Families of crash victims insist on suing Boeing

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Families of the September Mandala crash victims insist they will file suit against U.S. aircraft-maker Boeing Corp. despite the Rp 300 million (US$30,000) compensation per family being offered by Mandala Airlines.

Mandala Crash Victims Families Association head Waspada Sinulingga said on Monday that the association had asked U.S. law firm the Nolan Law Group to file the lawsuit with the court in Chicago, the home base of Boeing.

Waspada said 20 families of victims had rejected the compensation offered by Mandala because the latter had required recipients to sign an agreement effectively banning them from filing suit against Boeing or any other party.

He said these families would continue to reject the compensation offered until Mandala revised the compensation agreement.

"Until Mandala revises or drops the (contentious) point in the compensation agreement, we'll continue to reject the offer. And we'll proceed with our plan to sue Boeing, not for the compensation but to reveal the cause of the crash," Waspada said.

A Mandala Airlines Indonesia Boeing 737-200 jetliner crashed in a heavily populated area near Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatra, on Sept. 5 this year, killing 102 people on board and 47 on the ground. Fifteen passengers survived the crash, the country's worst in eight years.

"I turned down the compensation offered not because of the amount, but to ensure my rights. No one can ban my right to sue Boeing," said Chairil Laksmono, the husband of victim Lisa Difianti.

Meanwhile, International Association of Families of Victims of Boeing Crashes chairwoman Monica Kelly, who is also a Nolan Law Group lawyer, said that over the past several months there had been five accidents involving Boeing aircraft in Venezuela, Cyprus, Peru, Nigeria and Indonesia.

Kelly said that aside from the case in Indonesia, none of the families of the crash victims in other countries had been required to waiver their right to file suit against Boeing in exchange for compensation.

"We want there to be a formal investigation to reveal who is behind all this," she said.

She cited an example of a case where the families of the victims of a 1997 Garuda crash, also in North Sumatra, were free to file lawsuit against any party despite a compensation offer from Garuda.

As a result, the families won the case and got a hefty compensation from Boeing, Kelly said.