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 Celine.Fernandez@wsj.com
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