Tuesday Oct 14, 2025
Tuesday Oct 14, 2025
Monday, 13 October 2025 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Roy Denish
A Sri Lankan family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Qatar Airways, alleging the airline’s negligence caused the death of their 85-year-old patriarch, Southern California cardiologist Asoka Jayaweera.
The suit, filed by Jayaweera’s son Surya, claims the incident began when the “strict vegetarian” was denied the vegetarian meal he had pre-ordered for his flight from Los Angeles to Sri Lanka via Doha. Instead, a flight attendant allegedly gave him a standard meal with meat and instructed him to “eat around” it. While attempting to do so, Jayaweera began choking on a piece of food and was left unconscious for hours.
The meal service began about two-and-a-half hours into the 15.5-hour flight. When Jayaweera, a long-time vegetarian, asked for his special meal, he was told none were left and was given a regular meal with meat. The lawsuit states he choked shortly after trying to “eat around” the meat. Crew members attempted to help and consulted with MedAire, a service that provides remote guidance from ER doctors. At one point, Jayaweera’s oxygen saturation level was recorded at a dangerously low 69%.
When the flight crew was asked about an emergency landing, they allegedly told Jayaweera’s travel companion that the pilot couldn’t divert because the plane was “traveling over the Arctic Circle/Ocean.” However, his son Surya contends the aircraft was actually over the Midwest at the time and could have easily diverted.
Jayaweera lost consciousness approximately three-and-a-half hours before the flight finally landed in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was taken to a hospital but died on 3 August 2023 from aspiration pneumonia, an infection caused by inhaling food into the lungs.
The lawsuit notes that Qatar Airways offers 19 special meals, seven of which are meat-free. The airline has faced issues regarding passenger dietary restrictions before; a British reality star with a severe nut allergy claimed he nearly died twice on the airline after being served food containing nuts, and a separate incident saw a Singapore Airlines flight forced to land when a passenger with a shellfish allergy became violently ill.
Surya Jayaweera is seeking damages for negligence and wrongful death that exceed the approximately $ 175,000 statutory limit set by the Montreal Convention, the international treaty governing airline liability. The complaint was initially filed in the California State Court and later moved to the Federal Court.
Qatar Airways has not yet publicly responded to requests for comment regarding the lawsuit.
