from
news.com.au:~~~
From almost Tragedy to nigh Comedy, but like a Shakesperean play, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL! I believe thiis could qualify as the SHORTEST PLANE HIJACK EVER, and except for the CREW & PASSENGERS ON BOARD< we viewers must thank agencies LIKE CNN< BBC and aljazeera feeding us "LIVE" coverage better than the average TV fictional series! IMHO K! I don't get paid by the Agents! -- YL, DEsi
Seif Eldin Mustafa arrested, hostages escape after EgyptAir plane hijacked flying from Alexandria to Cairo
- Hostages released, five-hour siege ends
- Hijacker named as Seif Eldin Mustafa
- Mustafa described as ‘psychologically unstable’
- Motives remain unclear
THE
“explosive belt” worn by an Egyptian man who hijacked a plane and
diverted it to Cyprus was fake, authorities have confirmed, as footage
emerges of him passing through airport security.
Seif
Eldin Mustafa was met by snipers, counter-terrorism police and sniffer
dogs when he emerged from the plane he had occupied for hours on Tuesday
after diverting the flight that was bound for Cairo to Cyprus.
He
will appear in court on Wednesday, where authorities will ask that he
be held on a number of unspecified charges, said police spokesman
Andreas Angelides.
The Sun reported that the belt was made from several iPhone cases tied together and covered with cloth.
Officials
said early on that the hijacking was not an act of terrorism, and later
that the man appeared to be psychologically unstable.
Ben Innes' photo with Seif Eldin Mustafa wearing his fake suicide belt on the hijacked EgyptAir. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied
“From
the start, it was clear that this wasn’t an act of terrorism, and
despite the fact that the individual appeared to be dangerous in terms
of his behaviour, we understood that this was a psychologically unstable
person,” Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told reporters.
He said the man initially asked to speak with his Cypriot ex-wife, who police brought to the airport.
“After
that, he started asking for European Union representatives to assure
him about matters that had no logical basis,” Kasoulides said.
At
one point the hijacker demanded the release of women held in Egyptian
prisons, but he then dropped the demand and made others. “His demands
made no sense or were too incoherent to be taken seriously,” the
minister said, adding that the contents of a letter the hijacker wanted
to give to his ex-wife “were also incoherent.” Cyprus President Nicos
Anastasiades, in an earlier appearance alongside European Parliament
President Martin Schulz in Nicosia, was asked whether the incident
involved a woman. “Always, there is a woman,” he replied, drawing
laughter.
Police
in Cairo questioned Mustafa’s relatives, said Sharif Faisal, the police
chief for the industrial suburb of Helwan. Islam Magdy, a taxi driver
who lives in the same five-story house as Mustafa’s sister, described
him as “a mysterious person”.
Pictures emerged from inside the plane showing a bulky belt strapped to Mustafa’s waist. Another image shows him with
a passenger who is broadly grinning in a photograph that remains unexplained.
A man clambers out of the plane moments before the siege ends. Picture: SkyNews.Source:Supplied
The
five-hour siege came to an end after a man was filmed crawling through
the cockpit window and sprinting towards waiting police. Three more
people were shown running down the stairs before being driven away by
authorities.
The incident raises key questions about security,
particularly given the hijacker was able to divert the plane without
real explosives on board. Israel scrambled warplanes in response to the
incident, according to an Israeli military source.
Egyptian Civil
Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy Ateyya said the pilots had no choice but
to take the threat seriously as they had no idea the belt was fake.
And
Egyptian officials stressed that their security measures were not to
blame, and 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.”
It’s also a major blow for Egypt’s tourism
industry, already reeling from the crash of a Russian passenger plane in
October which
killed 224 people after a bomb went off on board.
A man believed to be the hijacker leaves the plane. Picture: AFP/BEHROUZ MEHRISource:AFP
‘NOT SOMETHING TO DO WITH TERRORISM’
The
man’s motivations for the hijack remain unclear, although officials
said he had tried to communicate with his ex-wife wife who lives on the
island.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister Sharif Fathi confirmed
seven people including the captain, co-pilot, an air marshal and a
hostess as well as three passengers — were trapped on the plane
throughout the ordeal.
Earlier, the Egyptian civil aviation
ministry said there were a number foreigners on the flight including
eight Americans, four Britons, four Dutch, two Belgians, a French
national, an Italian, two Greeks and one Syrian.
