It’s not exactly a Hollywood romantic comedy. According to authorities, an Egyptian man was so desperate to get a love note to a woman, he hijacked an EgyptAir plane during a routine domestic flight to Cairo by claiming he had an explosive suicide belt, and forced it to land on the island of Cyprus today.
Authorities say the man demanded the note be delivered, then surrendered and was taken into custody after he released all the passengers and crew.
His surrender ended an hours-long drama and standoff at the Larnaca airport in southern Cyprus. The hijacker had earlier freed most of the passengers but kept seven people — four crew members and three passengers — with him.
Just minutes before the arrest, local TV footage from the airport showed several people disembarking from the aircraft and a man who appeared to be a crew member climbing out of the cockpit window and sliding down the side of the plane.
Alexandros Zenon, the permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry in Cyprus, confirmed the hijacker’s surrender and subsequent arrest, saying the situation was “over.” The arrest was also reported by Egypt’s prime minister, Sharif Ismail, and Civil Aviation Minister Sharif Fathi.
“All passengers and crew are safe,” Fathi said on state television.
Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades said the hijacking was “not something that has to do with terrorism” and a Cyprus government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the man “seems (to be) in love.”
Anastasiades, appearing alongside European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Nicosia, was asked by reporters whether he could confirm that the incident was about a woman. “Always, there is a woman” involved, he replied, drawing laughter.
A Cyprus police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to disclose details of the situation, says the hijacker walked off the plane and was taken into custody by special anti-terrorist police. The official said the man wore a belt but there were no explosives in it. The Cypriot woman who the hijacker had asked to speak to is his former wife with whom he has four children, the police official said. The hijacker had also complained about the current Egyptian government and had demanded the release of female prisoners from Egyptian jails.
A civil aviation official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t allowed to talk to the media, said the man gave negotiators the name of a woman who lives in Cyprus and asked to give her an envelope. It was not clear if she was his former wife.
The flight MS181 took off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria on Tuesday morning en route to Cairo with at least 55 passengers, including 26 foreigners, and a seven-member crew.
An official with flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 said the plane showed no immediate signs of distress. The flight between Alexandria and Cairo normally takes about 30 minutes.
There was also confusion about the hijacker’s identity. At a news conference in Cairo, Egypt’s Civil Aviation minister, Sharif Fathi, refused to identify him.
Earlier, Egyptian government spokesman Hossam al-Queish said the hijacker was Ibrahim Samaha, but an Egyptian woman who identified herself as Samaha’s wife said her husband is not the hijacker and was on his way to Cairo so he could fly to the U.S. to attend a conference.
The woman, who identified herself only as Nahla, told the Egyptian private TV network ONTV in a phone interview that her husband had never been to Cyprus and that a photo on Egyptian and regional TV channels that supposedly showed the hijacker was not him. Later, the official Middle East News Agency gave a different name for the hijacker.
Egypt’s state news agency, MENA, later identified the hijacker as Seifedeen Mustafa. The name was confirmed by a senior Cypriot official.
Al-Queish, the government spokesman, also told the private CBC TV network that authorities could not confirm that the hijacker had explosives on him. An earlier statement from the Egyptian Aviation Ministry said the man claimed he had a belt with explosives.
The plane landed at the airport in the southern Cypriot city of Larnaca, also on the Mediterranean. A statement from the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry statement said the foreigners on board included eight Americans, four Britons, four Dutch, two Belgians, a French national, an Italian, two Greeks and one Syrian. Three other foreigners could not be identified.
The initial batch of passengers released by the hijacker were seen calmly walking off the plane down a set of stairs, carrying their hand luggage, and boarded a bus parked by the plane’s side. Security was tight at the airport, with police repeatedly pushing back reporters and TV news crews working just outside the facility’s fence, near where the aircraft stopped.
The incident raises more questions about security at Egyptian airports, five months after a Russian aircraft crashed over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula minutes after it took off from Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
All 224 people on board were killed in the crash. Russia later said an explosive device brought down the aircraft and the extremist Islamic State group took responsibility.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
This is different from the Russian plane incident, snd could not have been prevented. No explosives are found.
Once again a hijacker disrupts a lot of people’s lives and gets nothing but prison time for his efforts. I’m glad it ended as it did.
This Hijacker, is in deep trouble once he arrives to Egypt. Because Egypt doesn’t have tolerance for these kind of activities. Jail sentence in Egypt is hard labor, and I hope that person gets the max sentences to deter any idiot from playing a dangerous and stupid game in the future.