Kozhikode crash: Air India Express offers final compensation to all injured flyers, victims' kin
New Delhi(PTI): Air India Express said it has made final compensation offers to all 165 passengers, who were injured and the next of kin of 19 flyers who died in the plane crash, in Kerala's Kozhikode district last year.
According to the airline, 80 out of the 165 injured flyers have taken up the offers as on August 6. The airline is awaiting acceptance of the offers from the remaining 85 injured flyers and the next of kin of the 19 deceased passengers.
"We have not received any rejection on the offers made from the injured passengers or the next of kin of the deceased. Also, no legal case has been filed on the offers made," an Air India Express spokesperson told PTI.
The Air India Express flight from Dubai with 190 people on board, including a six-member crew, overshot the tabletop runway during landing at the Kozhikode airport amid heavy rains on August 7, 2020.
It fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into pieces, killing 19 passengers and the two pilots. A total of 165 passengers and four cabin crew members were injured in the crash.
The spokesperson said the carrier paid the interim compensation to the injured persons and the next of kin of the deceased persons by September 2020.
The interim compensation was Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of deceased passenger of more than 12 years of age, Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased passenger of less than 12 years of age, Rs 2 lakh for critically injured passenger and Rs 50,000 to injured passenger.
Once the interim compensations were given to the victims, the airline gave them the claim forms so that full and final compensation offers for each of them could be calculated, he said.
The spokesperson added that the airline made the full and final compensation offers to each of the injured passengers and the next of kin of the deceased flyers between November 2020 and April 2021.
"The airline started organising one-to-one meetings in Kozhikode to address the concerns or doubts of the injured passengers and the next of kin regarding the offers made. A total of 138 one-on-one meetings have taken place till August 6," he mentioned.
He said the full and final compensation offers have also been made to the four injured cabin crew members and the next of kin of the two deceased pilots, and they have been accepted.
Five days after the plane crash, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) had formed a five-member panel to inquire into the circumstances of the accident. The panel is yet to submit its report.
Captain S S Chahar, former DGCA-designated examiner for pilots of the B737NG aircraft, is the investigator-in-charge in the panel.
He is assisted by operations expert Ved Prakash, senior aircraft maintenance engineer-B737 Mukul Bhardwaj, aviation medicine expert Y S Dahiya and AAIB deputy director Jasbir Singh Larhga.
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UP stampede: Devastated kin say Rahul Gandhi promised he'd push for higher ex gratia, other aid
Hathras/Aligarh (PTI): The grieving families of the 'satsang' stampede victims who met Rahul Gandhi in Hathras and Aligarh on Friday said the Congress leader has assured them he will make efforts to get their compensation enhanced.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha also assured that he would raise the stampede issue in Parliament in a bid to prevent such incidents in the future, they said.
Gandhi met with some families first in Aligarh's Pilkhana village around 7.30 am and then in Hathras' Vibhav Nagar area around 9 am, hours after he began his pre-dawn journey from Delhi, accompanied by some party leaders, to console the families of those killed in the Tuesday incident.
His meetings with the families in the two neighbouring districts in western Uttar Pradesh took place amid deployment of large number of security personnel by the state police.
Hari Mohan, a resident of Nai ka Nagla locality in Hathras, lost his paternal aunt Omvati, 55, in the stampede.
"Rahul Gandhi interacted with us, extended his sympathies. He said he would make effort to get the compensation amount for victims enhanced," Mohan told PTI.
Mrityunjay Bharti, 22, lost her maternal grandmother Asha Devi, around 55, in the tragedy. Bharti, who lives in Aligarh, has come to Hathras to be with her relatives who live in the city's Navipur area.
"He (Gandhi) spoke to us and tried to understand our issues. He said he would raise the issue in Parliament so that such incidents do not happen in future," Bharti told PTI.
In Aligarh's Pilkhana village, Monu, a family member of the deceased, when asked about's Gandhi visit, said, "He also said that he will try his best to help (us), and will talk to the government as his party is not in power."
Khusboo, who lost her mother, said she was assured of help during the interaction with the former Congress president.
Another woman, who lost her sister-in-law in the stampede, told reporters, "He (Rahul Gandhi) told us that the (Congress) party will help us, and assured us help. He also inquired from us how it (the incident) took place."
According to police, of the 121 people who died due to the stampede on July 2, 17 were from Aligarh and 19 were from Hathras.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday formed a three-member judicial commission headed by a retired high court judge to probe the Hathras tragedy, looking also into the possibility that a conspiracy was behind the stampede.
The government has also announced compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the kind of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the injured.
The police are investigating the matter and have so far arrested six volunteers who were members of the organising committee of the satsang of Surajpal alias Narayan Sakar Hari alias Bhole Baba on July 2 in Fulrai village of Hathras.
The godman is not named in the police FIR as accused but a senior officer told media on Thursday that he would be questioned if required for investigation.
