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Manila: Families of 131 passengers and crew killed in a plane crash in the southern Philippines in 2000 won a $165 million (Dh605 million) settlement from a US-owned plane leasing company.
This is the biggest amount granted for victims of an air accident in Asia, a local newspaper said. "It was a triumph for the victims," Emmanuel Pinol, Vice-Governor of Cotabato, told the Manila Standard.
His sister-in-law and two children died when Air Philippines flight 541, which came from Manila, crash-landed into a banana plantation in Davao City on April 19, 2000.
The families of the plane crash victims will describe in a book how they won a legal battle against the US-based owners of the ill-fated plane that was leased to a small airline company in the Philippines, said Pinol.
The Chicago-based AAR Aircraft & Engine Group and Fleet Business Credit Corporation, was found to have leased old Boeing 737 to Air Philippines, an "under-funded and unsafe start-up airline" that was then owned by William Gatchalian, a Filipino-Chinese, said Donald Nolan, lead counsel of the case.
Pinol helped his brother organise the families of the victims to pursue the case in the United States.
Pilots not trained
Lawyers succeeded in establishing that the pilots of the ill-fated plane did not undergo a training course that would allow them to fly a Boeing commuter plane.
Lawyer also showed that small insurance companies managed to conceal important evidences at the crash site. Pinol could not say how much each family would get from the settlement, adding the amount would depend on the earning capacity of each victim.
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