Singapore Airline's compensation offer is not enough, families of victims killed in last Tuesday's crash said yesterday.
The airline has offered US$400,000 to the families of each person killed in the crash, in which 82 people lost their lives, including 24 from Taiwan.
But families of Taiwanese victims have asked for as much as US$600,000, saying they deserve higher remuneration because "the tragedy was caused by an unforgivable mistake made by the pilot" and not the "natural forces" typical of many other aviation accidents.
The families have also asked the pilots of the doomed flight SQ006 to publicly apologize for the fatal mistake.
Hsu Chao-peng (
A Singapore Airlines spokesman said a formal response to the families' requests was premature. "It's too early to talk about all this when we have just made our offer," the spokesman said. "The families of the victims haven't even received the details of our offer."
DNA sampling of people killed in the incident was completed yesterday afternoon, officials said.
The Aviation Safety Council (飛安委員會), which is leading the investigation into the cause of the accident, confirmed Friday that the plane had mistakenly attempted to take off from a runway closed for repair, slamming into barricades and construction machinery which set the jumbo jet ablaze.
Meanwhile, some passengers of the airline's Taipei-to-Los Angeles route have complained that the flight's name -- SQ006 -- has not yet been changed.
But Singapore Airlines said they haven't received any complaints.
Typically, US-based airlines eliminate flight numbers of crashed flights from their rosters to prevent uneasy feelings from subsequent customers.
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