Garuda settles 1996 plane crash lawsuit

Garuda settles 1996 plane crash lawsuit

TOKYO (AFP): Indonesia's national airline Garuda on Monday
reached settlement over a suit for damages filed by families of
two of the three people killed in a crash five years ago in
southern Japan.

PT Garuda Indonesia agreed to pay unspecified amounts of money
to the family members, according to the settlement reached at the
Fukuoka District Court.

Six relatives of the two victims, Masakatsu Okuda, then 68,
and Masatoshi Yoshida, then 44, had demanded a total of 249
million yen (US$2 million).

The DC-10, carrying 275 passengers and crew members crashed on
takeoff at Fukuoka airport at midday on June 13, 1996, on a
flight to Jakarta via Bali, killing three and injuring 103.

Relatives of the crash's third victim, Koichi Imamura, then
39, reached a settlement with Garuda in January 1998.

Yoshida's mother also filed a separate damages suit against
Garuda but has since settled with the airline.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the amount of compensation
stipulated by the settlement appears to be the maximum amount
paid to plaintiffs based on precedents in Japanese court cases,
according to the Kyodo news agency.

Investigation showed the plane's captain, Ronald Londong,
aborted the takeoff after the third engine failed, but the plane
had already reached takeoff velocity, and overran the runway and
burst into flames.

In its final report into the crash, issued in 1997, the
Japanese transport ministry concluded that the captain's error of
judgment caused the accident.

A year ago, the Fukuoka District Public Prosecutors Office
decided not to indict the captain or any crew members on the
grounds there was insufficient evidence of high-level violations
of duty or negligence.