A hijacker who apprehended an Egyptian airplane and directed a forced landing in Cyprus has been arrested. The news was published by Nicos Christodoulides, Cypriot government spokesman on Tuesday.

An EgyptAir traveler airplane airborne to Alexandria from Cairo was taken over by hijacker on Tuesday and averted to Cyprus where it did a forced landing on the southern shore at Larnaca airport, Egyptian civil aviation authority and Cypriot police officials said.

The alleged hijacker surrendered at Larnaca airport to authorities in Cyprus on Tuesday, told Cypriot authorities.

According to an AFP correspondent, a man came out of the plane with his hands up and walked towards the runway to 2 expecting counter-terrorism police officers. The officers laid the man on the ground and examined him for 2 minutes prior to take him away.

According to Egyptian civil aviation ministry, there were 81 passengers who boarded flight MS181, while according to a statement by EgyptAir, there were 55. We are not sure about the reason for this discrepancy.

According to airport officials, Larnaca airport was later closed and a crisis team was positioned to the area.

According to ministry of civil aviation statement, the hijacker, strapped with explosives, influenced the pilot to avert the plane to Larnaca.

According to a spokesman of Egyptian government, the hijacker firstly required to avert the flight to Istanbul but was stated by the captain that the plane was not having enough fuel to reach Istanbul.

Nicos Anastasiades, the President of Cyprus said during a joint press conference that the plane hijack was not associated to “terrorism”.

The flight was carrying 21 foreigners with 8 Americans, 4 Dutch, 4 Britons and 1 French national, said the civil aviation ministry of Egypt.

EgyptAir old that after negotiating the release of passengers, most of the passengers and some people wearing likely to be crew uniforms were permitted to disembark from the aircraft.

According to the statement by a minister, Egypt is directing a plane to Cyprus in order to pick up the stuck passengers.