Dayton's Aviation Heritage Spring 2016: Love-sick Hijacking

On Tuesday, March 29, 2016 EgyptAir flight MS181 was taken hostage. A passenger wearing a vest of explosives hijacked the flight one half hour into its journey. He demanded that the flight, originally destined to Cairo from Alexandria, divert to Cyprus. Shortly after landing in Cyprus, the hijacker released forty of the fifty-five passengers and began making demands as hijackers and hostage takers are wont to do. The demands started off standard enough: he wanted the police to leave the immediate area and political asylum in Cyprus. Following this, however, things took a turn for the strange.

The hijacker's next demand was that a letter be delivered to his ex-wife. He held the remaining passengers hostage until his ex-wife and child arrived to negotiate with him. Shortly afterward, the hijacker surrendered and released all hostages. Upon his capture, it was discovered that the bomb-vest being worn by the hijacker was fake, and the hijacking was ruled not to be an act of terrorism but rather the desperate actions of a man who wanted to see his ex-wife and children. As stated by Cairo's ministry of foreign affairs,

"He's not a terrorist, he's an idiot. Terrorists are crazy but they aren't stupid. This guy is."

Ultimately, the situation was resolved with no injuries nor fatalities and was considered a success by the hijacker as depicted in this picture of him showing a 'v' for victory on his way from court.