韓亞空難理賠地不同 賠償額可能差百倍

When the courts have to figure compensation for people aboard Asiana AirLines Flight 214, the potential payouts will probably be vastly different for Americans and passengers from other countries, even if they were seated side by side as the jetliner crash-landed.

An international treaty governs compensation to passengers harmed by international air travel — from damaged luggage to crippling injuries and death. The pact is likely to close U.S. courts to many foreigners and force them to pursue their claims in Asia and elsewhere, where lawsuits are rarer, harder to win and offer smaller payouts.

Some passengers have already contacted lawyers.

"If you are a U.S. citizen, there will be no problem getting into U.S. courts. The other people are going to have a fight on their hands," said Northern California attorney Frank Pitre, who represents two Americans who were aboard the plane.

Federal law bars lawyers from soliciting victims of air disasters for the first 45 days after the crash. Pitre said his clients called him.

Congress enacted that law in 1996 amid public anger over lawyers who solicited clients in the days immediately following the ValuJet Flight 592 crash in the Florida Everglades and the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the New York coast.

The flight that broke apart recently at the San Francisco airport was carrying 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 64 Americans, three Canadians, three Indians, one Japanese, one Vietnamese and one person from France when it approached the runway too low and too slow. The Boeing 777 hit a seawall before skittering across the tarmac and catching fire.

Three girls from China were killed and 182 people injured, most not seriously.

The dozens who were seriously injured — especially the few who were paralyzed — can expect to win multimillion-dollar legal settlements, as long as their claims are filed in U.S. courts, legal experts said.

Northern California attorney Mike Danko, who is consulting with several lawyers from Asia about the disaster, said any passenger who was left a quadriplegic can expect settlements close to $10 million if the case is filed in the United States. Deaths of children, meanwhile, may fetch in the neighbourhood of $5 million to $10 million depending on the circumstances in U.S. courts.

In other countries, he explained, the same claims could be worth far less.

In 2001, a South Korean court ordered Korean Air Lines to pay a total of $510,000 to a woman whose daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons were killed in a 1997 crash in the U.S. territory of Guam that killed 228 people.

Broken bones in plane accidents usually mean $1 million settlements in the Unites States and in the low five-figure range overseas, Danko said.

In 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration put the value of a human life at $6 million when it was contemplating the cost-benefit of a new "cockpit resource management" regulation. But again, Danko said, that estimate applies only in U.S. courts. Foreign courts can be expected to pay far smaller settlements.

In all, the South Korean government agency that regulates that country's insurance industry expects Asiana's insurers to pay out about $175.5 million total — $131 million to replace the plane and another $44.5 million to passengers and the city of San Francisco for damage to the airport. Suh Chang-suk, an official at Financial Supervisory Service, declined to discuss how the watchdog agency calculated its estimate.

The international treaty is commonly referred to as the Montreal Convention because of the Canadian city where it was drafted. It offers international passengers five options for where to seek compensation: where they live, their final destination, where the ticket was issued, where the air carrier is based and the air carrier's principal place of business.

Foreign passengers who had roundtrip tickets to final destinations beyond the U.S. face stiff legal challenges to pursue their claims against the airline in the United States, where courts are more receptive to lawsuits and the payouts larger than in the courts of most other nations.

Asiana can also invoke the America legal doctrine of "forum non conveniens" to argue that it's much more convenient for it to litigate the Asian victims' cases in Asia because all parties are based there.

South Korean attorney Suh Dong Hee represented some of the victims of the 1997 Korean Air Lines crash. He said family members of the victims who pursued their case in the United States settled for as much as 100 times more than those who sued in South Korea.

Brian Havel, director of DePaul University's International Aviation Law Institute, said the convention does require the airlines to make immediate "down payments" to victims to help with medical expenses, travel costs and other inconveniences caused by the crash.

"Everyone will get something," Havel said. "But who receives what does largely depend on where they qualify under the convention."

However, Pitre and others say, the foreign passengers are still able to sue others who may have contributed to the accident, such as the plane's manufacturer, airport personnel and even, perhaps, the first responders.

