31 Cuban Prisoners Flown to Homeland : Immigration: Detainees are placed on a Justice Department jet a day after a rescue team ends a 10-day hostage standoff over their deportation.

Thirty-one Cuban prisoners boarded an airplane for their homeland Saturday, a day after a rescue team stormed a federal prison and ended a 10-day hostage standoff over deportations.

The Cubans, wearing handcuffs and leg irons, left Birmingham Municipal Airport shortly after 9 a.m. aboard a Justice Department Boeing 727. Federal officials would not say when the plane was scheduled to land in Cuba.

The 31 Cubans had been scheduled for deportation Aug. 22, the day after the hostage drama began at Talladega Federal Correctional Institution in central Alabama.

During the crisis, officials said 32 Cubans faced deportation. Prison spokesman Greg Brogdan said Saturday that that figure was wrong and the correct number was 31.

In a lightning-quick strike early Friday, teams from the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons rescued seven men and two women held hostage by 121 Cuban inmates. None of the hostages were hurt, and only one inmate suffered a minor injury, federal officials said.

The government had refused to give in to the inmates’ demand that deportations be stopped. The inmates, some of whom had said they would rather die than return to Cuba, were among about 125,000 who came to the United States in the Mariel boat lift in 1980.

The rescue team moved in after hostages communicated with hand signals to medical personnel allowed in to see them that they felt they were in immediate danger from the prisoners.

Warden Roger Scott said that some inmates had put the hostages’ worker identification tags in a pillow case, then drew out three tags of those to be killed. One was to be thrown off the roof of the prison building and the others were to be stabbed, he said without citing the sources of his information.

Also, Scott said, leaders of the revolt had fallen into knife fights with each other, raising doubts whether inmates safeguarding the hostages could continue to protect them. Scott said the inmates had “fabricated an extensive armory of knives, spears, swords and even bow and arrows.”

Friends and relatives of the hostages rejoiced at their successful rescue.

A relative of Byron Sanders, one of the freed hostages, said the family was relieved to have him back safe, but added: “They’ve asked us not to even say anything until he gets straightened out.”

The Rev. Richard Donohoe of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Anniston, where two of the hostages are members, said the newly freed parishioners were “overwhelmed with joy.”

Donohoe saw one former captive, Mary Hogan, shortly after her release.

“She looked really good,” Donohoe said. “She was exultant about coming home. She said she was on her way to church to pray.”