Here is some distressing news from overseas...

Losing suit, relatives must pay SilkAir
The Associated Press
Friday, May 17, 2002

Families who lost relatives in the crash of a SilkAir jetliner in 1997 that raised suspicions of pilot suicide have lost their final appeal in a lawsuit before Singapore's Supreme Court.

In a ruling released Thursday, the court also ordered the families to pay the legal fees for SilkAir, the regional arm of national flag carrier Singapore Airlines, and said that the families had forfeited the $200,000 compensation per victim originally offered by the airline.

All 104 people aboard SilkAir flight MI-185 died when the Boeing 737 nose-dived into a river on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia on Dec. 19, 1997.

"I think it is an injustice," said Thomas Oey, 39, who lost his mother and brother in the crash after hearing about the ruling. The amount of the legal fees the families would have to pay was not immediately known.

Families of six of the victims sued SilkAir, claiming the crash was most likely caused by "willful misconduct or default" by the pilot or negligence by the airline.

The plaintiffs did not seek specific amounts of damages. Most of the other victims' families accepted the $200,000 compensation and did not sue.

The official Indonesian-led investigation team said there was not enough evidence to determine the cause of the crash. Separately, U.S. investigators said pilot suicide was probably to blame.

Lawyers for the victims' families argued in court that the flight's pilot, Tsu Way Ming of Singapore, should not have been allowed to fly because he had a history of safety breaches.

The plane's data and cockpit voice recorders stopped working moments before the crash. Tsu had turned off a recorder on an earlier flight after a dispute with his co-pilot, Duncan Ward, a New Zealander.

Losing suit, relatives must pay SilkAir

Wow Christopher that's unbelievable. Thanks for posting it.

Barbara