DANA Airline has concluded plans with its underwriters, to effect insurance compensation payments to the victims of the recent crash involving its airliner.The insurance cover will also be extended to those killed by the crashed plane on the ground.The Chairman of the airline, Ramesh Hathiramani, made this disclosure to The Guardian in Lagos on Tuesday, adding that the co-operation of necessary stakeholders has been secured to ensure a hitch-free exercise.Besides, Hathiramani said a welfare package was being worked out with displaced persons at the crash site, in collaboration with Lagos State government.Already, he disclosed that affected families of the victims have been asked to fill necessary forms to effect the disbursement.His words: 'The initial payment that is being offered is $30, 000 and immediately they give us the forms and other information, the other processes will commence. The balance of $70,000 will be paid later.'The initial $30,000 is just to carry the affected families through the funeral expenses. Some also may have school fees to pay and things like that as the bread winners could have been victims.'In line with the revised Montreal Convention for compensation to families of air crash victims, the carrier is to pay $100,000 for each passenger who lost their lives. In the case of the Sunday crash, there were no survivors.The Montreal Convention, formally the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, is a treaty adopted by a Diplomatic meeting of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) member states in 1999. It amended important provisions of the Warsaw Convention's regime concerning compensation for the victims of air disasters.The Convention re-establishes urgently needed uniformity and predictability of rules relating to the international carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo.Whilst maintaining the core provisions, which have successfully served the international air transport community for several decades (that is the Warsaw regime), the new convention achieves the required modernisation in a number of key areas. It protects passengers by introducing a two-tier liability system and by facilitating the swift recovery of proven damages without the need for lengthy litigation.The previous Chicago /Warsaw Convention liability was fixed at $10,000 per passenger. Nigeria is a signatory to the Montreal Convention.Consequently, the Insurance company liability for the flight captain and co-pilot stands at $250,000 each. Each of the six-cabin crew is entitled to $150,000.With the crash and expected pay out of insurance claims, the overallinsurance premium per aircraft and entire fleet of entire Dana Air is expected to jump by 850 per cent according to an aviation insurance expert who pleaded anonymity.In a voice laden with emotion, Hathiramani said, 'Our only main focus is on the families. It is very important for us to make sure that all the families get the bodies of their loved ones. Our priority has been to focus on how to identify the bodies. Whatever cooperation that is needed from our side here, we are doing everything possible to ensure that we cooperate with all the authorities to make sure that the bodies are identified'.'As we speak, about 50 bodies have been identified. There are tests that need to be done because we want the right families to come to claim the right bodies. We don't want the right body going to the wrong families. Some of the bodies have been released. So, we don't want to make such mistake. We are doing DNA tests. Once that is done, majority of the bodies; those ones that have been identified have been given to the families. Once that is done, then, we can focus on other things', he added.Hathiramani equally allayed fear that there was adequate insurance cover for people that were killed on ground, stressing that, 'it covers us for all passengers and also the people who were killed on ground.
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