EgyptAir hijacking not act of terrorism
Dramatic standoff with man threatening to blow up plane classified as ‘family feud’
LARNACA, CYPRUS— A man described as “psychologically unstable” hijacked a flight Tuesday from Egypt to Cyprus and threatened to blow it up. His explosives turned out to be fake and he surrendered with all passengers released unharmed after a bizarre six-hour standoff. As more became known about the motive of the 59-year-old Egyptian who was taken into custody, authorities characterized the commandeering of the EgyptAir jetliner not as an act of terrorism but more like a “family feud” with his former wife.
The aviation drama ended peacefully on the tarmac of Larnaca airport on the island nation’s southern coast with the surrender of a man identified by Cypriot and Egyptian authorities as Seif Eddin Mustafa.
The incident was likely to renew concerns about Egyptian airport security months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula in a bombing claimed by Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
But Egyptian officials stressed that their security measures were not to blame, while there was praise for the EgyptAir flight crew. Pilot Amr Gamal told The Associated Press: “We rescued all the people and the man got arrested.”
EgyptAir Flight 181 took off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria for a 30-minute hop to Cairo with at least 72 people aboard, Cyprus police said, including about two dozen foreigners.
At some point, the hijacker claimed to have explosives in his belt and forced the pilot to fly the Airbus 320 to Cyprus, Egyptian authorities said.
Egyptian passenger Farah el-Dabani told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyah TV network that it was the crew who told passengers that the plane was being hijacked. “There was panic at the beginning . . . They did a good job to keep us all quiet so the hijacker does not do anything rash,” she said in a telephone interview.
After the jet landed in Larnaca about 9 a.m., the hijacker asked to speak to his Cypriot ex-wife, who was brought to the airport, and he sent out a letter from the aircraft to give to her, said Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides.
Mustafa later asked to speak to EU representatives, and among his demands were the release of female inmates held in Egyptian prisons.
The hijacker eventually realized there was “no chance” any of his demands would be met, Kasoulides said, and he left the plane, where he was immediately arrested by antiterrorism police. The belt of explosives turned out to be “telephone cases” made to look like they were explosives.