Some Grieving Relatives Say Airline Offer Not Enough

TAIPEI, Taiwan —  Some of the grieving relatives of people killed in the Singapore Airlines crash said the company’s $400,000 compensation offer is not enough, while others demanded an apology from the pilots who tried to take off during a storm on a closed runway filled with construction equipment.

As investigators continued to comb through the wreckage of the Boeing 747-400 at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, the number of fatalities in last week’s accident rose to 82 with the death of a Taiwanese man who suffered burns on more than 80% of his body. Los Angeles-bound Flight 006 was carrying 20 crew members and 159 passengers.

Over the weekend, the airline announced that, within two weeks, the families of those killed would be offered $400,000 each, a sum five times the amount the company is required by international law to give in liability cases.

An airline official in Singapore said Sunday that the compensation for the injured would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

All claims stemming from international air travel are governed by the Warsaw Convention, which imposes a $75,000-per-passenger limit on liability. Families can seek more if the airline is engaged in willful misconduct, such as breached security or poor maintenance.

Singapore Airlines’ compensation offer wasn’t enough for some relatives. Hsu Chau-peng, whose brother died in the crash, said the airline should raise the amount to $500,000, the semiofficial Central News Agency reported.

Another relative, Lin Kwang-ren, told reporters that he was extremely disappointed that the pilots had not appeared in public yet. “The three pilots are the ones who should really come out and apologize,” he said.

Investigators have not made public the pilot’s explanation of how he mistakenly turned onto the wrong runway Tuesday night during heavy rain and strong winds brought by an approaching typhoon. He and his two co-pilots survived.

A senior Taoyuan county prosecutor, Song Keo-yeh, told reporters Sunday that authorities would wait for crash investigators to finish their report before deciding whether to charge the pilots with manslaughter.