I wrote victim and not dead passenger as you falsely implied.

The contracts are with the surviving familing members. If you don't consider them as victims then give me another word for it.

edit: If you downvote me at least give me a chance to defend why I chose the word victim. The reply gizmo is there.

The definition of victim implies the same as "dead passenger". The families of dead passengers would be stretching the definition, at the very least it's not the most obvious definition in this case

>a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action

"Victim's family" is how people would normally refer to them.

Ok fine "victim's family". I stand corrected. It's not like when we change the words to describe it, is going to change how they feel.

Losing a family member definitely qualifies as harm.

Why would an aircraft manufacturer have contracts with the families of victims of an air crash?

You’ve taken that in a different direction than I meant. I’d absolutely agree surviving family members are victims too (albeit I’d call them victims’ families for clarity), but none of this will stop say a well motivated prosecutor from arguing that these contracts were signed under duress, bad faith, or include some kind of “unfair term” (which would invalidate a contract in the UK at least)