Photos: Woman finds maggots in her in-flight meal

Van Heerden and her family, from Pretoria, South Africa were on board the 09:15am Air Mauritius flight MK851 headed for OR Tambo on Thursday morning when she made the nauseating discovery.

The Van Heerden's had just enjoyed a 9-day Sugar Bay beach break on the island of Mauritius but unfortunately it was not about to end well.

"It was really upsetting for me, as I had eaten half of my meal already," said Van Heerden. "I believe they came from the mushrooms, I looked down, asking myself, 'What is this? I took a photo with my iPad and enlarged it. That's when I saw it was a maggot and said 'no this can’t be?'."

"Maggots!?” After bringing it to the flight attendants attention, Van Heerden said he explained it might be some “kind of spice”. "He tried to cut it in front of me and then agreed that it definitely was not a spice. It was a maggot. I didn’t even think to get the flight attendants name, as I was too busy concentrating on not throwing up."

According to Van Heerden, the male flight attendant was very apologetic, saying how sorry he was when he took the meal away. But it was the attitude of a female flight attendant that disappointed Van Heerden the most. "She did not apologise, she only brought me a form and said she would bring the issue to the attention of the catering company. They didn’t even bring me water or offer me Eno even though I was clearly feeling very ill and even told them I was feeling sick. Instead, I had to take two nausea tablets from a lady who was sitting two rows down from me," Van Heerden said.

Air Mauritius is investigating the matter and will respond with comment as soon as possible.