Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Families to Get $50,000 Each

By Celine Fernandez 

Families of the people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are being paid US$50,000 a person as interim compensation, a Malaysian minister said on Thursday.

Some of the families have already received the money, paid by the insurers of the airline, said Hamzah Zainuddin, deputy minister for foreign affairs, who is the head of a Malaysia government-appointed committee to oversee the needs of the next of kin of the 239 people on Flight 370.

The final payment hasn't been decided and could be the subject of a legal battle between the families, the airline and even Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, according to experts.

Mr. Hamzah said the amount of the final payout will be announced "when the issue of the tragedy" is over. He didn't state how much the final compensation could be. The final compensation can only be determined after the plane is found and an inquiry establishes the cause of the crash.

The Boeing Co. 777 jet went missing in the early hours of March 8 while on a routine flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. An international search effort involving 26 nations and some of the best hardware has been unable to find any trace of the plane or the people onboard.

Experts believe that the plane crashed in the remote Southern Indian Ocean after being deliberately flown hundreds of miles off-course.

Malaysia Airlines had previously paid US$5,000 each to help the families meet their out of pocket expenses as they waited in hotels in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing to hear about their loved ones. This doesn't factor into the total compensation families may receive.

Under international rules, the airline and its insurers are liable to pay about US$174,000 a person, but the amount could change depending on the outcome of the inquiry or if the families go to court.

Write to Celine Fernandez at [e-mail]

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