Kazakhstan mulls increasing insurance payments for plane crashes

A Kazakhstan senator is suggesting to increase insurance payments for plane crashes in Kazakhstan. Senator Gani Kassymov believes that the compensation promised to the families of the victims of the plane crash near Almaty is insufficient, Tengrinews.kz reports. “I believe the we need to increase the compensation significantly, bringing to the level applied in developed countries. The insurance payment for each victim should not be limited to some 1 million tenge ($6.7 thousand) or a transfer of 1-day salary of the colleagues. Insurance payments in the West are reserved automatically when one buys a ticket and boards a plane, and it makes 2, 3 or 5 million dollars. If a person dies who is going to raise his or her children? We need to greatly increase the insurance against risks, thus increasing the air company’s responsibility. The company should understand that if something happens to its airplane, it will have to pay for the people killed in the accident. And that their money would not be enough to compensate to all passengers even if they sell all their aircrafts,” Kassymov told the journalists. Earlier Tengrinews.kz reported that the families of the victims of the plane crash near Almaty will receive 4 million tenge each. Kassymov believes that updating the air fleet is another measure that should be undertaken in Kazakhstan. “We have to buy super-modern world-class vehicles that are acknowledged all over the world and not piles of garbage or heaps of metal,” he said. The senator had applied to the Prime-Minister some time ago with a request to ban procurement of military aircrafts made in the CIS countries. He reminded that ten years ago the President instructed to purchase the best vehicles for civil aviation and, according to the deputy, the issue of providing modern aircrafts for civil aviation was taken off the table. Now, he says, it is necessary to update all the small planes flying in Kazakhstan. “The state should not be tight with money for that. The time has come not only for condolences but also for decisive steps from the government. The society has to hear it from the media that the government will protect the lives of our people,” he said. Senator believes that the government has to analyze all the cases of plane crashes that have taken place over the recent years, increase the state liability for transportation of passengers and make the flying personnel comply with unified state requirements. Kassymov admitted that he did not posses any information about the fleet of Scat airline from his own sources, but based on the information he found in the media the airline owned “5-6 aircrafts”, he said. “If the company has 5-6 aircrafts, how can it possibly comply with the technical requirements and what are its assets? How can a company with 5-6 aircrafts remain afloat and fully complaint with today's requirenments?” he noted. Scat’s Bombardier aircraft of Canadian making produced in 2000 crashed 7km from Almaty airport on January 29. The crash claimed lives of 5 crew members and 16 passengers, including 1 child. The board recorder has been found and sent to Moscow for decoding that will take 15 days. By Renat Tashkinbayev