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EgyptAir Flight Hijacked and Diverted to Cyprus EgyptAir Flight Hijacked and Diverted to Cyprus
(35 minutes later)
CAIRO — A man claiming to be wearing an explosive vest hijacked an EgyptAir plane en route to Cairo from Alexandria on Tuesday morning and forced it to land in Larnaca, on the southern coast of Cyprus. CAIRO — A man claiming to be wearing an explosive vest hijacked an EgyptAir plane on Tuesday, forcing it to land in Larnaca, on the southern coast of Cyprus.
Most of the 56 passengers were released, but a tense standoff ensued for four hours, as the plane stayed on the tarmac. Three passengers, and five crew members — including the pilot and co-pilot — were still on board, along with the hijacker, EgyptAir said in a Facebook post at 12:15 p.m. Most of the 56 passengers were released, hours after the flight was diverted while en route to Cairo from Alexandria. But a tense standoff ensued for four hours as the plane stayed on the tarmac. Three passengers and five crew members — including the pilot and co-pilot — were still on board, along with the hijacker, EgyptAir said in a Facebook post at 12:15 p.m.
Although the hijacker said he was wearing a suicide belt and threatened to detonate it, officials in Egypt and Cyprus said they could not confirm his assertions, and that they believed he may have been motivated by personal factors. The president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, said the hijacking was “not something that has to do with terrorism.” The hijacker, identified by Cypriot and Egyptian officials as Seif El Din Mustafa, told the pilot that he was wearing a suicide belt and threatened to detonate it. His affiliation and motivation were unclear.
While the authorities were scrambling to identify the hijacker and to establish what had happened, the episode raised new concerns about airport security in Egypt and dealt another blow to the country’s beleaguered tourism industry — once a mainstay of its economy — which plummeted after a bomb downed a Russian airliner shortly after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh on Oct. 31, killing all 224 people on board. The president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, told reporters that it was “not something that has to do with terrorism,” and the Cypriot government’s crisis management team said in a statement at 2 p.m.: “This is not an incident of terrorism. It is the action of an individual in unstable psychological condition.”
News about the situation broke around 8 a.m. on Tuesday when the Egyptian authorities reported the hijacking of an Airbus A320. EgyptAir identified the flight as MS181 and said it had been carrying 56 passengers, seven crew members and one EgyptAir security officer. (The airline had said earlier that there had been 81 people on the plane.) But some Cypriot state media reports said the man had given negotiators a letter demanding the release of prisoners from Egyptian jails, suggesting a political motivation.
There was confusion surrounding the identity of the hijacker. Egyptian state news media identified him as a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Alexandria. But a man identifying himself as the professor spoke to BBC Arabic, which reported that he had said he was merely a passenger on the flight, was not the hijacker. Conflicting reports about the crisis from Egyptian officials — who for a time mistakenly identified a specific passenger as the hijacker — raised further questions about Egypt’s aviation security abilities, six months after a terrorist bomb brought down a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.
Hosni Hassan, a senior official at Borg el-Arab Airport in Alexandria, said by telephone that a majority of the passengers were Egyptian but that the passengers also included citizens from seven other countries, including Belgium, Greece, Italy and the United States. Citizens of at least eight countries, including the United States and Italy, had been on board, but Egyptian officials declined to identify the nationalities of those still being held.
Video from the airport showed passengers walking down the stairs from the plane, an Airbus A320, and walking a short distance across the tarmac at Larnaca International Airport before boarding a bus. “The situation is ongoing,” the Cypriot ministry of foreign affairs said on Twitter, identifying the hijacker as Mr. Mustafa. Egyptian officials said that Mr. Mustafa was an Egyptian national.
Cypriot and Egyptian officials had initially identified the hijacker as Ibrahim Samaha, a professor from the University of Alexandria. Mr. Samaha later called the BBC to say that he had been a passenger on the plane.
“We had no idea what was going one,” Mr. Samaha said. “After a while we realized the altitude was getting higher, then we knew we were heading to Cyprus. At first the crew told us there was a problem with the plane and only later did we know it was hijacked.”
In a statement on its Facebook page, EgyptAir identified the flight as MS181 and said it left Borg el-Arab airport in Alexandria at 6.30 a.m, bound for Cairo. It was carrying 56 passengers, 7 crew members and one EgyptAir security officer. (The airline had said earlier that there had been 81 people on the plane.)
The hostages remaining on the plane included two pilots, an attendant and the security officer, officials said. Some news outlets posted a picture of a man standing in the aisle of the plane, whom they identified as the hijacker.
Cypriot officials said the hijacker had initially demanded that the plane fly to Turkey but agreed to let it land in Cyprus after pilots told him they did not have enough fuel for a longer flight.
Hosni Hassan, a senior official at Borg el-Arab Airport, said by telephone that a majority of the passengers were Egyptian but that the passengers also included citizens from seven other countries, including Belgium, Greece, Italy and the United States.
The crisis had appeared to be coming to an early conclusion after the hijacker allowed 56 people to walk free from the plane. Video from the airport showed passengers walking down the stairs from the plane, an Airbus A320, and walking a short distance across the tarmac at Larnaca International Airport before boarding a bus. Many were walking calmly and carrying their luggage.
But six hours later, the hostage crisis appeared to be deepening amid reports that police at the Larnaca airport had moved back news crews at the airport and cleared nearby restaurants. Security forces took positions around the airport, and snipers were in place.
Aviation security in Egypt has been under sharp scrutiny since a Russian airliner crashed shortly after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh on Oct. 31, killing all 224 on board.
A local affiliate of the Islamic State said it had brought down that plane with a bomb. Russia and Egypt attributed the crash to terrorism, although an Egyptian-led investigation has yet to publish its findings.