JP/4/Mandala

JP/4/Mandala

Families of Mandala 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.

Waspada 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. The National Transportation
Safety Board had said that investigations into the cause of crash
would be completed by early next year.

"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.