Mandala to pay victims' relatives over Rp 50m each
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
All victims of the Mandala crash, including passengers and non- passengers, will receive compensation from the airline, Minister of Transportation Hatta Radjasa said on Thursday.
The compensation, said the minister, would be given to surviving relatives of the dead passengers as well as those of residents who were killed when the aircraft slammed into a densely-populated residential area near Polonia airport, Medan.
"It has been decided that Mandala will compensate all victims as well as pay for the damaged assets caused by the accident," he told journalists on Wednesday.
At least 149 people including people on the ground have been confirmed dead in one of the country's deadliest airplane tragedies. (Previously, the number of casualties was reported at 150, but on Wednesday a five-year old passenger was found alive in a hospital by his parents).
Hatta said officials of Medan administration were currently calculating the total loss suffered by the affected residents. "But there's no specific figure yet," he said.
Mandala will also pay compensation to relatives of dead passengers whose names turned out to be missing from the passenger list because they had purchased their tickets from scalpers.
The three passengers were University of Indonesia assistant lecturer Natalia Magdalena, her mother Roida Lumbanradja and Adnan Djaya.
State insurance firm PT Jasa Raharja has also said it will compensate all passengers and crew of the ill-fated aircraft.
For inquiries or assistance on the insurance procedures, Jasa Raharja can be contacted through a toll-free line at 0800-133- 3464.
When registering at a nearby branch office, Jasa Raharja spokesperson Nasyir Hakam said victims' relatives must bring with them an accident report from the Ministry of Transportation, a hospital report and their family card issued by the local administration office.
Nasyir said despite the difference in names, Jasa Raharja would also compensate the relatives of the three mistaken passengers because they had basically met the conditions to receive accident insurance.
"The conditions are that there are truly victims and there is really an accident. The Law No. 33/1964 on passenger insurance states that all paid tickets already include fees for Jasa Raharja insurance," he was quoted as saying by detik.com.
Anxiety engulfed families of the three victims as there had been an uncertainty whether or not they would get any compensation from either Mandala or Jasa Raharja due to their status of tickets.
According to Nasyir, relatives of a dead victim would receive compensation of Rp 50 million (some US$4,854), those of a paralyzed victim up to Rp 50 million, and those of injured people will receive treatment and medication coverage of up to Rp 25 million.
Jasa Raharja is also allocating Rp 1.2 billion to compensate families of Mandala crew members who were all killed in the accident, director of operations and service Tjarda Muchtar said on Wednesday.
"The compensation is eligible for families of the pilot, co- pilot and the three flight attendants," he said.
Tjarda said Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Fahmi Idris had ordered them to compensate the families within 10 days.
"We have prepared all of our branch offices to be ready to receive claims from victims," he said.