December 22, 2001	Saturday	Shawwal 6, 1422

WASHINGTON: Families and victims of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks would likely become millionaires under the terms of a tentative settlement package announced on Thursday by a federal mediator.

Under the plan, Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg said that awards to families of the more than 3,200 people killed in the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and the plane crash in the Pennsylvania countryside would average 1.6 million dollars.

The approximately 2,000 people who were badly injured in the attacks would receive payments tailored to the severity of their injuries and the effect of those injuries on their jobs, he said. The money will be paid from an open-ended federal fund created by Congress as part of the airline bailout legislation.

Feinberg called the effort “an unprecedented expression of compassion” on the part of the American people to the victims and their families. The fund’s eventual size will be determined by the number of families that apply and the size of awards, but Feinberg said initial estimates suggest the programme could cost about 6 billion dollars.

“While there is no amount of compensation that can replace a human life, our goal is to aid those who have so greatly suffered as a result of this horrendous act,” Feinberg said.

Also on Thursday, Feinberg announced that an immediate 50,000 dollars advance on their settlement would be sent to families of victims who were killed if they request it and that a 25,000 dollars advance would be paid to those who were severely injured.

While the law enacting the fund would have permitted Feinberg to reduce families’ awards by the amount of charitable aid they have received so far, Feinberg said he opted to permit families to keep the aid on top of the money from the victim compensation fund.

However, he warned, under the law, such income as life insurance, Social Security payments and death benefits must be deducted from the awards, which could reduce some families’ awards significantly.

The amounts awarded are in a fairly narrow range, despite the fact that those killed in the World Trade Center included highly paid bankers and stock traders as well as an estimated 100 undocumented restaurant workers who earned modest wages.

For example, the widow and two children of a 35-year-old stock trader earning 225,000 dollars or more a year could receive 3.6 million dollars before deductions for life insurance payments and other cash received, while the survivors of a 25-year-old single worker who had made 25,000 dollars annually could receive 1.17 million dollars before the deductions.

The widower of a 40-year-old childless Pentagon worker earning 60,000 dollars a year would receive 640,000 dollars before deductions.

The Victim Compensation Fund is part of a hastily enacted airline bailout law signed into law 12 days after the attacks that limited the airline industry’s liability in the Sept 11 attacks and promised to pay “full and fair compensation” to every victim’s family if they waive their right to sue.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.