Pitre said he and his clients are investigating whether Boeing Co. shoulders any responsibility for the crash, including potential design flaws in the plane's automated instruments or differences between first-class passengers' seatbelts, which come with a shoulder strap, and the seatbelts in the economy section, which are lap restraints only.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said the company buys seats from other companies and "simply installs them." He also said the seat belt designs and configurations are mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Birtel declined to discuss the other issues Pitre raised.

Authorities said Friday that 15-year-old Liu Yipeng was struck by a fire truck, although it's not clear whether that killed her. Some passengers who called 911 immediately after the crash also complained that the emergency response took too long. Those third parties and others are open to lawsuits in the United States.

San Francisco officials said ambulances could not immediately come too close to the plane out of concern the aircraft would explode.據美國媒體7月14日報道，在韓亞航空214航班乘客賠償問題上，美國人獲得的賠償金可能遠超其他國家乘客的賠償金，即使當時他們肩並肩坐在一起。

“如果你是美國公民，在美國法院索賠不會有問題。其他人就有問題了。”加州律師弗蘭克·皮特說。

7月6日，韓亞航空公司214航班在舊金山國際機場失事，三名中國女孩遇難，182人受傷。當時機上載有141名中國人，77名韓國人、64名美國人、3名加拿大人、3名印度人、1名日本人、1名越南人和一名法國人。

加州律師邁克·丹科說，如果在美國提起訴訟，任何四肢癱瘓的乘客都有可能獲得近千萬美元的法律裁決。同時，在美國法院，根據不同情況，死亡兒童的家人將獲得500萬至1000萬美元左右的賠償。他解釋說，在其他國家，同樣的情況賠償額度可能少的多。

2001年，韓國法院命令大韓航空公司付給一名婦女總額51萬美元的賠償金。這名女士的女兒、女婿和3個外孫在1997年大韓航空客機關島空難事故中遇難。韓國律師Suh Dong Hee是1997年大韓航空空難一些受害者的代理人。他說，在美起訴者比在韓國起訴者得到賠償金多100倍。

丹科說，在飛行事故中骨折在美國通常意味着100萬美元的賠償，而在國外賠償通常爲較小的5位數。

2011年，美國聯邦航空管理局將人的生命價值定在600萬美元。丹科說，這隻適用於在美國法院的訴訟。外國法院裁決的賠償可能要少的多。

管理韓國保險業的韓國金融監督院預計韓亞航空的保險公司將總計支付約1.76億萬美元，其中1.31億美元用來更換飛機，4450萬用來賠償乘客和舊金山機場。韓國金融監督院官員Suh Chang-suk拒絕說明這一估計是如何計算的。

俗稱《蒙特利爾公約》的國際航空規則規定，國際乘客可以居住地、最終目的地、購票地、航空公司總部所在地以及航空公司主要營業地點選擇在何處索賠。

持往返機票前往美國以外的最終目的地的外國乘客在美國向航空公司索賠將面臨艱難的法律挑戰。美國法院更樂於接受訴訟，賠償額也比其他大多數國家多。

韓亞航空可能還會調用美國法律原則辯稱，在亞洲爲亞洲受害者打官司更方便，因爲有關各方都在亞洲。

美國國際航空法專家布萊恩·哈維爾說，公約確實要求航空公司立刻向受害者支付預付款，幫助支付醫療費、旅行費和其他因事故造成的其他不便。

“每個人都會得到一些賠償。”哈維爾說，“但是誰得到多少主要取決於根據公約有資格在哪裏起訴。”

皮特和其他律師還表示，外國乘客還可以起訴可能導致事故的其他人，例如飛機制造商、機場人員，甚至可能是現場急救員。

皮特說，他和他的委託人正在調查波音公司是否對事故負有責任：包括飛機自動儀表潛在的設計缺陷，以及頭等艙乘客與經濟艙乘客在安全帶上的差異。

波音公司發言人馬克·比特爾說，公司從其他公司買來這些座椅，“只是安裝了它們。”他還說，飛機座位安全帶的設計與構造由聯邦航空管理局管理。他拒絕討論皮特提出的其他問題。

美國當局表示，一名受害者遭到消防車碾壓，但是不清楚那是否她的死因。事故發生後立刻撥打911電話求助的乘客也投訴說，應急反應太慢。舊金山官員表示，因爲擔心飛機會爆炸，救護車不可能立刻靠飛機太近。