that people of egyptian nationality have been let off the plane. this hasn't been confirmed. we cannot confirm anything because the authorities are [indistinct] information is really very slow coming through we winding by an hour or two, it did seem that at that point the relevant government ministers and the relevant agencies, because, of course, this will be a major agency set-up as we speak, they were

able to get engaged with this situation relatively speaking very quickly. could you receipt that? all the people that had to be involved in this situation, got involved within a matter of minute minutes. >> the authorities have managed to get things underway, the civil aviation and the police. they're all working. the journalists are not given any information. it's very sketchy. we're waiting for someone to come and talk to us he has asked for political

asyl asylum. we are supposing that this is a complete non-starter. would the local government be disposed to making him feel safe in getting some asylum only if to diffuse the situation going on now? >> i don't think i'm the person that can answer that question. i'm sure the government would do whatever is reasonable under the circumstances

thank you. there are questions about security now. it is to do with the security personnel on board the aircraft, not employed by the airline, they're employed by the government to keep people safe and to make people feel safe. >> it's opened by the government by the way. it's not only about this question, there are some other questions as well. we heard that his wife is cypriat. now it's his ex-wife. why would anybody who was married to a cypriat ask to go to turkey. it is to go to where his wife or ex-wife is. that's another question.

the whole scene for me seeks like a blast from the past. this behaviour of air pipeline lie jacking seemed to have weaned. it doesn't exist any more. the world has changed and the security measures have been tightened. however, it seems to me that it's not only that hijack incident, hijacking incident which seems like a blast from the past. a lot of things about egypt these days seems to be a blast from the past one way or another when it comes to how they train their cabin crew and their flight crew, it generally lasts up to eight weeks. a big chunk of that time is

safety. if you get the job working as cabin crew or flight crew for egyptair and you start that training process, is that aspect of safety greater with an egyptian carrier, because i think there was a hijacking situation, is it part of that carrier's dna and if you work for egypt air that's something you're critically aware of? >> we have also to realise that some incidents is minimal in xharn with some other airlines, especially back in the 70s and 80s. it happened a few times in the history of egypt air, but again back to the security guy. i know for a fact that the security elements are placed on

each flights, are being tracked by the anti terrorist forces within the army. it strikes me that the security guy didn't do anything. just by the mere looks, he seems to be not a professional terrorist. how come this security element didn't try on overcome him? the only possibility that i can think of is that this flight missed the security element there are various disconnects here because they wanted to go to istanbul and he was told there was not enough

fuel. this aircraft didn't land on vapors. there what some fuel left on board, it was getting pretty close. there wasn't any given point a theoretical risk. hijack has been described as a lebanese university professor. the woman he named as his ex-wife is being brought to the airport to take part in the negotiations. we were being followed 15/20 minutes ago that that journey would be at least half an hour. she will obviously be going straight through security and taken to wherever the negotiators are based. they will want to get a handle on who he is, what he wants and how dangerous he is. the security questions, though, whether this guy is egyptian, a lebanese person with an egyptian pass part, it doesn't really matter. it's impossible for any carrier,

any airline, to profile people as being potential risks, whether the onboard security guy did his job or not, you can't go through an aircraft and go that person is dangerous and that's not. that's just the reality of flying. whenever we get on a plane, particularly if the a380, there's a lot of people on board. not everyone is necessarily very nice, but they don't want to do something bad with the aircraft. >> of course not. my question is why nothing was done with this actual threat, not to capture the threat one has noticed over the past year or so is the loosening of the stays when it comes to

onboard communications. [indistinct] for the security officials on board the plane, do they have the ability to communicate on board that transcends the systems that would block us using our mobile phones if we were on board a plane and something bad was happening? >> i don't know about in thing, but the thing that i know is the security elements on the board of egyptair flights. they don't show and nobody knows them.

