In the latest development, the Egypt Air flight MS 181 was hijacked carrying 56 members on board.

On March 26,2016, The Egyptian civil aviation authority said there were reports of the hijack of the plane and soon it was officially tweeted this information by the egyptair in the social media site through its account. As a result of negotiations the hijacker had agreed to free all the passengers except crew and 4 foreign passengers.

Looking into the details the flight left from Alexandria early in Tuesday morning to Cairo and was due to land at 7.15 a.m local time. But instead, the hijacked flight was diverted to land in Cyprus by the hijacker who forced it to fly to Larnaca. The hijacker threatened to possess an explosive belt along with him.

After forceful landing, some passengers were seen disembarking from the airbus. The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 11 Italians, 8 Americans, two Belgians, two Greeks, a French citizen and a Syrian.

The Egyptian Foreign ministry clarified that the hijacking was not related to terrorism. Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades said that his government was doing its best to save all the passengers on the EgyptAir flight. He got in touch with the president of the European Parliament.

Sherif Fathy, Egypt’s minister of Aviation, informed the press conference that the hijacker was still holding seven hostages, including the pilot’s captain, his assistant, one stewardess, a security officer and three passengers.

Earlier it was thought that this might be the activity of the Islamic State Group (ISG) which is facing the military action by the Egypt’s American-backed army. The action was to affiliate the ISG activities in the country’s northern Sinai Peninsula. In October 2015, a Russian passenger plane was blown out in the Sinai by a bomb planted inside the plane itself. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State Group terrorists.