A New Zealand woman who lost her husband on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in March, rejected compensation offers from the company.
Danica Weeks, the widow of Flight 370 passenger Paul Weeks, told the NZ Herald that she received a compensation offer of $64,000 from the airline.
However, she said the money was offered on the condition that she complete a questionnaire. But she got legal advice and rejected the offer.
Voice370, a group that was helped set up by Weeks, slammed the company’s offer.
“We are left asking ‘is any life worth so little?’” the group stated. “No sum of money, no matter how great, can compensate the families for our losses. No amount of money can ever take the pain away. True justice cannot be measured by money.”
It added: “Malaysia Airlines cannot undo this tragedy. However, a fair and adequate compensation for all would reflect the magnitude of the effect this tragedy has had on our lives and should be commensurate to this being the worst air tragedy the industry has ever seen.”
Weeks, who now lives in Perth, described the offer as a “catch-22.”
“It’s like doing something nice, but you do something for us by filling in this questionnaire and give us all your details, which I can only surmise will go to their insurance company, so the insurance company knows what they’re up for,” she told Perth Now, via Stuff.co.nz.
And Voice370 said the most important thing that can be done is finding missing plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board. It is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.
A few months ago, Weeks described in an interview the difficulty raising two children without a father.
“I am stuck on March 8,” she told the Australian. “My life stopped that day. I saw him walk out that gate at Perth airport. Lincoln screamed, ‘I love you’ and Paul had a smile from ear to ear. Then he was gone. I can’t move on from that.” Then she corrects herself. “Actually, I’m stuck on March 7. When we were still together, still a family unit.”
