (and for finding us/commenting here.) Hope you are able to get compensated for your troubles, (3000 miles is next-to-nothing), and that Delta makes this right. ASAP.
And Delta really messed this up. Courts look very poorly on those who destroy evidence. Once he had that picture taking it only makes it worse for them.
@1990
MayBe they should have offered him some real weed.
Surprise no comment from TD. Maybe he got some bad weed too.
This likely falls under the FAA “Serious Incident” and is mandatory reporting for the airline. The regulation is at https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-VIII/part-830
The passenger should check with the Regional FAA office in Seattle to assure that the incident was reported. Preservation of evidence is required and it is likely that the Delta FA was doing just that.
That flight attendant should be fired. And brought up on charges.
3,000 miles? It would have been worth 500,000 to keep this out of the press, or $20K, minimum. My God, the paramedics had to meet the plane, she refuses to show them. And Delta thinks 3,000 miles is fair compensation when there is such a medical bill?
The behavior of the flight attendant was insane. Delta needs to fire her, period, and he has a solid case, just because of how egregious the situation was handled, the refusal to assist medical staff.
Flight attendant Tom J, airlines may have policies, but that doesn’t mean they were followed. One thing is for sure, not showing it to the paramedics was insane, and certainly not to policy.
You mentioned the burger. I had one a couple of days ago on a Delta flight from BOS to SFO.
It was horrible, thoroughly overcooked.
It came with a brownie that had, inexplicably, salt sprinkled over it…. and not a tiny bit.
Hi.
I really am the guy. But I get it that you can’t believe everything you see online in 2025.
I’m not really an “online person” so it’s been a trip reading comments. I appreciate the support from most of you.
I recently saw that the ‘view from the wing’ article got posted to reddit. People there have decided I’m a scammer.
Somehow they believe I claimed I got sick “right away”. Nope.
About an hour to first stomach gurgles. Almost 2hr to first diarrhea. Approx 3hr before first vomit. By 6 hrs I was over the worst of it.
I have taught many weed i.d. classes in my career. I took the pics well before I had any symptoms at all. I thought they could be a humorous addition to a weed identification presentation.
Little did I know what I’d be feeling in an hour’s time….
Reddit seems to think it is suspicious that a horticulture scientist would be the one who got served the toxic plant.
I think it is much more likely that various passengers on a variety of flights out of O’Hare got it too, but don’t have a botany background.
For what it’s worth, I fully understand how weeds sometimes make it into leafy greens. It happens. I believe it was an accident.
Delta’s response to the accidental poisoning is what I think was less than appropriate.
Lying is part of the airline culture so I believe the passenger before any flight attendant story. The problem is the disappearance of the evidence. The passenger should have wrapped a small sample of the nightshade in the napkin, put the napkin in the plastic wrap for the utensils and put it in his pocket before getting any flight attendant to see the rest of the nightshade. Then never tell what you did and play the game of getting upset when the flight attendant confiscates the rest of the nightshade. Then preserve the nightshade or have it lab tested as part of preparing for the lawsuit. A lawsuit is the only way that Delta will take full responsibility for their actions and even then they will try to escape responsibility.
Another thing, to help tie this to a specific incident on an airplane, maybe a photo of the nightshade and the paper boarding pass together would help. The date is hard to set because printed newspapers are no longer available on most flights. In the past, a newspaper with the date as a background would create a “not before” indication.
@J.A.R. — Keep fighting the good fight. And don’t mind Reddit; half of those wackos are probably bots nowadays anyway.
@Alan Z — It is unlike Tim to ignore this; perhaps, he’s waiting for the ‘talking points’ from the mothership. (And, lemme tellya, I’m all about ‘Keep Climbing’ and whatnot, but don’t freakin’ poison folks! Yeesh!)
JAR. First totally believe you and thanks for educating those unfamiliar with nightshade. We patrol our pastures and hay because cattle that have consumed it are not safe to eat. Birds spread the noxious weed by deification. Again goodness you’re well and spreading the word. You are the hero here.
@ Greg. We conservative lawyers are also against people being poisoned! In a socialist country you would not have a private right of action.