When a hijacker took over a flight that was destined to Egypt with an ‘explosives belt’ tied around him, one passenger had a strange approach as he asked to snap a selfie.
For almost six hours, Seif Eldin Mustafa hijacked an EgyptAir jet that had taken off from Alexandria.
The plane was due to arrive at its destination in Cairo on March 29, 2016, but instead, Mustafa convinced cabin crew and the pilot to divert across the Mediterranean to Cyprus, less than 30 minutes into the flight.
From there, the 59-year-old entered a standoff on the tarmac of Larnaca international airport, with anti-terror squad swarming the plane and closing the airport for safety following reports the hijacker had fashioned a suicide belt.
The jet was carrying some 70 passengers at the time, but Mustafa let around 40 off while he reeled off demands.
Among his requests, he asked police to scale back from the jet and to grant him political asylum.
The bespectacled hijacker then poked his head through the plan’s door and threw a letter written in Arabic on the tarmac.
He asked the letter be delivered to his former wife, a Cypriot woman, later named as Marina Parashkou, living in the village of Oroklini.
The unusual request presented officials with an unsuspecting motive as Martin Schulz, the European parliament president, ruled out terrorism and said ‘it’s all to do with a woman’.
Upon seeing his wife, Mustafa then demanded Egypt release its female prisoners.
Yet the siege continued to boil over for several more hours with Brits, Americans, Italians, Dutch, French, and Belgians all being held hostage on the aircraft.
Ben Innes, from Leeds, was one such hostage who was returning home on a business trip when flight MS181 was captured.
But Ben rather bizarrely seemed to do some capturing of his own in this terrifying moment, as he turned to Mustafa and asked if he could have a selfie.
The snap shows Ben grinning next to the hijacker, who posed with his ‘explosives belt’ on show.
It’s an unusual moment to commemorate, but Ben explained to The Sun that there was a method to the madness as he did it to get a ‘closer look’ at the apparent suicide belt.
He added: “I figured if his bomb was real, I’d nothing to lose anyway.”
About his cheesy grin, Ben said: “I’m not sure why I did it, I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity.
“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 by him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap. It has to be the best selfie ever.”
Ben suspected the explosive device was probably fake, ‘so I decided to go back to my seat and plot my next move’, which included sending the pic to friends in the UK on WhatsApp with the caption: ‘You know your boy doesn’t f*** about! Turn on the news lad!’
An air stewardess, Naira Atef, also grabbed a picture with Mustafa.
Shortly after, Ben, Naira and the other hostages were released – and Ben’s stunt was praised by people on social media as well as his ‘proud’ friends and relatives who it was ‘totally in character’.
The standoff was eventually brought to an end when Mustafa surrendered to counter-terrorism police on the ground.
He reportedly told them: “What’s someone to do when he hasn’t seen his wife and children for 24 years?”
