On Day 46 of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, legal teams in the US are beginning to pursue legal action on behalf of the passengers’ families.
United States law enforces a 45-day waiting period on lawyers before they can reach out to families who have lost a loved one in a plane crash. As this waiting period ends, legal firms across the US can now discuss terms with families and start filing lawsuits in American courts against Flight MH370’s aircraft manufacturer, US company Boeing. Flight MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER.
However, The Malaysian Insider reports that legal teams hoping to pursue a case against Boeing will have a major obstacle to overcome: without any physical wreckage from the aircraft, or even data records from its black box transponder, any lawsuit will be running on scant evidence or proof of liability.
Aviation lawyer Daniel Rose, a partner at the firm Kreindler & Kreindler, told CNN, “If we don’t have the black box with all the critical information on it, or we don’t have any part of the wreckage, it would be very hard to maintain a claim against Boeing in any court in the United States.”
Despite the restrictions and the waiting period, one US-based case against Malaysia Airlines and Boeing is already in the works.
Apart from Boeing, Malaysia Airlines itself may be subject to legal action, under the auspices of the Montreal Convention. Under international law, families of air crash victims can sue the airline in the country where the victims purchased their tickets, where the airline is based, or in the country of their final destination.
One aviation law specialist CNN spoke to believes that based on her experience, families could receive between US$400,000 (RM1.3 million) and US$3 million (RM9.8 million) in damages.
She warned, however, that it could take at least two years before any payout takes place.
