EgyptAir Plane Hijacker Arrested, Hostages Safe

Mangalore Today News Network

 March 29, 2016: The hijacker who seized an EgyptAir flight and forced it to land in Cyprus has been arrested, government spokesperson Nicos Christodoulides said on Tuesday. A man was seen climbing out of the cockpit window as it was reported that all passengers were safely off the plane.

The hijacker "emerged with his hands in the air" to counter-terror police officers who laid him on the ground and searched him before taking him away.The hijacker had claimed to be wearing an explosives belt when he took over the plane this morning. Reports had quoted the pilot has saying a man had threatened to blow himself up.

 

The Airbus was hijacked on its way from Alexandria in Egypt to capital Cairo.. The hijacker was identified as Seif Eldin Mustafa by the Cyprus government. A passenger had earlier been wrongly named as the hijacker. The plane had 60 on board when it was hijacked. Most of the passengers and crew were released within an hour.

 

About 60 people, including seven crew, had been on board, Egyptian and Cypriot officials said.


Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry said the plane’s pilot, Omar al-Gammal, had informed authorities that he was threatened by a passenger wearing a suicide explosives belt and forced him to land in Larnaca.

The plane was an Airbus 320, Egypt’s aviation ministry said. Eyptian state media named the hijacker as Ibrahim Samaha, an Egyptian, but gave no other details about him.

Passengers on the plane included eight Britons and 10 Americans, three security sources at Alexandria airport said.

Egypt’s vital tourism industry was already reeling from the crash of a Russian passenger plane in the Sinai in late October.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said it was brought down by a terrorist attack. Islamic State has said it planted a bomb on board, killing all 224 people on board.

Cyprus has seen little militant activity for decades, despite its proximity to the Middle East.

A botched attempt by Egyptian commandos to storm a hijacked airliner at Larnaca airport led to the disruption of diplomatic relations between Cyprus and Egypt in 1978.

In 1988, a Kuwaiti airliner which had been hijacked from Bangkok to Kuwait in a 16-day seige had a stopover in Larnaca, where two hostages were killed.