Malaysia bill for missing MH370 search tops 50 million
Date
11/2/2015 7:06:05 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Malaysia has spent some 231 million Ringgit ($54 million) to date searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 since it disappeared from radar screens Mar. 8 last year.
Costs from the recovery of flight MH17 up the figure by 13 million Ringgit with an additional $16.6 million already paid out to those who lost family in both tragedies.
The figures were revealed in a parliamentary statement Monday with Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai also stating that the final costs are still to be confirmed with search operations ongoing.
"Malaysia also spent 13 million Ringgit on recovering the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine" he added.
Full compensation for victims' next of kin is to be based on calculations in the 1999 Montreal Convention he said with the state-owned airline providing packages worth around $50000.
At present a total of 310 families of passengers on the two flights have received the $16.6 million.
Beijing-bound MH370 which vanished an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Mar. 8 last year was carrying 239 passengers and crew including 152 Chinese citizens.
The search and rescue mission which began immediately involved some 65 aircraft and 95 ships as well as experts from 25 countries.
After 10 months of intensive undersea searches on Jan. 29 Malaysia declared that the MH370 had been lost in an accident killing all passengers.
On Jul. 29 a piece of aircraft debris was found washed ashore on a French island east of Madagascar and was sent to France for analysis the following day.
Prime Minister Najib Razak later announced that the flaperon was from the MH370 and that the airplane had indeed ended up in the Indian Ocean.
On Jul. 17 flight MH17 on route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam was shot down over Ukraine killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
By P Prem Kumar
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