15th November, 2012
The families of the Sunday, 3 June, 2012 Dana Airline plane crash victims have yet to collect the remaining 70 per cent compensation from the airline’s insurance company, an official has said.
Dr Harold Demuren, the Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), said this on Wednesday in an interview with journalists at the NCAA annex, Ikeja, Lagos.
He said: “This is due to the non-issuance of Letters of Administration to them by the probate registry arm of the Lagos High Court which would be presented to the Lloyds of London.”
The NCAA boss spoke with journalists after a meeting with families of the victims and representatives of Dana Airline.
Demuren said that the NCAA had been holding series of meetings with the Lagos State Government to ensure that the process of issuing the letters to the families was fast-tracked.
“It is part of the family assistance programme. The least any airline can do as the aviation regulation demands is that the concerned airlines in case of a crash must pay the families of victims or victims themselves the money.
“When we started having problems with the claims, we cannot leave the families of the victims or the victims alone.”
He, however, noted that 80 individuals had received the first 30,000 U.S. dollars compensation out of the over 150 passengers on board the crashed aircraft.
“The rest have multiple claims and the airline would not pay them the first tranche until it had resolved the differences,” he said.
He confirmed that no family had received the second tranche of 70,000 U.S. dollars, adding that the amount was reinsured abroad.
“That is why each family of the victim is being asked to present the Letter of Administration,
which will be presented to the overseas insurance company of the airline before it can effect payment,” he stressed.
The airline is expected to pay a minimum of 100,000 U.S. dollars to the families of each of the passengers who died in the crash in Lagos.
Demuren commended Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and his Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General of the state, their concerns to the victims’ families.