Hijacker arrested after EgyptAir plane diverted to Cyprus airport

An Egyptian passenger plane was hijacked while flying from Alexandria to Cairo on Tuesday morning. Officials say the hijacker is an Egyptian man. The plane was flown to Cyprus, where most of the passengers were let out.

CAIRO — A man hijacked a passenger plane and forced it to land at Larnaca airport in Cyprus on Tuesday in an incident that Cyprus' president said was related to a woman, not terrorism.

The domestic EgyptAir Airbus 320 Flight 181 was hijacked while flying from the coastal city of Alexandria to Cairo. Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said there were 81 passengers aboard the plane, which took off at about 6:30 a.m. local time.

Most of the passengers were released apparently unharmed while a handful of crew and passengers remained aboard as negotiations with the hijacker continued.

TV footage from the scene showed a man jumping out of a cockpit window while three others walked down steps from the plane, before Cyprus' Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted that the incident was over and the hijacker was arrested, more than seven hours after the plane took off.

Egyptian authorities told a news conference that little more than a half hour after takeoff, a passenger confronted the pilot with a bomb threat. The man originally wanted to land in either Turkey or Cyprus, and after some negotiation they agreed on Larnaca. The plane touched down at 7:50 a.m.

The man did not have a gun, but there was still a danger to passengers and crew because officials were unsure if the bomb was real or fake, authorities said. Officials reached out to the families of the hostages to let them know what happened.

Police barrier tape seals off the area where a hijacked EgyptAir A320 plane was parked at Larnaca Airport, in Larnaca, Cyprus on March 29, 2016. The passenger plane from the Egyptian airline 'EgyptAir' was hijacked earlier the same morning, after being forced to divert its route from Alexandria to Cairo. The plane was carrying 81 passengers when it landed on Larnaca airport in Cyprus. Katia Christodoulou, EPA

Fullscreen

1 of 9

Next Slide

9 Photos

Hijacked EgyptAir plane lands at Cyprus airport

“We don’t know yet how he got the equipment and whether it is real or not. The reality is we are dealing with it as a real threat, because we can’t take any risks," Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathy told the news conference in Cairo.

He said the hijacker had made no concrete demands.

Cyprus' Ministry of Foreign Affairs named the suspected hijacker as Seif Eldin Mustafa. The Egyptian government apologized to a man it earlier wrongly named as the hijacker, Al Arabiya reported.

Cypriot state media reported that the hijacker's ex-wife was taken from Larnaca to the airport to talk with the hijacker, who was asking authorities deliver a 4-page-letter to her or he would detonate explosives strapped to his body.

EGYPTAIR PLANE HIJACKINGEgyptAir hijacking 'not terrorism-related' says Cyprus president | 00:37

The hijacking of an EgyptAir plane to Cyprus on Tuesday is not related to terrorism, the island's President Nicos Anastasiades said. Video provided by AFP Newslook

1 of 4

EGYPTAIR PLANE HIJACKINGMarkets React to the Egypt Air Flight Hijacking | 02:11

March 29 -- Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Gordon, discusses market reaction to the hijacking of an Egypt Air flight and geopolitical risks in general. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse." Bloomberg

2 of 4

EGYPTAIR PLANE HIJACKINGHijacker Forces EgyptAir Plane to Land in Cyprus | 01:07

March 29 -- A hijacker claiming to be wearing an explosive belt forced a domestic EgyptAir flight to land in Cyprus, and then released most of the more than 50 people on board. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said the takeover of the aircraft w Bloomberg

3 of 4

EGYPTAIR PLANE HIJACKINGHijacked Egyptian plane on tarmac in Cyprus | 00:34

4 of 4

Next Video

EgyptAir hijacking 'not terrorism-related' says Cyprus president
Markets React to the Egypt Air Flight Hijacking
Hijacker Forces EgyptAir Plane to Land in Cyprus
Hijacked Egyptian plane on tarmac in Cyprus

The hijacker has four children with his ex-wife, named by local media as Marina Paraschou, the Kathimerini newspaper reported. It said the hijacker was a veterinary professor at the University of Alexandria.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades told a news conference the incident "has nothing to do with terrorism."

A journalist asked if it was related to a woman to which Anastasiades replied "there's always a woman involved."

Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said on its website that the passengers included 8 Americans, 4 Dutch, 2 Belgians, 4 Britons, 2 people from Bali in Indonesia, and one passenger each from France, Syria and Italy. It said 15 crew members were taken hostage, but did not release their nationalities.

EgyptAir said it was working on getting authorization for a plane from Cairo to land in Larnaca to collect the freed passengers.

Egyptian airport security has been audited by several agencies over the years. The incident comes five months after a Russian passenger plane crashed over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people aboard. An affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Contributing: Jabeen Bhatti, Janon Fisher