LOD, Israel - They had spent their vacation swimming in the Indian Ocean and going out on wilderness safaris. Many had stayed up all night gambling, and they fell asleep shortly after boarding their morning flight home from Kenya.

But minutes after the Boeing 757 took off from the coastal city of Mombasa yesterday, dozens of the 261 Israeli passengers aboard heard a loud boom and saw two streaks of white and black smoke out the left windows.

"A person next to me shouted, 'It's a missile,'" said Avshalom Matsrafi, 55. "We heard a bang, but most of us thought that the wheels had locked."

The flight, which had been chartered by Arkia Airlines, an Israeli company, continued. It wasn't until four hours into the 5 1/2 -hour flight to Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel that the pilot announced that two shoulder-fired Strella missiles had been launched at the plane from a white Mitsubishi Pajero.

That wasn't all. Capt. Rafi Marek then told the passengers that the thatched-roof lobby of the Paradise Hotel they had all just left at Kikambala Beach had been attacked with a car bomb. Fifteen people, three of them Israelis, were killed.

The plane - which was flanked by Israeli fighter jets after the attack - landed without incident about 12:40 p.m., and passengers aboard were captured on home videos happily applauding their safe arrival. They poured into the airport terminal and were handed red and yellow roses.

Most smiled broadly at the media throng that greeted them, still clutching ornately carved wooden walking sticks and other trinkets they bought in Kenya. Some hugged and kissed each other, and a few cried. One man buried his head in a friend's arms.

Marek described the flight and the attack. The plane had taken off on schedule without any problems. From the cockpit, he could see Kenyan soldiers lining the runway as they routinely do for every incoming and outgoing flight.

He lifted the plane off the ground. When it reached about 500 feet, he heard a bang from the back. "It was similar to the noise a small bird makes when it strikes the bottom of the aircraft," Marek said.

He then saw the smoke and realized that something abnormal had happened. His instruments showed that the plane was OK, and he didn't learn of the attack until about a half-hour later when he got a message from his charter company that was relayed through Israeli authorities.

Flight attendant Esther Dotan said most of the passengers were unaware that anything was amiss. "Most were asleep," she said. "They were very tired. Some probably heard a noise, but no one even inquired about what it was."

Still, many passengers said they felt a jolt, and others said they were sure that they saw fragments from exploding missiles hitting the plane. Airport officials said the missiles came close to hitting their target, but the plane survived without a scratch.

Hours after it landed, the craft flew a scheduled flight to London.

Many Israelis take exotic vacations to escape the violence that has trapped them for two years. The attacks in Kenya yesterday have left them feeling vulnerable no matter where they go.

As passenger Matsrafi patiently waited for his luggage at the airport, he sighed and thought about what to tell his anxious family waiting on the other side of Customs. "This terror," he said, "it chases us to the ends of the world."