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Updated 6.50pm
AN EGYPTIAN MAN who hijacked an EgyptAir passenger plane and forced it to divert to Cyprus demanding to see his ex-wife has surrendered after a six-hour airport standoff ended peacefully.
The hijacker, described by officials as “unstable”, had claimed to be wearing a bomb belt but no explosives were discovered after he gave himself up at Larnaca airport and was arrested.
Most of the 55 passengers on the plane – originally travelling from Alexandria to Cairo – were quickly released after it had landed but some escaped only minutes before the hijacker surrendered, including one man who climbed out a cockpit window.
“It’s over,” the Cyprus ministry of foreign affairs later tweeted.
“From the beginning it was determined that this was not a case of terrorism,” Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told reporters, adding that the man was “psychologically unstable”.
The Egyptian interior ministry identified the man as Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa.
A police official said he was 58 and had previously served time in prison.
Kasoulides said the man demanded to deliver a letter to his Cypriot ex-wife, with whom officials said he has children.
She was brought to the airport and spoke to the man, Kasoulides said, without providing further details.
He also delivered a rambling letter in Arabic to authorities making a number of demands, including to meet with a European Union representative and for the release of women prisoners in Egypt.
“There was no logical consistency for the demands to be taken seriously,” Kasoulides said.
Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades had earlier told reporters “the hijacking is not terrorism-related”.
‘They were not explosives’
Asked about reports that the hijacker had demanded to see a Cypriot woman, Anastasiades laughed and said: “Always there is a woman.”
After searching the hijacker and sending sniffer dogs into the plane, Cypriot police said no bombs had been found.
Kasoulides said the man had also threatened to blow himself up if the plane was not refuelled and allowed to depart for Istanbul.
“We examined the alleged explosives that were found on him. They were not explosives but phone covers made up to give the impression they were explosives,” he said.
The EgyptAir plane landed in Larnaca at 8.50am (6.50am Irish time), after the hijacker had contacted the control tower 20 minutes earlier to demand the diversion.
Egyptian civil aviation officials said there were 21 foreigners among the passengers, and that the hijacker had demanded the plane land in either Turkey or Cyprus.
Officials had said seven people, including three passengers, had remained on board until shortly before the man surrendered. Kasoulides said the last two passengers on the plane had been British.
The remaining passengers and crew were later seen exiting the aircraft, with several descending the steps from the plane and one clambering out of a cockpit window and dropping to the ground.
A man then emerged, walked across the tarmac and raised his hands to two waiting counter-terrorism officers. They laid him on the ground and searched him for around two minutes before taking him away.
Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides later said on Twitter that “the hijacker has just been arrested”.
Officials in both Cyprus and Egypt then confirmed that all crew and passengers were safe.
Cypriot police said there were no immediate indications that anyone had been working with the hijacker.
Irish passenger
It was reported earlier that an Irish person was among passengers on board the hijacked plane, with the Department of Foreign Affairs saying it was “aware of the reports”.
However in a statement this evening Minister Charlie Flanagan said the department did not receive any request for consular assistance and “as far as I am aware, none of the passengers was travelling on an Irish passport”.
© – AFP, 2016 with reporting from Daragh Brophy and Michelle Hennessy
I seriously hope that the idiot who passed me and 3 others cars on double white lines on the N2 last Sunday reads this.
The car was going that fast I couldn’t get the number.
The speeding and passing out on that road it unbelievable.
@Kappa: I think that’s a big issue – the disconnect between behavior and the consequences.
We constantly hear that someone died on the road. We never hear the why.
So as a driver it is easy to separate our actions behind the wheel and possible outcomes.
Like above, the car hit a tree and they both died which s dreadful but how can such a thing happen and how do I avoid it? There’s no lesson to take away bar the usual generic slow down and don’t drink & drive which fall on deaf ears.
Fatal accident on N2 yesterday was a suspected non national drunk driver, he was killed. Three vehicles involved. Two innocent people now in critical condition.
Full details will become public knowledge in due course. Locals well aware of what occurred.
This should be broadcast on all Irish channels at the same time.
I’d rather watch something about the cosmos. There’s so much out there to discover.
@Hello there. What a sad little existence you must lead. What you going to do when twitter shut down your means of hiding so you can troll?
I’ll cry :-)
I was passed on the ballyragget road in kilkenny by a fool in a supervalu van on his mobile over took me as a tractor approached , I reported this to supervalu and nothing happened , I have now reported to gardai hopefully this fool will be caught before he bn kills some one…
I think we should get the figures for the last decade of what was deemed the cause of accidents. Then increase the resourcing of prevent the causes and tell the public why. People caught speeding always seem to say it is a money making exercise, people say cyclists are a huge danger, roads are dangerous, etc… Let’s see the actual figures. I suspect it driver behaviour more than people will admit
@Kal Ipers: I would say that almost certainly, the vast majority of fatal accidents in Ireland are caused by driver error and driver choices.
Part of the problem is the very natural human feeling of compassion for the victims. The horrifying story of a young woman dying with her son is going to make anyone feel sympathy. So there’s a way to talk about it. “their car hit a tree”. It’s an event that comes like lightning out of the sky. It’s callous and cruel to look closer at why the car hit the tree. It would cause those already suffering even more pain. However, if people aren’t willing to look openly and clearly at why accidents happen, and why the causes are not accidental, but the choices people make, then there can’t be significant improvement.
The Irish record on road safety is much worse than the UK. Rural Ireland is worse than Dublin. Donegal is very, very bad indeed. This is partly due to the type of roads, and their condition, but it’s mostly due to the Irish driver, who routinely does things that in the long term will kill someone.
@Julian West: Sorry Julian, just reading your comment after I posted mine.
You said it better than me and I couldn’t agree more.
@Julian West: Hate to break it to you they do investigate these things either way. I am suggesting they publish the results in the form of stats to let the public know he truth.
@Julian.Great post.
Heartbreaking to watch and should be required viewing for anybody who is learning to drive a car.on a side note to all the whingers who complain about RTE in fairness to them they have produced two powerful programmes in the last few days on this subject and the hospital waiting lists.
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