a very experienced person can distinguish the elements on board. they don't stand as security elements. any normal person will take them for passengers. you cannot seek them out as security elements we have it would appear that the next obvious big punk twags mark in this process is when this man's ex-wife arrives and they will be talking. >> yes. i am presume that will be the case. you're straying outside of my area of expertise here. this sounds like security rather than aviation.

i think it's important to bear in mind we were talking about whether the person on board, who was charged with the security, did anything or not. i think there's a problem with suicide vests. if you believe that somebody has a vudz vest, there is very little you can do other than to complete-- suicide invest, there is very little you can do other than to immediate disablement, which means a shot to the head. if a person has a suicide vest, then that is rather more difficult to deal with whether the instant decision is taken on the part of the cabin crew or the flight crew as to whether it's a real suicide vest or a fake one, i guess, is secondary to the calculation that has got to be taken into

that instant which is they've got to behave as if it's the real thing because if they choose to believe the opposite of that, the consequences could be devastating. >> indeed. of course, you have to remember that aviation has an extraordinarily good safety record and that is because people have calculated these risks and they've seen the results of accidents over the years, and they always err on the side of safety. we were talking and you mentioned again the question of how much fuel they had. they actually, i'm led to believe, landed with less than the required minimum. the required minimum gives you quite a lot of time in hand, if you like. so to go below the required minimum doesn't put you in immediate danger and it's there for a purpose and you shouldn't plan to do that. it's another example of how the

aviation safety system works when it comes to this kind of incident, what's the safety record of either this airline or egyptian airlines? >> we've had quite a lot of accidents in that rt of the world. airlines from that part of the world don't have a particularly good record when you can compare them to european airlines or american airlines in general, but i don't think egypt air has a particularly bad reputation. i don't have the figures immediately in front of me

there were 30 egyptian nationals, 8 americans, four brits and others among board, a terrible situation for them, and a hijacking situation is a hijacking situation. very tricky, it should be dealt with carefully on the part of the authorities. >> indeed. that's why you always stall until you've got your best negotiator on hand to deal with this person, and, of course, a professional flight crew and a cabin crew are not actually trained in negotiation, and once the aeroplane is on the ground, it is more or less out of the hands of the flight crew unless, of course, the hijacker then

tries to blackmail the authorities into refuelling the aircraft and taking off again. that has happened in the past thank you very much. our correspondent is tracking that story for us out of the greek city. just explain to us and recap for us what has been taking place in the past two hours now. >> reporter: yes. the cypriat president saying this was not an act of terrorism. according to the state television this hijacker clearly has personal motives. state television saying that this man demanded a translator, also political asylum and there are reports that he wanted too deliver a letter to a woman who is believed to be his ex-wife who lives in cyprus. these are the initial reports.

like you mentioned, over the past two hours, a flight that took off from alexandria airport in egypt, it was supposed to land in cairo. it was diverted by a hijacker on board. it landed at, approximately, 8.50 local time and not long later, apparently, what we understand is that there were negotiations and then we saw women and children disembark from the aircraft, the 56 people. so the hijacker entering immediately into negotiations with the authorities. four people are still on board together with the crew. it is not clear what this man was thinking, if he actually knew that by hijacking a plane he would end up in jail and not be granted political asylum, but clearly this is what we understand from the horts. this act is not linked to terrorism nonetheless, i think it would be fair to say that the

authorities would want to speak to his wife or ex-wife to get a handle on who he is, what his emotional state is at the moment, and whether he is capable as an individual of taking this current situation down a road that could end up a lot worse than what we're looking at, at the moment. >> reporter: undoubtedly. the pilot of the plane was first reported have said that this hijacker threatened him with explosives. he says that the hijacker had hay suicide belt and he threatened to detonate the explosives if the plane was not diverted. the authorities couldn't confirm whether there were explosives on board. they're now saying that they doubt whether there are. we don't know whether or not this man had explosives, whether he pretended to have explosives

