LIA: Victims’ kin to get insurance payment

Laoag International Airlines (LIA) assured yesterday relatives of the victims, and also the survivors, of last Monday’s air crash that they will receive adequate insurance compensation.

Alvin Manuel Yater, LIA assistant vice president for sales and marketing, said representatives of insurance company Heat Lambert of Australia have arrived in the country to assess the physical and financial damage suffered by the victims of the crash.

At the same time, LIA also commended the pilot of Flight 585,, Capt. Bernie Crisostomo, and co-pilot Joseph Gardiner for their effort in minimizing the damage and casualties during the air tragedy.

A total of 19 of the 34 passengers and crewmen of Flight 585 perished after the Fokker 27 plane crashed in Manila Bay shortly after taking off from Manila Domestic Airport last Monday.

Citing "the presence of mind" of Crisostomo and Gardiner, Yater said that if the plane crashed on land, there would surely have been more casualties.

"It (the accident) was one of the first few times that such big proportion of passengers in a plane which crashed had survived," Yater added.

He said the airline management paid for the hospital expenses of all the crash victims, as well as the funeral expenses for the casualties.

The expenses for the airlifting of the bodies of the five Australian casualties were also paid for, according to Yater.

However, he declined to give the actual amount paid to the relatives of the Australian casualties, saying only it was a "considerable amount."

Yater stressed that minutes after the crash, LIA management sent their representatives to the scene to help out in the search and rescue operations in accordance with the company’s crisis management program.

He said LIA even set up a coordinating center to take care of the immediate needs of the victims and their relatives.

"In accordance with standard airline requirements, LIA has standard operating procedures which are put into action whenever an accident involving our aircraft occurs," he said.

Yater said Crisostomo and Gardiner even helped in rescuing some of the passengers after freeing themselves from the plane following the crash.

"Even though suffering injuries and trauma, the crew risked their own lives to save others," he said.

Yater defended Crisostomo from accusations that pilot error was the primary cause of the accident.

Sources from the fact-finding team looking into the accident confirmed earlier what a representative of Rolls Royce of Britain, manufacturer of Fokker engines, said pilot error was the probable cause of the tragedy.

Yater declared Crisostomo has an impressive record for being a pilot. He said Crisostomo spent nine years as a pilot in the Philippine Air Force and seven years as a commercial aviation pilot.

As a commercial pilot, he said, Crisostomo had serviced many prominent businessman and political figures, including former President Joseph Estrada and Vice President Teofisto Guingona.

"Crisostomo is a very competent pilot, noted for his coolness and presence of mind," Yater said.

Yater, however, refused to comment on the progress and developments of the air crash investigation, now being conducted by a five-man probe body of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

He said the LIA management would issue statements only after the results of the official investigation is made public.