1.
SV Pan passengers outside hotel in Amman
0.08

2.
SCU Passengers milling round hotel entrance (2 shots)
0.19

3.
SV passengers with armed guards outside hotel
0.22

4.
CU BOAC flight sign ZOOM OUT TO SV luggage
0.27

5.
SV Passengers waiting in lounge
0.37

6.
SV People outside hotel (2 shots)
0.50

7.
SCU Man speaking
1.14


TRANSCRIPT: Man: "Nothing really happened. We were just asked to stay there and wait for further orders. They collected passports just to know who was who on board the plane. And they were extremely good to everybody. The crew was marvellous, too."




Initials AH/PNG/OS



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Eighteen hours after touching down at Revolution Airport in the Jordanian desert, 22 passengers from the hijacked British VC-10 airliner reached Amman yesterday (Thursday) on the first leg of their return to freedom.

The released hostages were taken to Amman's Intercontinental Hotel, already occupied by over 100 victims from the hijacked Swissair and TWA airliners. Most of them had been told they could travel to their own Arab countries.

They were the lucky ones. The remaining passengers -- nearly 300 of them -- are pawns in a dangerous game, their fate thrown into the balance by today's refusal of five wester nations to meet the freedom conditions set by their Palestinian commando captors.

So far, reports from most of the hostages say that they have been treated well by the commandos: