Germanwings Crash Victims’ Families Call For Apology From Lufthansa CEO: Row Over Paltry Compensation To Families

Hitting out at the German airline company Lufthansa for its apathy to crash victims of Germanwings, the families of 18 schoolchildren and teachers, killed in the crash, sought an apology from its Chief Executive. Lufthansa is Germanwings' parent airline. The parents, hailing from the town of Haltern, in a letter, accused CEO Carsten Spohr of ignoring them. According to the parents, their children might have been alive if the airline's doctors had paid proper attention to the pilot's health.

The disaster happened when the children along their teachers were returning to Germany from an exchange trip in Spain in the Barcelona-Duesseldorf flight, which was deliberately brought down by the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz on March 24. In the crash, all the 150 people on board died.

Emotional Letter

In the emotional letter, addressed to the CEO, the parent group said Carsten Spohr neither spoke to them personally nor apologised for the crash. "You were there for your customers, but not for us," the families wrote in the letter, which was released to the media by their lawyer. The letter also sought apology from Lufthansa's doctors for not paying close attention to pilot Lubitz's background of chronic depression and not following the two-person cockpit rule before the crash. "With more attention paid to these risks our children would perhaps still be alive," they said.

However, a spokesman of Lufthansa contradicted the complaints made by the parents and said the CEO had spoken to many family members and accepted responsibility and apologised for their suffering. He also sent out signed letters of condolence, the spokesman claimed.

The parents' letter coincides with the rejection of compensation by lawyer Elmar Giemulla, who represented the victims' families. He rejected the offer of 25,000 euros ($27,000) for the pain and suffering of the victims, saying it will not accept anything short of a six-figure sum.

Germanwings said the payout for pain and suffering will be small but claims related to material damages such as lost earnings would elicit higher sums. Lufthansa paid 50,000 euros as immediate financial assistance with another 10,000 euros as claim for suffering. It offered 25,000 euros for emotional damages to the victims. Ronald Schmid, a German professor of aviation law noted that German laws on emotional damages are the worst in western Europe.

Rejects Compensation

Another lawyer, Christof Wellens, who is representing families of other victims, said he notified Lufthansa that the compensation it offered was inadequate. “With one-sided actions by Lufthansa and Germanwings you achieve nothing. There must be cooperation with the relatives and there are international standards. There were aircraft accidents in other countries, such as Air France’s Concorde or even other airplanes that crashed. There you can measure it and you feel treated unfairly, when it’s been measured differently to other disasters,” the lawyer said.

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