Reagan hails 30 hostages as They Fly Back to U.S. : Friends, Kin Join Airport Welcome

The main group of Americans taken hostage aboard ill-fated TWA Flight 847 arrived home today to a red-carpet welcome from President Reagan and hundreds of cheering Americans.

The red-and-white TWA L-1011 carrying the former hostages and their families touched down at nearby Andrews Air Force Base at 3:26 p.m., EDT. Cheering relatives and friends crowded near the tarmac, many carrying signs and flowers or furiously waving American flags.

To applause, each of the 30 hostages carefully walked down the red-carpeted stairs to step on American soil for the first time since their ordeal began at the Athens airport June 14.

TWA pilot John Testrake was the first hostage out. Others, wearing red carnations, hugged each other in happiness.

Reagan met with the hostages for six minutes privately on the plane from West Germany--just minutes after laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery at the grave of Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem--a solemn reminder that not everyone made it home.

Beaten and Murdered

Stethem, 23, was beaten and murdered by the Muslim extremists who commandeered the airliner.

“Glad You’re Back,” read one sign. Others said: “There’s No Place Like Home” and “How Sweet It Is.” The crowd, many garbed in yellow or wearing yellow ribbons, loudly applauded an Air Force band that broke into “America the Beautiful” as the plane came into sight and played “The Star-Spangled Banner” just before Reagan spoke.

The President, who had ruled out a gala reception at the White House in order to speed the former hostages and their families home, said at the start of his brief remarks, “I’ll wait for a second until I swallow the lump in my throat.”

Reagan told the former hostages: “There’s only one thing to say and I say it from the bottom of my heart.

“Welcome home. We’re so happy you’re back safe and sound.”

He also said that his wife Nancy’s birthday is Saturday and that “she’s already declared that you are the greatest birthday present she’s ever had.”

‘There Is No Forgetting’

But on a more somber note, Reagan said, “There is no forgetting,” and went on to make a sad mention of Stethem. “His murderers must be brought to justice,” he said.

Reagan also referred to the seven Americans kidnaped earlier and still being held in Lebanon.

“The homecoming won’t be complete until all come home,” he said.

A number of the 39 released Sunday after 17 days in captivity by Lebanese Shias chose to stay in Europe longer or to take other flights home.

Pilot’s Thanks, Applause

Testrake, the pilot who flew the hijacked airliner back and forth between Algiers and Beirut, said: “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank and applaud you.

“I’d like to say that many of my fellow hostages share with me the profound conviction” that God brought them through their ordeal.

At the close of the ceremony, Reagan waved toward the group and said, “Go home.”

Two other hostages who arrived with the main group, Peter Hill, 57, of Schaumburg, Ill., and Richard Herzberg, 33, of Norfolk, Va., voiced their anger in separate interviews before leaving West Germany.

Hill agreed with an earlier Reagan statement that those responsible were “thugs, thieves and murderers” and he added, “I’m talking about the whole damn lot of them, the Hezbollah and the Amal.” He said he had “a sense of being raped by animals.”

Herzberg, whose Jewish-sounding name placed him in a group of four held separately from the others in Beirut, said: “I’m not a hero. I’m a vacationer on my honeymoon and I got on the wrong plane.” He said the hijackers were “vile, disgusting animals.”