An Egyptian
passenger, Farah el-Dabani, told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyah TV network
that the hijacker was seated in the back of the aircraft and that it was
the crew who told passengers that the plane was being hijacked.
A
veiled female passenger told Egyptian TV upon arrival back in Cairo,
“We were terrified but cooperating.” The woman, who was not identified,
said she thought the explosives had been real.
“I felt like the man can just press the button, and we will be gone,” she said.
A
middle-aged male passenger who also didn’t identify himself told the
broadcaster, “The situation was very hard, more than anyone can
imagine.” He also praised the flight crew, saying they “were like a
psychiatrists to the hijacker.” The flight crew and passengers who
returned to Cairo on Tuesday night broke into tears while hugging and
kissing their waiting families.
“There was panic at the beginning,
but the crew told us to be quiet. They did a good job to keep us all
quiet so the hijacker does not do anything rash,” she said in a
telephone interview.
A man exits the plane while snipers point their weapons at him. Picture: AFP/GEORGE MICHAELSource:AFP
Negotiations meant most of the passengers were allowed to leave the plane early.
Cypriot
President Nicos Anastasiades said: “We are doing our utmost in order
for everyone to be released and safe and to give an end to this
unprecedented (incident). In any case it is not something which has to
do with terrorism.”
The sentiment was echoed by a member of the
Egyptian Foreign Ministry who said the hijacker was “not a terrorist,
he’s an idiot ... Terrorists are crazy, but they are not stupid”.
Passengers
disembark an Egypt Air Airbus A-320 sitting on the tarmac of Larnaca
airport after it was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. Picture:
AFP/GEORGE MICHAELSource:AFP
CONFUSION OVER HIJACKER IDENTITY
It
was initially reported the hijacker was Ibrahim Samaha, a 27-year-old
professor who was said to be demanding to see his estranged Cypriot
wife.
But authorities backtracked on that claim after the
BBC spoke to Mr Samaha who said he was a passenger on the plane who “did not know what was going on”.
“We
got aboard the plane and we were surprised that the crew took all our
passports, which is unusual for a domestic flight. After a while we
realised that the altitude is getting higher. Then we knew we were
heading to Cyprus. At first the crew told us there was a problem with
the plane, and only later we knew it was hijacked,” he said.
An
Egyptian woman who identified herself as Nahala, also told broadcaster
ONTV her husband Ibrahim was travelling to a conference in the US. She
said the picture being shown on television was not him and he had never
travelled to Cyprus before.
PASSENGERS LEAVE PLANE UNHARMED
Passengers were shown leaving the plane calmly with their hand luggage and walking to a waiting bus.
A
spokesman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
said the Australian Embassy in Cairo and the Australian High Commission
in Nicosia are making urgent inquiries with local authorities to
determine whether any Australians are affected by the hijacking of an
EgyptAir flight.
Passengers stand at Larnaca airport after disembarking the plane. Picture: AFP / George MichaelSource:AFP
HOW IT ALL UNFOLDED
EgyptAir
MS181 was travelling the 30 minute flight from Alexandria to Cairo when
a demand was made for the pilot to land the Airbus 320 at Larnaca.
“The
Airbus A-320 carrying 81 passengers and flying between Alexandria and
Cairo was hijacked. The pilot said that a passenger told him he had an
explosives vest and forced the plane to land in Larnaca,” an Egyptian
aviation ministry statement said.
Police said the alleged hijacker
contacted the control tower at 8.30am local time and the plane was
given permission to land at 8.50am.
Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24, told
The Associated Press that
EgyptAir flight MS181 flew in a typical fashion on the Cyprus, without
the pilots signalling any trouble via their transponder.
“It looks like a completely controlled flight aside from the fact it was hijacked,” he said.
Flights to Larnaca in the south were diverted to the Paphos airport in the west, officials said.
Larnaca is no stranger to hostage crises. Several hijacked planes were diverted to the airport in the 1970s and 1980s.
In
1988, a Kuwait Airways flight hijacked en route from Bangkok to Kuwait
was diverted to Meshed and later to Larnaca, where hijackers killed two
Kuwaiti passengers and dumped their bodies on the tarmac.
In
February 1978, an Egyptian commando unit stormed a hijacked Cyprus
Airways DC-8 at Larnaca airport, where 15 passengers were being held
hostage. Some 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 15 wounded. All the
hostages were freed and the hijackers arrested.
