record this. voila. remotes you are back. the x1 voice remote is here. x1 customers get your voice remote by visiting xfinty.com/voiceremote. this is cnn breaking news. the latest breaking news, information just coming in to cnn right now. police confirm to cnn that a plane has been hijacked and is currently at the larnaca airport, this is all the press office can confirm but we have more information we're getting in from reuters, a bit of additional information saying that the plane is an egypt air

flight with 55 passengers aboard. hello, i'm michael holmes in brussels. it was one week ago that terrorist as tacked this city and here now the latest on the investigation. authorities searching for that third suspected airport bomber. they are hoping that witnesses will come forward and identify the man in the video you see there. now, here's one of five bombers in the attacks and still at large. are dead but the status of a rs- potential second metro bomber is unknown. four more victims died in the hospital on monday. joining me is greg matthew, former chief of staff of the minister of energy economy and

trade and former -- foreign affairs adviser, as well. over the last week, these problems with counterterrorism, the gaps in passing on of information. how bad was it. >> one example. ordered after the attack in the airport, the closure of the metro system. then the agency managing the infrastructure and everybody is saying, no, we didn't get the order or we called that center, the crisis center and asked what should do and they say you have to wait but there was no commander in chief in this case. we are under attack. and then the people are discussing who is the boss, is it my competency? no, it's not and nothing happens

so at the end of the hour there is a bomb at the metro. >> that just seems utterly ridiculous and extraordinary that the city is under attack and there's no one who can say shut down the metro and it happens. that's not what happened. it went through layers of bureaucracy and then a bomb goes off. >> it is not only ridiculous, it is sad, sad to imagine that people's lives could have been save fundamental this proper decision-making system was in place. i mean, we are in a complex country. we have five parliaments. we have four governments including the -- we have six and this is all about who is responsible, who is having the competency of dealing with this matter and this is a lasagna of power that makes things difficult. >> even the local police level you have more than a dozen different districts in the city. each with its own police force, some speak flemish.

some speak french. some won't talk to each other. these are all siloed and so information isn't even spread between them on that street level. >> that's correct. we are in a bilingual capital so both flemish and french are official languages here and so you have different police services operating in the city. this is too much. you should have a centralized system and what happened last week during the attacks they have a special communications system. it was broken. it didn't work. the day of the attack -- >> literally broken. >> literally broken. they couldn't communicate between themselves and to communicate with the emergency unit, we are in the 21st century. >> what do you see is going to change out of this? you know, structurally. >> well, i hope it will change but from what i see, two days after the attack the politicians manage already to recover very quickly and go into disputes and

go into what we call here linguist tick disputes. the mayor of brussels is accusing the mayor of antwerp who is accusing -- this is n nonstop and experiencing that. it is enough. >> yeah, well, you've been involved in government for a long, long time, what do people here, the people on the street, your friends, family say to you about this? are they angry? >> of course, they are is there or used to it. >> they are angry. they are used to this because this is the country we live in but they are angry about, listen, politicians spending time years and years to discuss the separation of power. we want more economy. we want more security. we want more jobs and we don't want more separation of power or more discussion about who is doing this, who is doing that. i mean at the certain point it should stop. >> at the end of the day it is no secret that this country has sent the most foreign fighters

per capita to syria and iraq to take part in jihad to fight the terror activity that we've seen. would not belgium have expected something like this and yet it seems that at many levels they were caught by surprise. >> no, it was not a surprise. it was not a surprise because in general 2015, january we stopped a terror cell if you remember. it is known for a number of years there are people live in the country going to fight in syria and they are coming back. so that shows that we need certainly more intelligence services here. we need more technology. >> what happened to them when they come back, by the way? are they not taken into custody, interviewed, questioned. >> no. there is now a proposal in the parliament they can be captured and put -- to identify and localize them. it's not into power until now. they are in the city. they are anywhere not followed because to follow one of these

guys you need ten intelligence officers. there are a few hundreds of them and we have 700 intelligence officers in the structure. not enough. >> one of the criticisms too, the lack of z over the last 25 years or so. i want to thank you for coming in. greg mathieu. i got to send it back to atlanta and errol barnett. >> i want to get you new information coming in to cnn as it relates to the breaking news we're covering. a hijacked egypt air flight has landed at the larnaca airport. this is this cyprus. the plane we understand was en route from alexandria from cairo. current reports say there were about 60 people on board. but all of this is early information so it may change in the hours ahead. many of the details surrounding this incident are still unclear. but let's bring in our correspondent in cairo, ian lee also following this breaking news story. ian what, can you tell us? >> reporter: well, like you said, errol, details are pretty

