I assume you’ve all heard about the Egyptian man who hijacked an EgyptAir flight and diverted it to Cyprus on Tuesday.
The man let all the passengers disembark once the plane was on the ground in Larnaca, but he kept authorities guessing during a six-hour standoff in which he held the aircrew on board. Ultimately, he surrendered, leaving everyone unharmed. The “suicide belt” he was wearing turned out to be a fake. He wasn’t a terrorist after all; the 59-year-old was trying to make contact with his ex-wife in Cyprus, and chose what we might call a highly unorthodox method for doing it.
Unsurprisingly, authorities said afterward that Seif Eddin Mustafa was “psychologically unstable.” That’s two words for it. One can think of others.
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Meanwhile, there’s the enterprising passenger who thought to tag the zeitgeist before skittering off the plane with his fellow hostages. If you were watching this drama unfold on a 24-hour news channel — as I was for part of the time — the thought never intruded that the alarmed-looking passengers, fleeing the plane with every sign of anxiety and relief, might pause to commemorate their foray into “experience travel.” But this guy (a Brit named Ben Innes) did.
And come on. You know what he had to take time out for. We can only hope he got video too. Some bucket lists make themselves.
Bonus essay question: could anybody look like a bigger yob?
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