— With agencies
Mustafa arrested, hostages escape after EgyptAir plane hijacked flying from Alexandria to Cairo
- Hostages released, five-hour siege ends
- Hijacker named as Seif Eldin Mustafa
- Mustafa described as ‘psychologically unstable’
- Motives remain unclear
THE
“explosive belt” worn by an Egyptian man who hijacked a plane and
diverted it to Cyprus was fake, authorities have confirmed, as footage
emerges of him passing through airport security.
Seif
Eldin Mustafa was met by snipers, counter-terrorism police and sniffer
dogs when he emerged from the plane he had occupied for hours on Tuesday
after diverting the flight that was bound for Cairo to Cyprus.
He
will appear in court on Wednesday, where authorities will ask that he
be held on a number of unspecified charges, said police spokesman
Andreas Angelides.
The Sun reported that the belt was made from several iPhone cases tied together and covered with cloth.
Officials
said early on that the hijacking was not an act of terrorism, and later
that the man appeared to be psychologically unstable.
Ben Innes' photo with Seif Eldin Mustafa wearing his fake suicide belt on the hijacked EgyptAir. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied
“From
the start, it was clear that this wasn’t an act of terrorism, and
despite the fact that the individual appeared to be dangerous in terms
of his behaviour, we understood that this was a psychologically unstable
person,” Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told reporters.
He said the man initially asked to speak with his Cypriot ex-wife, who police brought to the airport.
“After
that, he started asking for European Union representatives to assure
him about matters that had no logical basis,” Kasoulides said.
At
one point the hijacker demanded the release of women held in Egyptian
prisons, but he then dropped the demand and made others. “His demands
made no sense or were too incoherent to be taken seriously,” the
minister said, adding that the contents of a letter the hijacker wanted
to give to his ex-wife “were also incoherent.” Cyprus President Nicos
Anastasiades, in an earlier appearance alongside European Parliament
President Martin Schulz in Nicosia, was asked whether the incident
involved a woman. “Always, there is a woman,” he replied, drawing
laughter.
Police
in Cairo questioned Mustafa’s relatives, said Sharif Faisal, the police
chief for the industrial suburb of Helwan. Islam Magdy, a taxi driver
who lives in the same five-story house as Mustafa’s sister, described
him as “a mysterious person”.
Pictures emerged from inside the plane showing a bulky belt strapped to Mustafa’s waist. Another image shows him with
a passenger who is broadly grinning in a photograph that remains unexplained.
A man clambers out of the plane moments before the siege ends. Picture: SkyNews.Source:Supplied
The
five-hour siege came to an end after a man was filmed crawling through
the cockpit window and sprinting towards waiting police. Three more
people were shown running down the stairs before being driven away by
authorities.
The incident raises key questions about security,
particularly given the hijacker was able to divert the plane without
real explosives on board. Israel scrambled warplanes in response to the
incident, according to an Israeli military source.
Egyptian Civil
Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy Ateyya said the pilots had no choice but
to take the threat seriously as they had no idea the belt was fake.
And
Egyptian officials stressed that their security measures were not to
blame, and 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.”
It’s also a major blow for Egypt’s tourism
industry, already reeling from the crash of a Russian passenger plane in
October which
killed 224 people after a bomb went off on board.
A man believed to be the hijacker leaves the plane. Picture: AFP/BEHROUZ MEHRISource:AFP
‘NOT SOMETHING TO DO WITH TERRORISM’
The
man’s motivations for the hijack remain unclear, although officials
said he had tried to communicate with his ex-wife wife who lives on the
island.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister Sharif Fathi confirmed
seven people including the captain, co-pilot, an air marshal and a
hostess as well as three passengers — were trapped on the plane
throughout the ordeal.
Earlier, the Egyptian civil aviation
ministry said there were a number foreigners on the flight including
eight Americans, four Britons, four Dutch, two Belgians, a French
national, an Italian, two Greeks and one Syrian.
An Egyptian
passenger, Farah el-Dabani, told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyah TV network
that the hijacker was seated in the back of the aircraft and that it was
the crew who told passengers that the plane was being hijacked.
A
veiled female passenger told Egyptian TV upon arrival back in Cairo,
“We were terrified but cooperating.” The woman, who was not identified,
said she thought the explosives had been real.
