Ethiopian airlines to pay between Ksh17m -20million for every victim

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The Ethiopian flight ET 302 crashed last Sunday killing all the 157 passengers and crew on board. There were 32 Kenyans aboard the ill-fated plane believed to have been brought down by malfunctioning of the flight control system in the highest selling Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner.

Forensic experts have collected over 5,000 tiny pieces of human remains left from the deadly crash last Sunday. Most are just fragments the size of a small finger to small bones. The biggest part is understood to be an arm.

Ethiopian officials said DNA results would be announced between five to six months from the date the sample is collected. This means they will have to wait until August to know the findings.

Some of the things found apart from pieces from the plane wreckage include torn passports, mobile phones and national identification documents. There were also some computer accessories including a keyboard belonging to one of the victims and papers believed to have been separated from a book by the impact.

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A look at the crash site near Bishoftu, south of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, suggests that the plane could have come down at a near vertical trajectory and slammed into the ground causing a deep crater just six minutes after take off.

The families of the victims have started to head home after it emerged that the airline will compensate the victims between $170,000 and $250,000 depending on age, profession and so on. It should be done within 18 months

The compesation will be guided by the Montreal Convention which says compensation arises only if a passenger’s injury or death is caused by an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger.

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“Families can take soil from the crash site and a letter will be issued from the Ethiopian Airlines attesting the same for custom’s clearance at the airport,” an advisory note issued by the airline to the families of the victims seen by the Sunday Nation reads in part.

The airline also said it will give refunds for incidental payments to cover out of pocket expenses incurred by relatives of the victims. The payments will be done through bank transfers or at the destination convenient to families.

The Montreal Convention anticipates two scenarios. The first provides for a minimum compensation that every passenger must be compensated as long as they were injured or died while on the plane. Currently, this amount is at about $170,000 (Sh17,000,000) per passenger.

The compensation process begins after identification of the victim is done. But since identification of bodies is going to be a nightmare for forensic experts given that there is no body retrieved from the crash scene, this is likely to take a while.

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A seasoned Kenyan pilot told the Sunday Nation that every airline has an insurance policy for each passenger on board. He said currently, the insurance is about $170,000 (Sh17 million) for every occupied seat.

But if not satisfied by the compensation, a family can sue to get more but for such a suit to succeed, there must be evidence of pilot error or negligence on the part of the airline or its agents. If proven, the liability is unlimited.

But should Ethiopian Airline show that the accident is due to the wrongful act of Boeing or another third party, getting more compensation above what is provided for by the insurance from the carrier would be a Herculean task.

Some of the family members are considering getting a lawyer to help deal with the compensation issue. A number of lawyers are also already contacting family members to be part of the legal action should the matter end up in court.

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