Egypt hijacking: Airport security chief summoned

Egypt's public prosecutor has summoned the head of Burj Al Arab airport security and several other security officials for questioning over the plane hijacking.

Egyptian official sources said on the night of March 29 that the country's public prosecutor's office had decided to summon the head of security at Burj Al Arab airport in Alexandria, along with several other security officials, for questioning about the hijacking of an EgyptAir passenger plane departing from Burj Al Arab airport.

A passenger walks out of a hijacked Egyptian plane. Photo: Independent.

Egyptian authorities are also actively conducting an investigation to understand the real motive behind the hijacking of the plane.

Earlier, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail personally ordered the country's Minister of Civil Aviation to conduct a serious investigation into the kidnapping and to strengthen security measures at all airports in the country.

The hijacking of EgyptAir's Airbus 320 flight MS181 ended at nearly 2 p.m. yesterday local time, more than five hours after the plane was forced to land at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus at the request of the hijackers.

The suspect, an Egyptian citizen named Seif El Din Mostafa, agreed to surrender to Cypriot security forces without resorting to force.

All 62 people on board the plane, including 55 passengers of various nationalities and 7 crew members, were safe. Cypriot security officials did not find any explosives in the suspect's backpack or on the hijacked plane.

According to Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi, the hijacker was not a terrorist and showed signs of mental illness. However, the real motive behind the hijacking has not been clarified.

The hijacking of an Egyptian passenger plane yesterday was the second serious aviation incident to hit the North African country in just half a year.

Exactly six months ago, on the last day of October 2015, a Russian airline passenger plane crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula just minutes after taking off from the international airport in the city of Sharm El Sheikh, killing all 224 passengers and crew.

After months of investigation, both Russia and Egypt finally confirmed that the plane crash was the result of terrorism. The disaster dealt a heavy blow to the tourism industry, one of the pillars of the Egyptian economy, causing revenue to plummet to an unprecedented level.

At the beginning of the plane hijacking yesterday, many analysts predicted an extremely bad scenario for Egypt's tourism industry if the plane's capture was determined to be a terrorist attack.

According to VOV