Egypt Air Flight 181

Egypt Air Flight 181
The hijacked Airbus A320 2010 in Istanbul-Ataturk
Accident summary
Accident type	kidnapping
place	Larnaca Airport , Cyprus
date	March 29, 2016
Fatalities	0
Survivors	64
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Airbus A320-232
operator	Egypt Air
Mark	SU-GCB
Departure airport	Al-ʿArab Castle Airport
Destination airport	Cairo International Airport
Passengers	56
crew	8 (including an airline security officer)
Lists of aviation accidents

Egypt Air Flight 181 (flight plan code: MS181 ) is a daily domestic flight of the Egyptian state-owned airline Egypt Air from Alexandria to Cairo , on which an Airbus A320 was hijacked on March 29, 2016 . There were 64 people on board the machine.

Flight history

The Airbus A320 took off at 6:30 a.m. ( UTC) from Burg al-ʿArab Airport for a 45-minute domestic flight to Cairo. The aircraft was hijacked during the flight. It landed at 7:45 pm at the Larnaca airport in Cyprus .

Passengers and crew

According to the company, there were 56 passengers on board, including 26 foreigners, seven crew members and an airline security officer.

Nationalities of passengers

nationality	number
Egypt	30th
Italy	11
United States	8th
Belgium	2
Greece	2
France	1
Syria	1
Cyprus	1
Total (7)	56

Events

After landing in Larnaca, all Egyptian passengers were released; the crew and four foreign passengers were initially still detained.

Except that no police vehicles were allowed to be around the aircraft, no further demands were made.

The kidnapper threatened to detonate an explosive belt. The Egyptian state television reported that the husband wanted to deliver a message to his ex-wife, who is from Cyprus, while applying for political asylum.

The kidnapper surrendered to the Cypriot authorities, which ended the incident without bloodshed.

According to media reports, the explosives belt that was worn was a dummy.

Reactions

• The affected airport was closed to all other aircraft.
• Cyprus formed a crisis team.

Trivia

• Egypt Air's Airbus A320 is the 10th hijacked aircraft to land at Larnaca Airport. Most recently it was an Airbus A310 from Sudan Airways in 1996 .

See also

• List of hijackings

Web links

• Information about flight MS181 on the Egypt Air website (English)
• Route and data of flight MS181 on Flightradar24 (English)
• Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ egyptair.com. (No longer available online.) In: egyptair.com. Archived from the original on April 13, 2016 ; accessed on March 29, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Article on the hijacking of Flight 181. Washington Post, March 29, 2016, accessed March 29, 2016 . 
3. ^ EgyptAir plane in Cyprus: hijacker negotiates with authorities. In: spiegel.de. Spiegel Online, March 29, 2016, accessed March 29, 2016 . 
4. ↑ The hijacker gives up - hostages are safe. Time online from March 29, 2016
5. ↑ Video shows hijackers during a security check . Day indicator . March 29, 2016. Accessed March 31, 2016.
6. ↑ EgyptAir: Airplane hijacked +++ landed in Cyprus +++ many passengers released. In: watson.ch. March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2016 . 
7. ↑ AviationSafety on Twitter. In: Twitter. Retrieved March 29, 2016 .