Passengers in upside-down crash landing offered $46,000 each
Delta Air Lines is offering US$30,000 ($46,847) to the passengers involved in a flight that crashed, turned upside down, and caught fire at Toronto Airport earlier this week, an airline spokesperson told CNN.
“Delta Care Team representatives are telling customers this gesture has no strings attached and does not affect rights,” said Morgan Durrant, a spokesperson for the airline.
If all 76 passengers involved took the money, it would add up to a little over US$2.2 million ($3.44 million).
The passenger plane ended up upside down. (Supplied)
A lawyer representing a number of passengers and their families involved in the crash landing told the BBC the proffered compensation was an “advance” payment.
Vincent Genova, of law firm Rochon Genova, said the offer was meant to assist passengers with short-term money challenges.
But, he said, the airline would seek to deduct it from any later settled payments.
The airline is continuing to work on identifying and sorting through passengers’ bags removed from the wreckage. In some cases, where potentially harmful fluids are being cleaned from belongings, the process could take weeks, Delta said.
Everybody on board survived. (Teresa Barbieri/The Canadian Press via AP)
Video obtained by CNN shows the rear landing gear of the jet buckling and the right-wing shearing away in a fireball after the plane landed hard on the runway.
All 80 people on board the CRJ900 twin-jet aircraft survived, but 21 people were taken to hospitals with injuries, Delta said in a statement.
By Thursday local time (Thursday night – early Friday morning AEDT) the final passenger that remained hospitalised was released, according to Delta.
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The Toronto crash, while not fatal, is the latest incident in a deadly year for air travel in North America. Earlier this month, 10 people were killed when a regional airline plane crashed in Alaska.
Less than three weeks ago, 67 were killed when an American Airlines plane collided midair with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, DC.
Two days later, a medevac jet crashed in Philadelphia, killing all six on board and one person on the ground.
And just yesterday, two small planes collided in Arizona, killing two people.
