FlyDubai to pay $20,000 to families of plane crash victims

FlyDubai will plan to give $20,000 to each of the victims' families to address their immediate financial needs, the carrier said on Sunday, a day after one of its planes crashed in Russia, killing all 62 people on board.

"At present, our priority is to identify and contact the families of those lost in today’s tragic accident and provide immediate support to those affected," the airline said in a statement.

"FlyDubai will additionally organise a programme of hardship payments to the families amounting to USD 20,000 per passenger, in accordance with our Conditions of Carriage, with the aim of addressing immediate financial needs," it added.

The Boeing 738's data recorder and cockpit data recorder have been recovered by the local team investigating the incident at the crash site, Flydubai confirmed in a Facebook post.

The cause of the accident is still not known, but officials and experts have suggested that bad weather conditions may have been a factor. During  a press conference, FlyDubai's chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith said there was no distress call made by the pilots, and added that the plane was last check on January 21.

Most of the passengers were Russian nationals, and seven crew members were said to be of various nationalities.

Early Saturday morning, FlyDubai flight FZ981 was attempting to land in the Southern Russian city of Rostov on Don when the crash occurred.

Write to Joumana Saad at joumana.saad@argaamplus.com