A factory worker was cooked alive with five tonnes of tuna after he was locked in an industrial oven, according to reports.
Employees searched for 62-year-old Jose Melena after he went missing during an early morning shift at Bumble Bee Foods.
He had been performing maintenance in a 35-foot long oven at the plant when a co-worker filled the pressure cooker with more than five tonnes of canned tuna and switched it on.
The colleague mistakenly believed Melena was in the bathroom – but he was locked inside the machine, which reached a temperature of 132C.
His body was only found two hours later when the oven was turned off and opened.
Now the Los Angeles company, its plant operations director Angel Rodriguez and former safety manager Saul Florez have been charged with three counts of violating health and safety rules.
Rodriguez, 63, and Florez, 42, could face up to three years in prison and fines up to $181,000 if convicted of all charges, prosecutors said.
Bumble Bee Foods faces a maximum fine of $1.1 million over the October 2012 incident.
