Air India Express offers final compensation to Kozhikode plane crash survivors
text_fields
On the anniversary of the plane crash at Kozhikode, Air India Express said that it has made its final compensation offers to 165 injured passengers and families of 19 who died.
The Air India Express flight overshot the tabletop runway at the Kozhikode airport during landing on August 7, 2020. The aircraft fell into the valley 35 feet below. The flight from Dubai had 190 people on board, including a six-member crew. Both pilots died in the crash.
Families of cabin crew members have accepted the final offers.
The airline said that 80 injured took up the offers on August 6. The airline is waiting for acceptance from the remaining 85. The families of 19 passengers who died haven't responded yet. Air India spokesperson said that none of the offers have been met with rejections yet. No one has sued the airline on the offers made as of now.
The airline had paid interim compensation to the victims by September 2020. Families of those who died were given Rs 10 lakh if the passenger was over 12 years old and Rs 5 lakh if the passenger was under 12 years old. Injured passengers received Rs 2 lakh.
The victims were also given claim forms to calculate the full and final compensations. The spokesperson said that the airline has been conducting one-to-one meetings to address the concerns and doubts. 138 meetings have taken place till August 6.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) had formed a five-member panel to investigate the crash. Captain S S Chahar (former DGCA-designated examiner for pilots of the B737NG aircraft), Ved Prakash (operations expert), Mukul Bhardwaj (senior aircraft maintenance engineer-B737), YS Dahiya (aviation medicine expert), and Jasbir Singh Larhga (AAIB deputy director) are on the panel. It hasn't submitted the report yet.