The Chicago-based Nolan Law Group, according to its website, specialises in "the representation of persons who have suffered damages as a result of catastrophic injury or wrongful death of a family member."

The firm also criticised SIA, which suffered its first crash in a decorated 28-year history when the Los Angeles-bound Boeing 747-400 with 179 people aboard crashed on takeoff Oct 31in Taipei.

Findings showed that the aircraft took off from a runway closed for repairs, slamming into heavy equipment and exploding into flames.

SIA has accepted full responsibility for the accident, blamed on pilot error, but sought further answers on why the pilot, with more than 11,000 hours of flying experience, put flight SQ006 on the wrong runway.

The US law firm's founder, Donald Nolan, alleged that SIA was using its "buddies," sent by the company to counsel and comfort grieving families, to sell a US$400,000 offer of compensation.

"This is a tactic used before by the insurance industry in airline crashes to create a bond of trust with their agents, who then can be used to take advantage of families in grief," the Singapore Straits Times (Nov 9) quoted Nolan as saying.

"The action of the insurance company for SIA to offer money to family members still in grief and shock over this disaster should be flatly rejected."

Nolan's comments have sparked angry reactions in Singapore.

According to the Straits Times, the Singapore Internet Website Research and Monitoring Group, a group which monitors Internet abuse, said it had tried contacting the law firm and the www.sq006.com site's webmaster to demand that some of the content be removed.

The newspaper also said that one crash survivor, an American national, had filed a lawsuit in a US federal court in Los Angeles for an unspecified amount of damages.

US lawyers specialising in aviation litigation said recent claims in similar air disaster suits had ranged from US$1 million to US$30 million, according to the newspaper.

Of the 82 flight SQ006 passengers who died, 24 were US passport holders.

Analysts have said that SIA faced possible huge lawsuits following findings that pilot error may have caused the crash, but they also said the airline was covered by insurance.