EgyptAir hijacking over, all hostages safe

ANKARA

The EgyptAir hijacking come to an end Tuesday afternoon with the arrest of the hijacker, the southern Cypriot Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry tweeted that the incident was “over” and the airline declared the release of all hostages. The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) reported that the hijacker had surrendered and footage showed him leaving the Airbus A320 with his hands in the air.

“All passengers and crew are safe”, Nikos Christodoulides, a spokesman for the Greek Cypriot administration tweeted.

The seven-hour ordeal began shortly after Flight MS181 took off from Alexandria for Cairo. A man threatened the pilot with explosives and forced the plane to land at Larnaca airport in southern Cyprus.

Shortly after the plane landed, the southern Cypriot authorities indicated it was not a terrorist incident amid reports that the hijacker had released a written demand to see his estranged wife.

“What we have clarified… is that it’s not about terrorism,” Foreign Ministry official Alexandros Zenon told journalists, the Cyprus Mail reported on its website shortly before the surrender.

“It appears to be a person who is unstable, in an unstable psychological state and the issue is being handled accordingly.”

The flight landed at Larnaca airport at 8.50 a.m. local time (0550GMT) with local police reporting an armed hijacker had seized the aircraft.

Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry issued a statement that pilot Omar al-Gammal had informed the authorities that he had been threatened by a passenger with a suicide belt.

An Egyptian government spokesman said the hijacker had initially asked to be flown to Istanbul but the pilot told him there was not enough fuel.

In an incident marked by conflicting claims and reports, EgyptAir initially said 81 people were aboard but later said 56 passengers were on the plane.

A large group of passengers were released shortly after landing but at least seven people remained on board with the hijacker.

He was initially identified by the state-run Middle East News Agency as Egyptian national Ibrahim Samah, a university professor. However, this was later contradicted and the Greek Cypriot Foreign Ministry named him as Seif Eldin Mustafa.

Egyptian media later described Mustafa as a 59-year-old former academic sacked by Beirut University who had served time in prison before his release last year.

According to the Cypriot Mail, the hijacker had demanded to talk to his former wife, a Cypriot, and she was reportedly brought to the airport, where the hijacked plane was sitting in a cordoned off area.

Local media reported that the hijacker had also called for the release of women political prisoners in Egypt but this was not confirmed.

To add further confusion over the hijacker's possible motives, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said the man had asked to meet a “representative of the European Union” and to fly to another airport.

Nicos Anastasiades, the leader of Greek Cypriot administration, postponed a meeting with European Parliament President Martin Schulz and was in touch with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi over the hijacking, a spokesman for Anastasiades said.

In 1988, a Kuwaiti airliner hijacked en route from Bangkok to Kuwait stopped at Larnaca, where two hostages were killed.

Ten years earlier, Egyptian commandos attempted to storm a hijacked airliner at Larnaca airport, leading to a shoot-out with Greek Cypriot forces.

In October last year, a Russian passenger plane that took off in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, was brought down by a bomb over the Sinai Peninsula. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack that killed all 224 people on board.