NICOSIA, Cyprus. An EgyptAir plane was hijacked on Tuesday by a single assailant with unclear motives.
EgyptAir flight MS181, flying from the Egyptian Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria to the capital, Cairo, was diverted and landed safely in Larnaka, Cyprus. The incident ended almost four hours later with the single suspect’s arrest in Larnaka, and no reported casualties.
The jet had 81 passengers on board and was flying on a regular domestic route when the hijacking took place, Egyptian officials said. There was conflicting information about the total passenger count from the airline, however, suggesting fewer travelers.
The airline said a passenger threatened pilot Omar al-Gammal during the flight, telling him he had a suicide belt, and demanding the plane be re-routed.
EgyptAir said in a tweet that negotiations with the hijacker lead to the release of all passengers on board with the exception of four non-Egyptian nationals.
At a news conference several hours after the ordeal began, Egypt’s Minister of Civil Aviation, Sherif Fathi, said there were still seven people on the plane, in addition to the hijacker. He said the captain and co-pilot, a security officer, three passengers and a flight attendant remained on the plane.
Earlier the ministry said there had been 21 foreign passengers on the flight, including eight Americans.
About four hours after the plane touched down, Cyprus’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the suspect had been taken into police custody and the incident was over, with all passengers and crew safely off the aircraft.
Officials at the Egyptian airport from which the hijacked aircraft took off said the hijacker was a native of the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria and a dual Egyptian-American citizen.
Cyprus’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs identified the hijacker in a message sent on Twitter as Egyptian national Seif El Din Mustafa. No further information was given about Mustafa and there was no mention of any dual nationality.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister would not confirm the name given by the Cypriot government, but indicated the hijacker had been identified by authorities.
An Egyptian government spokesman said the hijacker had wanted to go to Istanbul but was told by the captain he did not have enough fuel for that journey. The spokesman, Hossam al-Queish, also told the private CBC TV network that authorities could not confirm that the hijacker had explosives on him.
Egyptian and Cypriot state media said the man had requested political asylum in Cyprus, where his ex-wife lives, but the Egytpian aviation minister said at the news conference in Cairo that the man had made no specific demands.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said his motive remained confused.
“At some moments he asked to meet with a representative of the European Union and at other points he asked to go to another airport but there was nothing specific,” Ismail said, according to the Reuters news agency.
U.S. officials, echoing earlier remarks by Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, told CBS News the incident did not appear to be terroism-related, but driven rather by personal motives. The American officials were also unable to confirm whether the hijacker actually had any explosives.
There were initial reports on Cypriot and Egyptian media that a passenger on the flight identified as Ibrahim Abdel Tawab Samaha, a professor of veterinary medicine at Egypt’s Alexandria University, was the hijacker. However, Samaha appeared hours later on BBC Arabic to discount those reports, saying he was not connected to the hijacking and was himeself held briefly as a hostage on the plane.
Fathi, the Egyptian minister, did not rule out possible political motives for the hijacking. Egypt has been rocked by political upheaval since the overthrow of long-time President Hosni Mubarak during the “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011.
The government that replaced him, led by Egypt’s first democratically-elected leader, Mohamed Morsi — who was a close ally of the hard-line Islamic “Muslim Brotherhood” movement — was toppled by a 2013 coup led by now-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
The hijacking will most likely bring to the fore again the question of 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 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) said it had downed the plane with a bomb contained in a drink can.
Credit: CBS / AP
