The High Street Journal discloses that there were strong indications a fortnight ago that the victims of the Airlink crash will soon smile home with their compensations. The paper says it has learnt that Lloyds UK the re-insurers of the passengers liability has made available an initial fund for the settlement.

So far, 16, out of the 44 passengers on board the ill fated flight have submitted their claims applications to Airlink through their solicitors to State Insurance Company the lead insurer.

In June 2000, the Airlink plane owned by the Ghana Armed Forces crashed at the Kotoka International airport on its way back from Tamale via Kumasi.

Seven passengers out of those on board died. Three of the dead were foreign nationals from America, Switzerland and Nigeria. SIC the underwriters who ceded substantial amount of the premium through its reinsurance brokers Aon Aviation London to the London market were immediately notified.

HSJ learnt the brokers used the first few months to gather information on the cause of the crash.

Unlike other classes of insurance business, for instance, motor where procedures are straight forward, because all premiums are retained in the local market, aviation insurance is a different ball game. The procedures take quite sometime.

Satisfied with the findings, Aon represented by its solicitors, Beamont & Sons and SIC concluded the arrangement for the claims settlement in Accra a month ago. Survivors were asked to come for physical assessment on the magnitude of injuries sustained based on the medical reports provided to SIC.

At the time of SIC's press release on June 6, 2001, only 9 had honoured that invitation, contrary to previous media outburst that the nation's biggest insurer had refused to honour its obligations.

HSJ says it learnt that claims payments for the survivors would be determined by the magnitude of injuries by SIC while dependents of the dead would receive up to the maximum cover being limit of liability on the Airlink ticket