THREE Arab hijackers forced an EgyptAir plane carrying over 145 people to fly to Libya yesterday, claiming they had a divine message to world leaders, authorities said. They surrendered five hours later.
The hijackers, one armed with a revolver, seized the Airbus 320 shortly after it left the town of Luxor in southern Egypt on the second leg of a flight from the Saudi city of Jeddah.
They landed at Martubah in northeastern Libya but soon released all their hostages safely to Libyan security forces.
Egyptian official sources had said the hijackers were Saudis of the Beni Hilal tribe, speaking Arabic with a non Egyptian accent, but later said they were Egyptians.
The official Libyan news agency, Jana, took a sympathetic line towards what it said was the plane's single hijacker.
His safety will he guaranteed and he can consider himself at home," it quoted the Libyan leader, Gen Muamar Gadafy, as saying Egypt will send an aircraft to the Libyan city of Benghazi to ferry the passengers back to Cairo, state television said.