20000126

Indian Airlines survivor wants to write book

BAKERSFIELD, (California): The American woman who was held hostage last month aboard a hijacked Indian Airlines jetliner, said she plans to write a self-help book called "More Than Just Surviving", a newspaper reported on Monday.

Jeanne Moore also wants to team up with other passengers for a book on surviving a hijacking, and is considering an offer to help make a television movie based on her experience, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Her motto, she said, is "Don't wait to live a memorable life".

"Think of your epitaph and work backward," she said. "If you want to have been known as interesting, be interesting".

Moore, 53, was the only American among the passengers held for eight days aboard the airliner that was hijacked on Christmas Eve. Moore said the thought she would die at the hands of the hijackers, who killed one passenger.

She also has overcome two failed marriages that left her raising three children on her own, the collapse of a family business, and a rare form of stomach cancer in the 1970s.

Moore, who teaches special education students, said she still is dealing with the ordeal emotionally. Her hands shake, she said, and sometimes she lies awake, envisioning masked invaders.