Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 25/98) - Cal LeRoux won't soon forget a recent meal he had on a commercial flight to Edmonton from Yellowknife.

The Ekati millwright was surprised to find a live cockroach in his chicken dinner, served aboard a First Air flight Oct. 21.

"I had three mouthfuls of food and then I noticed something fell off my fork," said LeRoux. "It was a live cockroach."

The Sherwood Park resident said he brought the situation to the attention of the stewardess and she removed his meal, but he didn't stop there.

After a letter of complaint and several phone conversations with First Air officials, including director of operations Bob Davies, LeRoux decided to take his story public when he failed to get any compensation from First Air. "He explained to me that it was unfortunate that it happened," he said. "But that was it."

And, when he asked about compensation, "Right away he said no," said LeRoux.

Davies said the airline did send two letters of apology, but confirmed it didn't compensate LeRoux with bonus points or cash.

"I'm not sure every situation warrants monetary compensation," he said. "Each situation is dealt with on an individual basis."

The airline did, however, do its own inspection of its catering company and found nothing.

"We have basic guidelines -- those have to be revisited," said Davies. "We went to lengths to follow-up on this. We did take the time to deal with this customer."

Senior environmental health officer Brad Colpitts said that the territorial health department didn't know about the incident.

"We would have liked to have known about it," he said. "But we're going to do some checking into this."

Colpitts doubts that the live roach originated in the chicken dinner.

"I find it difficult to believe that it could have been in the meal," he said. "They're heated on the plane at high temperatures. It would have been cooked."

He doesn't doubt that the passenger saw the cockroach in his dinner, but has serious questions about where it came from.

More importantly, he added, roaches are known to carry bacteria.

"They could leave behind bacteria that could cause food poisoning," he said. "But, they need time and temperature to multiply to make you ill. Personal contact with the roach would not necessarily have caused an illness."