Passenger granted 'photo op' with EgyptAir hijacker

DESPITE the rather tense situation as an EgyptAir flight was being hijacked, a passenger from Aberdeen, Scotland managed to snap a photo with the hijacker.

Ben Innes, 26, who was one of the last few hostages released told The Sun newspaper that he himself didn’t even know how he dared to stand next to the hijacker identified as Seif Eldin Mustafa.

“I’m not sure why I did it. I got one of the cabin crew to translate for me and asked him if I could do a selfie with him.

“He just shrugged OK — so I stood beside him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap.

“It would be the best selfie you could ever send to your mates — better than anything you’d ever get on a night out or on holiday,” he told the daily.

Furthermore, he took the opportunity to also see the 'weapons' used.

“I could see something taped around his waist and he was holding on to some kind of a trigger,” he said.

On Tuesday, a hijacker seized an Egyptian airliner and diverted it to Cyprus, triggering a hostage crisis at Larnaca airport on the south coast, Cypriot police said.

Egyptian civil aviation said the hijacker had threatened to detonate an explosives belt.

A crisis team was deployed to the airport, the main entry point for tourists to the Mediterranean resort island.

The hijacker made no immediate demands and later allowed Egyptian passengers to disembark, Cypriot state television reported.