Hijacker with fake bomb released all his hostages
EgyptAir plane’s atmosphere got so relaxed, a passenger took a selfie with the suspect
LARNACA, CYPRUS— First the hijacker said the women could leave. All the children, too. Then the man in the suicide vest agreed that all Egyptians and others from Muslim backgrounds would be allowed to escape from the plane.
That left five Western men, at least one of whom thought he was about to die.
“We looked each other in the eyes and we said: Here we are. We’re at the end of the line. It’s over,” recalled the Italian in the group, Andrea Banchetti, the day after an Egyptian man took control of a short EgyptAir flight to Cairo by donning a fake explosives belt and diverting it across the Mediterranean to Cyprus.
Seif Eddin Mustafa, 59, was arrested by Cypriot police Tuesday without physically harming a soul. The final five from Britain, Italy and the Netherlands were ultimately released just like the others. A day later, passengers openly second-guessed themselves over whether they had been right to feel terrified, skeptical or somewhere in between.
“I was going out of my mind,” said Banchetti, a 47-year-old mechanic from the Italian city of Genoa, recalling those confused, nerve-racking final minutes as the plane emptied with only the five men kept on board.
While the plane was still airborne, flight attendants and the pilots said they tried to speak informally to Mustafa, offering him drinks and making small talk. The pilot, Amr Al-Gammal, said the hijacker even let him choose whether to land in Turkey, Greece or the nearest choice, Cyprus.
The atmosphere grew sufficiently informal and relaxed that one of the English passengers, 26-year-old health and safety inspector Ben Innes, posed for a wide-grinning photo alongside the self-billed bomber.
“I’m not sure why I did it. I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity. I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it,” Innes was quoted as telling the Sun newspaper in London.
“I got one of the cabin crew to translate for me and asked him if I could do a selfie with him. He just shrugged OK, so I stood by him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap,” Innes was quoted as saying.
Some fellow hostages said they thought Innes had been a reckless imbecile.
Banchetti told La Repubblica newspaper in Rome that he’d wanted to slap Innes across the face. “How do you go up to him that way and take a photo of him? ‘Are you a fool?’ I said in English,” Banchetti recalled.
Cyprus police prosecutor Andreas Lambrianou said Mustafa faces preliminary charges including hijacking, illegal possession of explosives, kidnapping and threats to commit violence.
The prosecutor said that after Mustafa was arrested, he told police: “What’s someone supposed to do when he hasn’t seen his wife and children in 24 years and the Egyptian government won’t let him?”
An official at the general prosecutor’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said Egypt imposed no travel ban on Mustafa.