As families mourned the dead and investigators continued to comb through the wreckage of the Boeing 747-400 at Chiang Kai-shek airport, the number of fatalities in last week's accident rose to 82 with the death of a Taiwanese man who suffered burns on more than 80 percent of his body. The Los Angeles-bound Flight SQ006 was carrying 20 crew and 159 passengers.

Over the weekend, the airline announced that, within two weeks, the families of people killed in the accident would each be offered US$400,000, a sum five times the amount the company is required by international law to give in liability cases.

An airline official in Singapore said today that the compensation for the injured would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

``It depends on the degree of injuries, how severe they are,'' said the official who did not want to be identified. The official said the airline would pay all the families within two weeks.

All claims stemming from international air travel are governed by the Warsaw Convention, which imposes a $75,000 per passenger limit on liability. Families can seek more if the air carrier is engaged in willful misconduct, such as breached security or poor maintenance.

The Singapore Airlines compensation wasn't enough for some relatives. Hsu Chau-peng, whose brother died in the crash, said Singapore Airlines should raise the amount to US$500,000, the semiofficial Central News Agency reported.

One man, whose brother and pregnant sister-in-law were killed, told reporters that his family wasn't ready to accept the compensation. ``If my parents think its enough, then I won't have an opinion,'' the man, who was identified only as Mr Hsu, said in an ETTV cable news interview.

Another relative, Lin Kwang-ren, told reporters that he was extremely disappointed that the pilots have not appeared in public yet. ``The three pilots are the ones who should really come out an apologize,'' he said.

Investigators have not made public the pilot's explanation of how he mistakenly turned onto the wrong runway Oct 31 night during heavy rains and strong winds brought by an approaching typhoon. After slamming into objects on the airstrip, the plane burst into flames and split into three pieces. All three pilots survived.

The ``black box'' cockpit recorder indicated that the pilot thought he was on the correct runway.

Also today, a senior Taoyuan County prosecutor, Song Keo-yeh, told reporters that legal authorities would wait for investigators to finish their crash report before deciding whether to charge the pilots for manslaughter. The airport is located in Taoyuan, outside of Taipei.

The crash victim who died today was Lin Ming-liang, vice president of the South African Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce, the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa said in a statement.

Lin, 50, who suffered burn wounds over 86 percent of his body, held both South African and Taiwanese citizenship. He is survived by his wife, Lin Hsiu-sian, and daughters, Lin Li-lan, 21, and Lin Li-ting, 16.