According to report, Taiwan's
TransAsia Airways will pay nearly half a million US dollars in compensation to
relatives of each victim following a plane crash earlier this month.
The offer of $14.9m
Taiwanese New Dollars (£307,000) for each family comes seven months after the
airline made a similar payout to the families of 48 passengers killed in
another crash last July.
TransAsia Airways Flight
GE235 crashed last Wednesday just minutes after taking off from Taipei's
Songshan airport.
There were 53 passengers
and five crew on board and at least 42 of these were killed.
Dramatic footage captured
by a bystander showed the plane hitting a road and cart-wheeling into the
Keelung River.
The compensation deal comes
after private discussions held in Taipei between the airline and representatives
of some of the families affected.
A spokesman for the airline
said the amount was offered as compensation for each person who died in the
accident, adding: "We hope to reach a settlement with the families.
"We can fully
understand that it would be hard for the families to accept it immediately.
Still we hope the representatives could take the proposal back and take it into
consideration."
The news comes as Taiwan's
regulator revealed 10 of TransAsia's 49 ATR pilots have failed oral proficiency
tests on handling an aircraft during engine failure.
The 10 will now be
suspended and sent on a one-month retraining course following the tests, which
were ordered as a result of last week's crash.
Investigators have not yet
established what caused the crash but recordings from the black boxes
reportedly showed the plane's right engine had "flamed out" about two
minutes after the plane took off.
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