Chinese passenger insured for $1.4m

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Beneficiaries of one of the Chinese passengers onboard Air France Flight 447 may get 9.6 million yuan ($1.4 million) in insurance, the largest amount ever paid to an individual in China.

While declining to reveal the person's name, PICC Life Insurance Co Ltd said yesterday in a news release that the client bought an insurance product last year with the insured amount set at 240,000 yuan. According to the insurance contract, the passenger would get 40 times the insured amount if the person was killed in an air crash.

"An emergency team has been set up to make preparation for the payment," a company spokesman said yesterday.

Also yesterday, a young Chinese scientist was confirmed as being on the Air France plane that crashed into the sea, the last of nine Chinese to be identified.

Xiao Xiang, a research associate with the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro to go to Brazil to carry out research.

After a two-week stay, the 35-year-old planned to return to Beijing via Paris, a spokesman for the institute said yesterday.

"It is a loss to us and his family," the spokesman said.

Xiao, a native of Jiangxi province, was a graduate of Tsinghua University who had studied and worked at the academy since 1997 and published more than 20 papers.

He was married with a three-year-old child and lived in Beijing, as do his parents.

Representatives from the academy have taken turns to be with Xiao's family.