LARNACA, Cyprus —
First, the hijacker said the women could leave. All the children, too. Then the man in the suicide vest agreed that all Egyptians and others from Muslim backgrounds would be allowed off the plane.
That left five Western men — at least one of whom thought they were about to die.
“We looked each other in the eyes and we said, ‘Here we are. We’re at the end of the line. It’s over,’ ” recalled the Italian in the group, Andrea Banchetti, the day after an Egyptian man took control of a short EgyptAir flight to Cairo by donning a fake explosives belt and diverting the plane across the Mediterranean to Cyprus.
Seif Eddin Mustafa, 59, was arrested by Cypriot police Tuesday without physically harming anyone.
The final five — from Britain, Italy and the Netherlands — were ultimately released just like the others. A day later, passengers openly second-guessed themselves over whether they had been right to feel terrified, skeptical or somewhere in between.
“I was going out of my mind,” said Banchetti, 47, a mechanic from Genoa. He recalled those confused, nerve-racking final minutes as the plane emptied with only the five men kept on board. They had been singled out after the hijacker confiscated their European passports.
Not all expressed such open fears. The Dutchman on board, 56-year-old businessman Huub Helthuis, said when he talked to Mustafa once the plane had landed, the Egyptian replied in English: “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.” He eyed Mustafa’s vest of mysterious pockets and tangled wires and wondered whether they were real.
The atmosphere grew sufficiently informal and relaxed that one of the English passengers, 26-year-old health and safety inspector Ben Innes, posed for a wide-grinning photo alongside the self-billed bomber.
“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,” Innes was quoted as telling The Sun newspaper.
Some fellow hostages said they thought Innes had been a reckless imbecile.