sparse. we're hearing, though, that roughly 80 people were on board this domestic egypt air flight. that was going from cairo to alexandria that it landed in larnaca according to police officials there we're hearing that there is one person, one hijacker although we cannot confirm this. that's the initial report, one hijacker on board. but again, this is -- all very preliminary information. egypt has come under heavy scrutiny for their airport security in sharm el sheikh after last october a bomb blew up a plane, this is just a later blow to them that this plane originated from cairo would have been hijacked. >> and because we're still trying to gather information on this hijacking, ian, talk to us about the climate in egypt as it

relates to terror and the airports. it was recently that president obama el sese recognized that terror was involved in a plain downing and perhaps its reluctance to acknowledge terrorism. >> well, there's been a heavy security operation here. it's quite visible. a level of security. i was actually just got back to cairo yesterday going through the airport. you do see a lot of heavily armed guards but it's not so much the visible security that you see, it's the quality of the security and that's what's going to be the major question, yeah, they can have guys that checkpoints and guys with guns everywhere but do they know what they're doing? do they know what they're looking for when it comes to this sort of security level? that's going to be the real question going forward.

but egypt does say it is fighting a war on terror and have isis militants that are rack tiff in the northern part of sinai and it has been carrying out a major military operation against them, but there hasn't been as much progress, the military has had a lot of setbacks, hundreds of people have been killed in this battle, but it looks like -- we don't know. i think it's important to say we do not know that this is a terror -- what the motivations behind this hijacking is, it could have a number of motivations, we do not know who it is, frankly. that's one question that we'll looking into going forward. >> just to remind our viewers of what we're covering at this moment, we're covering breaking news just coming in to cnn that an egypt air flight with dozens of passengers on board the exact numbers unclear at this moment has been hijacked.

this flight was en route on a domestic route in egypt and we understand it's currently at the airport, you see it on your screen. larne that airport in cyprus. our correspondent ian lee is on the phone for us as we continue to gather more information on this. ian, the state-run newspaper reports the flight was heading from the apt in alexandria on its way to cairo. again, the number of passengers it's not clear. seems to be fewer than 100 but who is likely to be on this plane just as a passenger? >> reporter: yeah, you know, all this information is just coming in, really sparse. i've flown out of both airports. usually people, egyptians either going to visit family or have work in these other areas in alexandria, going there, it's not many -- you won't see many tourist, many foreigners taking this flight. it is a domestic flight.

a lot of local people, a lot of egyptians taking the sort of flight and so the motivation behind this is going to be something we'll look into because when you do go through a security at the airport, whether it's in cairo or whether it's in alexandria, it is the same for the most part security that international and domestic flights take. so we'll be looking in to seeing just the motivations behind why taking a domestic flight where they aren't large planes around 100 people or less so these are questions we'll be looking into going forward. >> ian lee on the phone with us from cairo. we want to be transparent to all of our viewers. at this moment there's more questions than answers. what we do know an egyptair flight that was on a domestic route within egypt has been

hijacked. that plane currently at the larne that airport in cyprus confirmed to us by police. we don't know how many people exactly are on board or what the motivations for this may be. stay with cnn. we'll have more information for you on the other end of this break. good.how was your commute? yours? good. xerox real time analytics make transit systems run more smoothly... and morning chitchat... less interesting. transportation can work better. with xerox. thank you for calling. we'll be with you shortly. yeah right... xerox predictive analytics help companies provide a better and faster customer experience. hello mr. kent. can i rebook your flight? i'm here! customer care can work better. with xerox. wait i'm here! mr. kent? if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis isn't it time to let the real you shine through? introducing otezla, apremilast.

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returning now to our breaking news, a hijacked egyptair flight has landed at the larnaca airport in cyprus. that aircraft an airbus 320 en route from alexandria to cairo in egypt. there were more than 50 on board and at least one armed person hijacked this plane. who that person is and the current status of the passengers on board is unclear. in fact, we don't know exactly how many passengers are on board as this story broke within the past 30 minutes, let's bring in our ian lee who joins us on the phone from cairo, ian, any new information you've been able to gather recently that you can bring to our viewers? s>> >>. >> reporter: it's all still pretty preliminary. with that information this was a

flight going from alexandria to cairo, it is very likely that this would be a flight that would have predominantly egyptians on board. this wasn't a flight that you would see many foreigners, this sort of domestic flight, the airport in alexandria is one of the smaller airports here in egypt. security there is -- they have three rings of security at that airport, but the questions are going to be how exactly did this person hijack the plane and what are the motivations behind it? is this terror related or is this something else? but right now egyptian official s confirm it was hijacked going from alexandria to cairo. that at least 50 people were on board and that this airplane was an airbus a380. >> as we wait, ian, for more

