I got this news this morning. Only two people died but those alive still got compensated. Has DANA airline compensated anyone yet?

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The interior of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crashed at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California is shown in this U.S. National Transportation Safety Board handout photo released on Sunday. /Reuters-News 1

Asiana to Pay Billions in Compensation for Crash
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has preliminarily concluded the crash of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport was due to pilot error. The board in a statement Sunday said the pilot was flying too slowly and then tried to abort the landing 1.5 seconds before the Boeing 777-200 crashed on the runway.

The detailed probe could take anywhere from months to years and will determine who is responsible for the crash that killed two people and injured 182 others, translating into compensatory obligations for Asiana, San Francisco International Airport or Boeing.

But aviation industry experts say Asiana will have to compensate the victims. The Montreal Convention of 2003 on international air transport stipulates that air carriers are strictly liable for damages of up to 113,100 special drawing rights and any amount above that if they are proven responsible for passengers' death or injury, said Kim Jong-bok at Korea Aerospace University.

Special drawing rights are a mix of currency values established by the International Monetary Fund and 113,100 of them are worth approximately US$138,000 per passenger.

The interior of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crashed at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California is shown in this U.S. National Transportation Safety Board handout photo released on Sunday. /Reuters-News 1
Asiana plans to compensate the injured passengers and families of the dead according to the Montreal Convention.

When a Korean Air plane crashed in Guam in 1997, the carrier paid W250 million (US$1=W1,152) per passenger, including the 100,000 SRD (W150 million) and W100 million the carrier paid voluntarily.

But some families of victims who refused to accept that payment sued in a Korean court and won W700 million in compensation, while others who sued in a U.S. court won W2 billion.

"There is a chance that some victims this time may sue Asiana in the U.S., where compensation amounts could be bigger," said Han Moon-cheol, an attorney here.

If Boeing and San Francisco International Airport are also found responsible for the crash, Asiana could recover some of the compensatory payments from them. But it will be difficult for Asiana to implicate San Francisco airport simply because the instrument landing system at the landing strip was under repair.

During a trial after the Guam crash, a court acknowledged that the landing system was off for maintenance at the airport there, but it ruled the pilot of the aircraft was largely responsible for the accident.

In addition to financial compensation, the pilot could face criminal charges if he is found to have committed an error, said lawyer Chung Hae-deok.

Source: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/07/09/2013070901285.html