An hours-long hostage ordeal ended Tuesday with the arrest of a hijacker who had diverted a commercial jet and taking dozens of people captive.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Cyprus said in a tweet at around 7:45 a.m. ET that the suspect had been arrested.
“It’s over,” the ministry said in a tweet.
Its over. The #hijacker arrested. #LarnacaAirport # Egyptair
— Cyprus MFA (@CyprusMFA) March 29, 2016
The drama began when a passenger claiming to have an explosive belt diverted a commercial jet over what appeared to be a “personal” matter involving a woman, authorities said.
EgyptAir Flight MS181 was en route from the Egyptian city of Alexandria to Cairo when the hijacker ordered the plane to land in either Turkey or Cyprus, according to the airline.
The Airbus A320 flew to the Cypriot port city of Larnaca and landed at around 7:50 a.m. local time (12:50 a.m. ET), where negotiations got underway, EgyptAir said.
There were conflicting reports about how many people were on board — with some officials saying it was carrying 55 and others suggesting that figure was 81.
The majority of the passengers were soon released, leaving all but four foreigners and seven crew members on board.
Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry later said only three passengers and four crew remained on the hijacked plane about three hours into the drama.
More than an hour later, live footage from the scene showed someone dangling from a rope out of the cockpit window and dropping to the ground. Two people were also seen coming down stairs parked next to the jet.
The passenger list included eight Americans, two Belgians, four Dutch, and one national each of France, Italy and Syria, according to the ministry.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said the hijacking was “not something that has to do with terrorism.”
A high-level source close to the operation said the hijacker’s motive seemed to be about a “personal” matter involving a woman. The hijacker is believed to be an Egyptian national.
The hijacker requested to be allowed to speak to someone — a Cypriot woman who appeared to be his ex-wife — and negotiators discussed that prospect with him, the source added.
Egypt’s Minister of Civil Aviation said it was not yet clear whether the hijacker had explosives as he had claimed.
“This will come as an outcome of the investigation,” Minister Sherif Fathy Ateyya told a news conference before the suspect was arrested. “The reality is that we have a hijacker on board of a plane. We are not sure whether what he has are true… But we are dealing with it as a real threat because we cannot take any risks.”