information on this breaking story, let's at least speak about recent incidents with terror, the country has experienced as it relates to air travel. it was just february the president there acknowledged that the russian aircraft which went down over the sinai peninsula last year was, in fact, a result of terrorism after being reluctant to acknowledge as much for weeks. is there a sense in egypt that the government doesn't have a grasp of its terror problem or at least winter willing to acknowledge it publicly? >> reporter: there's been growing frustration among the egyptian people about the situation, the terrorist situation in the country. there is a visible security presence all over the country. you have people at checkpoints with machine guns, they have a large security operation going on in northern sinai. one thing that the president

promised when he came to power he would restore security and a lot of people have been upset asking why hasn't the president done that yet. with this latest incident that's going to add more fuel to the criticism, give more fuel for his critics to attack him with that this was able to happen. especially since they had that october bombing of a flight that went from sharm el sheikh, that is going to add a lot of criticism because egypt was insisting that the airports were safe, that people should come back and visit egypt. tourism is a big industry here and egyptians wanted to guarantee it was safe, but with this latest incident, it's going to raise a lot of questions about how well egypt secures its airports. >> and as we wait for answers on exactly why this plane was hijacked what the motivations are when we wait for

confirmation on that, tell us this aircraft left from the airport in alexandria. what is the security like there? what would it take -- we're just showing the flight path that the plane ended up taking after being hijacked, takes it straight up from northern egypt across the mediterranean to cyprus. what is the security like at the alexandria airport? how could something like this happen? >> reporter: will, i recently traveled through that airport. there's roughly three levels of security or bags are scanned at least twice, you go through a metal detector, a pat-down. it's a small region nall hub. there are some international flights out of there. but a lot of the flights go to cairo here and i need to correct myself. the airplane was an a320 and they operate domestically a lot inside egypt.

but as far as security goes, the real question has been not so much the amount of security, but the quality of security. do these people who are screening bags who are checking people, do they have the proper training? do they know what they're doing or looking for? this has been a big question since the bombing of that plane, that metro jet russian metro jet plane last october. is the quality of the security good enough or is it just the quantity that we're seeing without the quality? >> ian lee is on the phone with us in cairo as we gather the latest information on this breaking story. an airegypt flight with an undetermined number of passengers, we estimate around 60, has been hijacked. it was on a domestic route within egypt but if moved straight up from alexandria, its origin, went north across the mediterranean to cyprus.

now at the larne that -- lar larnaca. there is at least one armed individual on board. ian, with the news that the president acknowledged that the russian plane was downed by terrorism recently, what was the reaction to that admission? >> well, that was the big question for a long time because you have united states, you had russia, uk all coming out fairly early in the investigation of that crash saying that it was a terror attack, that isis had carried it out. isis even came out and said that -- claimed responsibility showing a picture of what they say is the bomb. but during that whole time, egypt still remains quiet. we would press officials and they would say, well, the investigation is still under way. and then the president during a speech acknowledged that it was

a terror -- a terror incident months later and the egyptian government had also criticized people for calling it a terror attack saying they still didn't know. so, there was a lot of criticism on the president, on the egyptian government for taking so much time to call it a terror attack. a lot of people questioning whether they had the right motives in securing the airport or were they more worried about making sure maintaining that tourists were still coming here. but there has been growing criticism against the president here about the security situation and, errol, this is another thing that will add to that. >> ian lee on the line to us from cairo as we cover this breaking story of an egyptair flight hijacked from egypt and is currently so larnaca airport in cyprus.

ian, stand by for us. we are getting a few more details here from the egyptian civil aviation ministry. i'll just read it to you as i see it. they're confirming that there are, in fact, 81 passengers on board. pilot omar el gamal reported a threat from a passenger claiming to have an explosive belt. i'm reading it to you as it's been sent to us here who forced the plane to land in larnaca, cyprus. the plane had initially taken off from alexandria and as we mentioned to you this is an airbus 320. it is an egyptair flight, flight 181. so the new details there is that the pilot has called in this threat and is saying that a passenger claims to have an explosive belt and forced that aircraft to land in larnaca, cyprus. ian, i warrant to bring you back in with that new information, if an individual was able to get on to an aircraft in alexandria within an explosive belt which

is the claim at this moment but it's serious enough to take this plane and have it there at the larnaca airport, what does that mean? >> well, errol, that is just more damning to the whole situation that an explosive belt could possibly have been brought on board that airplane especially since that is something especially that egyptian authorities were saying they were taking extra measures to look for in the screening process, so they actually showed me recently the new machines at least at the sharm el sheikh airport that they had to detect explosive devices and so if that is, in fact, the case, that will raise a lot of questions about how serious it's being and at these sort of airports. but also right now we still need to figure out the motivation behind this, is this isis related? is this a terror attack? is this someone else who has some other sort of grievance?

that will be the big question especially since -- >> here's what we'll do. give you a moment to check your e-mails, make some calls and get new information. we certainly are in contact with the government an will bring all of you new information on this breaking story, a hijacked egyptair flight there at larnaca airport in cyprus after this short break. stay with us here on cnn.