THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Police at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport have opened a criminal investigation into how needles got into turkey sandwiches served to passengers on Delta Air Lines flights from Amsterdam to the United States, a spokesman said Tuesday. The FBI also is investigating the incidents.
Delta said what appear to be sewing needles were found in five sandwiches on Sunday. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle.
“We are keeping all options open because at this moment we have no idea why somebody or something put needles inside the sandwiches so that is what we have to investigate,” airport police spokesman Robert van Kapel told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet. The company’s listed address in the Netherlands is in the Schiphol area, where the Dutch capital’s airport is based.
Tjitte Mastenbroek, a spokesman for the Dutch government’s Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, said the agency also was investigating “from a food safety point of view.” He said the agency would share its findings with the criminal investigation. He declined to give more detail, citing the ongoing investigation.