NEW YORK--American Airlines Inc. and an airport security firm have been hit with a $50 million lawsuit by the family of an investment manager killed during the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Thomas J. Smithwick filed the suit Monday on behalf of his wife, Bonnie Shihadeh Smithwick, a portfolio manager with Fred Alger Management Co. who was working on the tower's 93rd floor when it was struck by American Flight 11. Ms. Smithwick survived the initial impact and called her husband on a cell phone but was killed when the building collapsed, according to the suit.

In addition to American, the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, names Globe Aviation Services Corp., which handled airport security for American at Logan International Airport in Boston, where the flight originated. The suit seeks $50 million in compensatory damages and unspecified punitive damages for negligence, wrongful death and pain and suffering.

Ms. Smithwick's estate would not be eligible to receive benefits from the federally created Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund because she had large life insurance policies that would offset any amounts recoverable from the fund, according to John Q. Kelly, a partner with Kelly & Balber in New York, which is representing the estate.

Many other survivors of World Trade Center victims are holding off decisions on whether to sue or participate in the fund.

James P. Kreindler, a lawyer with Kreindler & Kreindler in New York, which represents 175 victims' families, said many of his clients have life insurance and other sources of compensation that could drastically reduce their recoveries from the fund. Nevertheless, Mr. Kreindler said, his clients are waiting to see whether actual fund payments exceed "presumptive" amounts outlined by the fund's managers before deciding whether to sue.One problem with suing the airlines, Mr. Kreindler noted, is that the $1.5 billion to $2 billion in insurance coverage each airline carried would not be enough to cover a deluge of such claims. Global Aerospace Underwriting Managers Ltd. in London led the American program.