EgyptAir hijacker arrested after forcing jet to land in Cyprus

A man was arrested after hijacking an Egyptian passenger plane and forcing it to land in Cyprus on Tuesday. All passengers and crew were released from the plane unharmed.

The hijacker was wearing what appeared to be an explosive belt, but Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said that the belt was determined not to contain any explosives. Cyprus' president laughed off the incident in a press coference, saying that it was not terror-related.

The plane was traveling from Alexandria to Cairo, but landed at the Cypriot Lanarca airport.

It was initially reported the hijacker wished to be put in touch with his ex-wife, but later reports from the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and the private broadcaster Antenna, both cited by Reuters, said he was demanding that female prisoners be released by Egypt.

Neither the Cypriot nor Egyptian government has confirmed either of these reports.

Cyprus' Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, via Twitter, identified the hijacker as Seif El Din Mustafa.

It had been widely reported that the hijacker was Ibrahim Samaha, an Egyptian national who was listed on the website of Alexandria University as a professor of veterinary medicine. Gamal al-Omrawi, a deputy dean at Alexandria University, said Samaha was actually a passenger on the plane, however, and not the hijacker.

Mustafa has an ex-wife in Cyprus. Witnesses have said the hijacker threw a letter on the tarmac of the airport, written in Arabic, that he demanded be delivered to her. Reuters reports she is a Cypriot national and resides there.

Helena Smith, The Guardian's correspondent in Cyprus, reported that Mustafa's ex-wife had gone to Larnaca airport.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said the incident had nothing to do with terrorism, according to The Guardian.

On Tuesday morning Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said the plane's pilot, Omar al-Gammal, had informed authorities he was threatened by a passenger wearing a suicide explosives belt and forced to land in Larnaca.

Egyptian security sources cited by CNN said they "doubted" the man was in possession of explosives. A Cypriot foreign ministry official said he could not confirm whether the hijacker was rigged with explosives.

Passengers on the plane included eight Britons and 10 Americans, three security sources at Alexandria airport told Reuters.

Sky News reports that one of the people being held on the flight was an Irish national.

Israel scrambled warplanes in its airspace as a precaution in response to the hijacking, according to an Israeli military source.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in contact with Cypriot and Egyptian authorities.

EgyptAir tweeted at 7:38 a.m. (GMT): "Our flight MS181 is officially hijacked. We'll publish an official statement now."

The plane is an Airbus 320, and its flight number is MS181.

In October a Russian airliner disintegrated over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, an area where an Islamic State affiliate group is active, killing all 224 people on board.

Reuters contributed to this report.