Hijacked EgyptAir jet lands in Cyprus

All flights into Larnaca airport are being diverted to Paphos airport on the southwest coast of the island, a spokesperson for the Cyprus Civil aviation authority tells CNN.

A plane has been hijacked and has landed at Larnaca airport in Cyprus, Larnaca police press office confirms to CNN.
The flight was an internal flight heading from Burj El Arab airport in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria to the capital Cairo, Ihab Raslan, spokesman for the Egyptian ministry of civil aviation, tells CNN.
Negotiations with the hijacker have resulted in the release of all passengers, except for seven crew and four foreigners, a statement from the Egyptian ministry of civil aviation said.
EgyptAir had previously reported through its official Twitter account that five foreigners were being held captive on the plane, but changed to four.
Negotiations with the kidnapped result in the release of all the passengers, except the crew and four foreigners.

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) March 29, 2016

Scores on board

The Airbus 320 EgyptAir flight, designated MS181, had at least 81 people on board, according to the ministry, before the majority of passengers were deplaned.
Pilot Omar El Gamal has reported a threat from a passenger claiming to have an explosive belt, who forced the plane to land in Cyprus, the statement added.
The spokesman for Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry Ehab Raslan tells CNN they doubt the hijacker had any explosives.
"I doubt that he had explosives because security has been heightened across all Egyptian airports but we will be able to confirm later," Raslan said.
He added that an Egyptian team is conducting the negotiations with the hijacker.

"We don't know whether it is real, but if it is, how on earth did he get it on board?" Geoffrey Thomas from Airlineratings.com told CNN.

Tom Ballentyne, chief correspondent for Oriental Aviation, tells CNN that airline protocol would have taken this scenario into account.
"Pilots will have a special signal they can use to airport traffic control, it might be a code word or a signal they can use that will alert air traffic control that there is problem," he says.
"Pilots are instructed not to open the cockpit, so what we don't know is how he got into the cockpit"

Questionable air security

"This is different to issues of airport security that we have seen recently" Sajjan Gohel, Asia-Pacific Foundation London, said.
The hijacking comes months after a Russian Metrojet passenger plane was downed over Egypt's Sinai desert. While Russian authorities insisted the plane crash was the result of terrorism, one U.S. official said it was "99.9% certain" the cause. Another said it was "likely."
"Ever since the Metrojet plane was blown up it has been confirmed that there are lapses in Egyptian security," Gohel added.
Egypt was insisting that airports were safe, and that tourists should come back. But this is going to raise a lot of questions about just how safe the country, and its air travel is, CNN's Ian Lee says.
Questions about the amount of security at the airports, have been raised, but the quality of the security.
Developing story - more to come

(culled from cnn.com)