N. Korea Frees U.S. Copter Pilot : Asia: American is handed over in Panmunjom after being held nearly 2 weeks. The action ends 3 days of tense negotiations. The news is greeted with tears, cheers.

North Korean officials Thursday released an American helicopter pilot shot down 13 days ago within their southern border, ending a crisis that threatened a fragile peace in one of the world’s most dangerous corners.

After three days of negotiations with President Clinton’s envoy, the military regime turned over Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall to U.S. authorities in Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone Thursday evening (Friday morning, Korea time). He looked “a bit tired and haggard but otherwise healthy,” according to South Korean radio.

Hall, 28, who was shot down with co-pilot David Hilemon on Dec. 17, was to be given a medical examination and a military debriefing in Seoul before being flown home to Brooksville, Fla., today for a reunion with his family, U.S. officials said.

Hilemon died when the helicopter crashed.

Hall’s release followed two weeks of denunciations by the North Korean regime, which had called the flight a spy mission and demanded an American apology. But the written statement containing the final deal with State Department official Thomas Hubbard reflected the U.S. view that the aircraft had “accidentally strayed” across the demilitarized zone and into hostile territory.

The United States expressed “sincere regret for this incident” and promised to work to prevent similar occurrences, said State Department spokesman Mike McCurry. But that pledge fell far short of the apology that the embattled North Korean regime had hoped for. Indeed, the only U.S. concession seemed to be in language that said the United States and North Korea would work to find a forum for preventing such occurrences in the future. That language opened the possibility that the two countries would begin communicating directly on such issues, as the North Koreans have wished, rather than through the 40-year-old multilateral Military Armistice Commission or the United Nations.

The North Koreans believe such direct channels would give their regime added legitimacy. But U.S. officials stressed that the possibility of direct talks--sure to upset the South Koreans--has not been resolved. They said they intend to press to have such disputes handled through existing channels, rather than through new direct contacts.

North Korea’s official announcement of the deal came in a radio broadcast in which the regime said Hall would be returned because the United States had “accepted our demand.”

Clinton called Hall’s wife late Thursday afternoon and said, “We’ve been successful.” Donna Hall was “a little bit teary,” another official said. “You could hear shouting with delight.”

News of Hall’s impending release also brought tears and huzzahs from supporters in his hometown of Brooksville, Fla., and around the country, where sympathetic Americans had begun displaying yellow ribbons, just as they did in hostage incidents past.

With the release agreement, the Clinton Administration seemed to have narrowly eluded a variety of calamities. As it nearly dragged on into a third week, with hopes rising and then falling, the situation had begun to look like the kind of long-running hostage crisis that can do terrible damage to a presidency.

Perhaps more immediately, the incident threatened the $4-billion nuclear deal under which the North Koreans agreed to stop producing plutonium and halt nuclear weapons research, and instead to use less-dangerous Western technologies for civilian nuclear power. That accord’s critics, led by newly powerful congressional Republicans, had begun to question openly whether the United States should deal with the unstable regime.

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Secretary of State Warren Christopher had also warned that continued detention of Hall could have threatened the accord, which is to give the North Koreans huge stores of fuel, as well as nuclear technology. The agreement still requires congressional approval.

U.S. officials said the efforts of Hubbard, who is a deputy assistant secretary of state, met a firm rebuff when he met with a lower level North Korean Foreign Ministry official on Wednesday. As some Americans had expected, the North Korean official “squawked . . . and things went nowhere.”

U.S. officials interpreted that brusque treatment as a device to placate hard-liners, including those from the military, who oppose the nuclear accord and want to show the United States that North Korea will not be pushed around.

But on the second day, Hubbard met with Kang Sok Ju, first vice minister of foreign affairs, and talks began to move swiftly toward an agreement. The final deal was approved by what the North Koreans called “the Supreme Leadership”--an entity that U.S. officials believed included Kim Jong Il, son of longtime dictator Kim Il Sung, and others who were not identifiable.

Looming throughout the crisis was the question of whether the North Korean regime was directed by a coherent leadership group, or whether it consisted of no more than feuding factions. The episode seemed to show, U.S. officials said, that, while there were clearly different groups with bitter disagreements, a leadership group is making decisions.

Clinton was briefed regularly in the past several days, and consultations became more frequent on Thursday.

The U.S. strategy had been to acknowledge that an error had been made, but to give no sign that they were willing to make concessions for Hall’s release. In the final negotiations, North Koreans sought to win more concessions than they got, including an apology and direct talks with the United States, officials said.

The North Koreans did not, however, try to renegotiate any terms of the nuclear accord, U.S. aides said.

Hall’s release came one day after the North Koreans released a long, handwritten statement that they described as a confession by Hall asking forgiveness for “a flagrant violation of international law.”

U.S. officials took the statement as a sign that the North Koreans were ready to release Hall but wanted to save face with a public statement that would seem to acknowledge mistakes by the Americans. “They’re always into saving face,” said one State Department official. “In this case, they do it by saying, ‘The Americans have apologized, and therefore we can do X.’ ”

U.S. officials noted that the details of the navigational route included in Hall’s purported confession seemed to corroborate American claims that the two helicopter pilots had been under instructions to stay away from North Korean airspace and had simply strayed.

The body of the co-pilot, Hilemon, 29, of Clarksville, Tenn., was returned last week.

One Republican senator who has been critical of the nuclear accord had favorable reviews for the Clinton Administration’s handling of the crisis. Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Clinton was correct to send a high-level emissary and praised Clinton’s rhetoric.

“He’s been firm, but he’s not been belligerent,” Smith said.

In Brooksville, Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the Hall family, said that, after Clinton called Hall’s wife, “She got very, very excited.”

Hall’s supporters across the country were jubilant.

In Sacramento, retired Army Sgt. Ken Knox had decided to keep his Christmas lights burning until Hall was released. That set off a chain reaction throughout his neighborhood that eventually drew the attention of the national television media.

“This is fantastic,” Knox said Thursday when he heard news of the release.

“I just think it’s great it all ended so well. It was beginning to look like this might be another Gary Powers incident, “ he said, referring to the pilot captured by the Soviets in 1960 when they shot down his CIA U-2 spy plane.

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At the Publix supermarket in Brooksville, where Hall once rang up sales, the cash registers were adorned with yellow bows, and each cashier wore a yellow ribbon.

Julia Jenkins of Brooksville, who knew Hall when he was a young bag-boy at the Publix Store, said she was “just shaking. I’m so happy--it’s beautiful to hear this.

“I’m not related to the family, and I know what they must be going through, because I’m going to pieces,” said Jenkins, who organized a drive to display yellow ribbons throughout the town.

In an interview with Cable News Network, Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), who brought the Hilemon’s remains out of North Korea last week, said of Hall: “I think he’s a real American hero for the way he took this . . . with a lot of grace and fortitude.”

Times staff writers David Holley in Tokyo and Virginia Ellis in Sacramento, special correspondent Mike Clary in Miami and researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this article.