“I felt like the man can just press the button, and we will be gone,” she said.
A
middle-aged male passenger who also didn’t identify himself told the
broadcaster, “The situation was very hard, more than anyone can
imagine.” He also praised the flight crew, saying they “were like a
psychiatrists to the hijacker.” The flight crew and passengers who
returned to Cairo on Tuesday night broke into tears while hugging and
kissing their waiting families.
“There was panic at the beginning,
but the crew told us to be quiet. They did a good job to keep us all
quiet so the hijacker does not do anything rash,” she said in a
telephone interview.
A man exits the plane while snipers point their weapons at him. Picture: AFP/GEORGE MICHAELSource:AFP
Negotiations meant most of the passengers were allowed to leave the plane early.
Cypriot
President Nicos Anastasiades said: “We are doing our utmost in order
for everyone to be released and safe and to give an end to this
unprecedented (incident). In any case it is not something which has to
do with terrorism.”
The sentiment was echoed by a member of the
Egyptian Foreign Ministry who said the hijacker was “not a terrorist,
he’s an idiot ... Terrorists are crazy, but they are not stupid”.
Passengers
disembark an Egypt Air Airbus A-320 sitting on the tarmac of Larnaca
airport after it was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. Picture:
AFP/GEORGE MICHAELSource:AFP
CONFUSION OVER HIJACKER IDENTITY
It
was initially reported the hijacker was Ibrahim Samaha, a 27-year-old
professor who was said to be demanding to see his estranged Cypriot
wife.
But authorities backtracked on that claim after the
BBC spoke to Mr Samaha who said he was a passenger on the plane who “did not know what was going on”.
“We
got aboard the plane and we were surprised that the crew took all our
passports, which is unusual for a domestic flight. After a while we
realised that the altitude is getting higher. Then we knew we were
heading to Cyprus. At first the crew told us there was a problem with
the plane, and only later we knew it was hijacked,” he said.
An
Egyptian woman who identified herself as Nahala, also told broadcaster
ONTV her husband Ibrahim was travelling to a conference in the US. She
said the picture being shown on television was not him and he had never
travelled to Cyprus before.
PASSENGERS LEAVE PLANE UNHARMED
Passengers were shown leaving the plane calmly with their hand luggage and walking to a waiting bus.
A
spokesman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
said the Australian Embassy in Cairo and the Australian High Commission
in Nicosia are making urgent inquiries with local authorities to
determine whether any Australians are affected by the hijacking of an
EgyptAir flight.
Passengers stand at Larnaca airport after disembarking the plane. Picture: AFP / George MichaelSource:AFP
HOW IT ALL UNFOLDED
EgyptAir
MS181 was travelling the 30 minute flight from Alexandria to Cairo when
a demand was made for the pilot to land the Airbus 320 at Larnaca.
“The
Airbus A-320 carrying 81 passengers and flying between Alexandria and
Cairo was hijacked. The pilot said that a passenger told him he had an
explosives vest and forced the plane to land in Larnaca,” an Egyptian
aviation ministry statement said.
Police said the alleged hijacker
contacted the control tower at 8.30am local time and the plane was
given permission to land at 8.50am.
Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24, told
The Associated Press that
EgyptAir flight MS181 flew in a typical fashion on the Cyprus, without
the pilots signalling any trouble via their transponder.
“It looks like a completely controlled flight aside from the fact it was hijacked,” he said.
Flights to Larnaca in the south were diverted to the Paphos airport in the west, officials said.
Larnaca is no stranger to hostage crises. Several hijacked planes were diverted to the airport in the 1970s and 1980s.
In
1988, a Kuwait Airways flight hijacked en route from Bangkok to Kuwait
was diverted to Meshed and later to Larnaca, where hijackers killed two
Kuwaiti passengers and dumped their bodies on the tarmac.
In
February 1978, an Egyptian commando unit stormed a hijacked Cyprus
Airways DC-8 at Larnaca airport, where 15 passengers were being held
hostage. Some 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 15 wounded. All the
hostages were freed and the hijackers arrested.
— With agencies
One aviation expert said the flight patterns looked normal except for the fact ‘it was hijacked’.Source:Supplied
On
Monday, ABC Australia aired an episode of their programme Four Corners,
detailing the shocking events surrounding the 1MDB scandal. The prime
minister of Malaysia is alleged to have received vast amounts of money
by improper means.
