AIRCRAFT LANDS AND TAXIIS IN: HOSTESSES OFF AIRCRAFT: CROWD APPLAUDS: CAMERAMEN: PASSENGERS OFF AIRCRAFT AND GREETED BY OFFICIALS: RELATIVES GREETING PASSENGERS IN TOKYO HOTEL




Initials



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Background: One hundred and seventy-five passengers returned to Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Thursday morning (29th Nov) to end their dramatic trip around the Mediterranean and the Middle East together with Arab hijackers.

A K.L.M. airlines aircraft arrived at midday carrying the passengers, most of who were japanese. A crowd of officials and bystanders greeted the returning travellers, and clapped when two Japanese stewardesses who had been on the hijacked aircraft came down the aircraft steps.

The whole population of Japan had been eagerly following the story of the hijacked K.L.M. Jumbo-jet during the hijacking, and twelve television crows and more than a hundred newsmen were at the airport to record the return.

Weeping relatives greeted the passengers as they were escorted from the tarmac to the nearby Haneda Tokyo Hotel -- temporary headquarters of the K.L.M. "hijack centre" which had kept press and relatives in touch with the latest developments of the hijack.