HIJACK SURVIVOR TO LAND AT LAX; FAMILY AWAITING WOMAN'S RETURN.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Staff Writer

BURBANK - The parents of the only American aboard a hijacked Indian airliner waited anxiously Monday for their daughter's return to California.

Jeanne Moore, 53, of Bakersfield was expected to land today at LAX after eight agonizing days aboard Indian Airlines Flight 814, said Moore's father, Harold Redding of Burbank.

The 86-year-old said he and his wife, Marie, 85, stationed themsleves next to the phone, waiting for any word during the weeklong ordeal.

``We thank God that this has come to a peaceful conclusion. We just want to welcome her home and give her a hug,'' Harold Redding said.

Moore, a 1964 graduate of Burroughs High School who now works with handicapped children in Bakersfield, was supposed to meet a tour group in New Dehli, Redding said.

Moore was aboard a flight from Nepal to New Delhi when the airliner was hijacked Dec. 24. She and 154 other passengers were freed Dec. 31 after India agreed to release two Kashmiri militants and a Pakistani fundamentalist cleric.

The Reddings spoke with their daughter by phone from India four days ago, Harold Redding said, noting Moore sounded like ``it's taken quite a toll on her.''

In interviews before her return, Moore said her status as the only American on board a hijacked Indian Airlines plane made her fear that she would be singled out by her captors.

``I always felt the pressure of being an American . . . and was always expecting the worst to happen to me,'' the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Moore, 53, as saying Monday. ``I comforted myself by thinking about my family and my friends.''

Moore said the hijackers took her passport, ``and my offer to speak with my government was turned down, making me more worried.''

Moore thought she was going to be killed when the hijackers asked her to spell coffin.

``When the bad guys approached me and asked, `What do you call the box to keep a body?' I thought it was meant for me,'' Moore said. ``I spelled the word `coffin' and wrote it on a piece of paper and gave it to them, not knowing what was going to happen.''

The Press Trust of India quoted Moore as saying, ``the scene in there was not just like out of a Hollywood thriller, which is dramatic and exciting. It was terror and bad stuff. They smelled bad.''

Because it was unclear who was listening to their phone call, Redding said he and his daughter did not discuss too much of what she endured, except to say the hostages were cramped in the small quarters and that refuse and debris lined the floor.

Harold Redding would not say what his daughter's plans will be once she arrives in Los Angeles. He and his wife just want to hold their daughter, he said.

Moore had traveled to India before, her father said, but she wasn't able to see the Taj Mahal - the main purpose of her Indian trip this time.

Moore still has not seen the marble palace.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.