Settlements to the families of 346 people who died in the two catastrophic Boeing Max plane crashes will be calculated, in part, by how long the victims knew they were doomed.

Lawyers handling claims against the US aerospace company said the longer the passengers and crew were aware of their desperate fate, the larger the likely payout.

“There’s a better chance of (financial) recovery if it took minutes rather than seconds for the plane to crash,’’ Joe Power, a personal-injury lawyer representing some Ethiopian victims, told Bloomberg this weekend.

The first passenger plane, Lion Air Flight 610, ditched into the Java Sea 12 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia on October 29th last year.

Six months later on March 10th, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed six minutes after take off from Addis Ababa.

In both cases, the jets were Max 8 models and in both cases, all aboard died.

Experts say the Boeing Company could be facing payouts in excess of $1 billion (£770 million) if it can be proved that it had knowledge that the model had safety flaws.

Thirty individual law suits have now been filed against Boeing on behalf of families with many more expected.