In a move to share liability, Singapore Airlines has named Taiwan's airport authority in all civil suits filed against the airline by the families of victims and survivors of a crash last year in Taipei, a lawyer said yesterday.
"They [the airport authorities] have been added as a third party in the US litigation. It means there may be another party to share the liability," said the national carrier's legal adviser, Philip Bass.
He said as the airline receives notices of lawsuits, it gets to file a response. In that response, it adds the airport as a party that might share responsibility.
The families of those who died and the survivors of the ill-fated Singapore Airlines flight SQ006 from Taipei to Los Angles on Oct. 31 are filing their suits in US courts.
An attorney representing several victims' families is currently in Singapore, but he could not immediately be reached for comment.
During torrential rains from an approaching typhoon, the Boeing 747-400 roared down a runway that was under repair and plowed into concrete blocks and construction equipment, bursting into flames and killing 83 people.
Crash investigators in February revealed initial findings showing that broken lights and missing markers at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport may have contributed to the crash.
Taiwan investigators, who have yet to issue a final report on the crash's cause, also said the pilots of SQ006 ignored instruments that indicated the plane was not on the correct runway.
The final report is expected in December.
Singapore Airlines said in a statement yesterday that victims' families have each received compensation offers of US$400,000 but the issue is still in litigation.
Singapore's Straits Times newspaper yesterday reported that 80 lawsuits have been filed over the crash in the US.
A US district court ruled last week that all court cases arising from the crash will be processed and tried in Los Angeles, the flight's destination, the paper said.
Singapore Airlines has long been considered one of the world's safest carriers. Before the Taipei crash, the airline had never directly experienced a fatal accident in its 28-year history.
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