under the jacket. we do not have that information. if he did manage to get explosives on board that plane, the authorities will have a lot of questions to answer because how did he get past security. there has been a precedent just a few months ago when a plane took off from sharm el-sheikh and it was an act of terrorism because it blew up. the authorities will have to answer questions of security just to nail down, if only to discount this idea completely, i know you've done a lot of reporting from turkey and the middle east, somebody hijacks a plane, whether it's

there or elsewhere, if they say their pay off is political asylum, particularly given the way that the turkish government at the moment is reacting to how it perceives certain threats from certain groups of people, there is no way that that demand of political asylum would ever be met you are surely. >> reporter: surely. if this man was thinking that he would be granted political asylum, he clearly doesn't understand the fact. like you mentioned, we have been reporting in this region for some time now. there are a lot of desperate people out there. was he escaping from war or he wanted to see his ex-wife. questions that we cannot answer, but, yes, thousands and thousands of people have been finding any way possible, crossing the sea, risking their

lives, trying to reach europe, escape be poverty, escaping violence and war, and the problem now is that europe has closed its borders to these people. greece is facing a difficult situation, more than 50,000 people, migrants and refugees stuck here. they cannot cope with this crisis. it shows you how desperate people have become. we have been up close to the border with macedonia over the past few days and you can see the frustration. people are getting impatient. one person set himself on fire. we understand that thousands of refugees were protesting, demanding that the border will open because they have no faith in the legal way forward, like applying for asylum, they believe that the e.u. relocation program is not working, it is moving forward at a very slow pace. there is a lot of desperation, but hijacking a plane is something different than getting on a boat, risking your life,

crossing the sea and hoping to reach northern europe thank you very much. we're talking to our middle east analyst. there is no overlap, it would appear, at the moment between this man and what he wants to achieve and those areas of news that zana was hinting at there, what's going on with the refugee and migrant crisis. there is an overlap in terms of emotional momentum. somebody who does this kind of thing is at the at the end of their tether. they do feel desperate. yes, you could have a supplementary conversation about how bagged or good they are, about who they are, their emotional ee equilibrium, but the reality is somebody only does this kind of thing when they feel there's nothing left for them to do to achieve what they want. >> that's what i was about to say.

i believe that the many people in the middle east have been put under tremendous pressure, so it seems to me, because with all these stories coming in about the circumstances of this incident, it seems to me that the man is mentally disordered. he must have been very traumatised in order to commit such an act. if to ask the pilot to deter

just to get to speak to his wife, he must be very disorderedisordered looking at what is happening right now on the ground, if we flip that around, the way the world is monitoring one aeroplane, it highlights the tension in the middle east, another week, another bomb, another week, another e.u. meeting, another week they're trying to storm the border, the border between greece and ma macedon macedonia. there is this bubbling anxiety and people feel under threat, something might be happening

tomorrow. friends of mine, journalists, look on the media to see what might have happened. we are all using the phrase "stoft target". what i'm saying is there is that awareness that there are bad people out there who want to do bad things and that has changed how we perceive this kind of incident going on in the area. >> this is what i call natural effect. as long as these horrible things are being done in the middle east, as long as we allow tyrants and dictators to submit their people to repression, unbelievable repression, as long as we condone the acts of those

dictators, we shouldn't be surprised with incidents like these. this seems to me like a naive thing, as much as it is dangerous, but it seems like naive. as long as we condone and keep silent and turn a blind eye in the west towards that repression and all these terrible acts of tyrants, we shouldn't complain about terrorism. we are creating the terrorism. we are creating frankenstein and then we start reporting on them thank you for that. to get you up-to-date, there are four or five people being held hostage on that aircraft alongside the seven crew

members. we will keep you right across all of the developments as they happen here on al jazeera. do stay with us. do stay with us.

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♪ egypt airplane has been high jacketed and taken to dolonaka airport in cyprus and at least four people do remain on the plane along with the cabin crew and the flight crew. you are watching al jazeera live from headquarters in doha with me peter and let's get you right up to date with what we know so far about our top story the hijacking of that egypt air flight 320 and confirmed as ms181 and hijacked