How Seif Eldin Mustafa got ‘suicide vest’ through security before hijacking EgyptAir plane
THIS is the moment “psychologically unstable” Seif Eldin Mustafa casually walked through customs at a major airport with a fake bomb.
Hostages released, five-hour siege ends
Hijacker named as Seif Eldin Mustafa
Mustafa described as ‘psychologically unstable’
Motives remain unclear
Footage shows hijacker wearing ‘suicide belt’ through customs
THIS is the terrifying moment the EgyptAir hijacker casually walked through security at a major airport with a “suicide belt”.
Authorities have now confirmed the explosive device that “psychologically unstable” Seif Eldin Mustafa used to take control of the flight from Alexandria to Cairo was fake.
But the fact he was able to pass through several customs checks in Egypt’s second largest city has added to the fears stirred by the bomb attacks at Brussels Airport last week.
The footage shows Mustafa being patted down while his hand luggage passes through an X-ray machine.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry said he had stored items in his bag that he later used to “give the impression that he is wearing an explosive belt.” It said the surveillance video showed Mustafa being thoroughly searched.
The Sun reported that Mustafa’s bulky belt was made from iPhone cases tied together and covered with cloth.
Pictures have emerged from inside the plane showing the 59-year-old Egyptian wearing the belt around his waist, over a T-shirt and under a jacket. One image shows him with a passenger who is broadly grinning, in a photograph that remains unexplained.
After taking control of the plane to Cairo, Mustafa forced the pilot to divert the flight to Cyprus, where a five-hour siege at Larnaca airport eventually came to an end after a man crawled through the cockpit window and sprinted towards waiting police.
Three more people were seen running down the stairs before being driven away by authorities.
He was met by snipers, counter-terrorism police and sniffer dogs when he emerged from the plane on Tuesday.
Hussein Abdelkarim Tantaway Mubarak, Egypt’s ambassador to Cyprus, said “it’s amazing” how the hijacker managed to convince passengers and crew that he had a belt of explosives strapped to him when he had no weapons.
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.
Mustafa is to appear in court Wednesday, where authorities will ask that he be held on a number of unspecified charges, said police spokesman Andreas Angelides.
#Egypt | #BREAKING: the hijacker's wearing a suicide vest as the picture shows. #EgyptAir #CyprusHijack pic.twitter.com/NmyT612Wum
— Raveen Aujmaya (@raveenaujmaya) March 29, 2016
ننÙرد بنشر Ùيديو تÙتيش مختط٠الطائرة المصرية ÙÙ‰ مطار #برج_العرب#سيÙ_الدين #EgyptAir #Cyprus #قبرص @EGYPTAIR pic.twitter.com/WZulllQONT
— اليوم السابع (@youm7) March 29, 2016
Officials said early on that the hijacking was not an act of terrorism, and later that the man appeared to be psychologically unstable.
The incident raises key questions about security, particularly given the hijacker was able to divert the plane without real explosives on board.
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.
“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.
Israel scrambled warplanes in response to the incident, according to an Israeli military source.
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.
‘NOT SOMETHING TO DO WITH TERRORISM’
Mustafa’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 21 foreigners on the flight, including eight Americans, four Dutch citizens, four Britons and a French citizen.
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”.
"He is not a terrorist, he is an idiot." - quoted Egyptian official on #EgyptAir hijacker. https://t.co/osOtd4WIKP
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 29, 2016
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,” he said. “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.”
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.
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.
Our flight MS181 is officially hijacked. we'll publish an official statement now. #Egyptair
— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) March 29, 2016
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 wires
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