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Concorde crash offer
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April 18, 2001: 3:12 a.m. ET
Families of victims of Concorde crash reportedly to share about $150 million
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LONDON (CNN) - Air France's insurers have offered to pay families of the victims of the Concorde crash in Paris last July about $150 million, a report said on Wednesday.
A lawyer representing Air France's lead insurer, La Reunion Aerienne, said the offer was "of a final nature" and expressed confidence it would be accepted, the Financial Times reported.
The Air France Concorde crashed shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 passengers and crew onboard and four people on the ground.
The majority of the passengers were retired German couples heading to New York for the start of a cruise.
The report cited one London-based lawyer specialising in air accident claims as saying the size of the settlement, which amounts to about $1.3 million per victim, appeared high by European standards, given the profile of the passengers.
"Dependency is a very important consideration and a lot of the people were retired couples," the unnamed lawyer said in the report. "Most ordinary death claims in Europe would be below $1 million."
Lawsuits in U.S.
But at least three families have brought cases against Air France and some of Concorde's manufacturers in the U.S., where average settlements are closer to $2.5 million, the report said.
According to the FT, those families have been told by the lawyers for the insurers that they would be excluded from the offer unless they dropped the court action.
One German lawyer acting on behalf of some of the families insisted, however, that there was still some way to go before there could be talk of a settlement.
"The negotiations have not been concluded, so any speculation about the size of the compensation amount has no basis," Gerhart Baum was quoted as saying in the report.
The details of the settlement offer came on the same day that an Air France Concorde flew from Paris to a military airfield at Istres in the south of France to undergo flight tests on new radial tyres designed by Michelin.
Air safety regulators grounded the Concorde in the aftermath of the crash of the after it emerged that a burst tyre had triggered the catastrophic chain of events.
Air France (PAF) shares closed down 3 percent at  19.50 in Paris on Tuesday. 
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