i want to bring in former fbi investigator clint van zandt. hat is your thinking about what's happening here according to the egyptian authorities? we are hearing this might involve a person who has a personal matter involving a woman. and that has forced him to take this kind of action. your thoughts on this? >> short of the hijacking itself, you know, if you had to make an assessment how things are going right now, from a negotiator's standpoint things are going well. this plane started out with 56 passeng passengers, the majority of those passengers, women, children and others have been allowed to leave. we're down to four foreigners and seven crew members. there's a number of reasons for that. number one, the negotiators just may be very adept at talking to this guy. or this hijacker. and have gotten these people released. number two, he may -- or the hijacker may misunderstand what a logistical nightmare it is to handle a plane full of people. when you say who needs to go to the bathroom, all of a sudden 75 hands go in the air, that's too

i want to bring in clint van zandt, a former fbi chief hostage negotiator. looking at this on the whole and seeing it's a domestic and not a larger act of terrorism, if you will, i guess for those on the groundworking to make this situation go away as quickly and peacefully as possibly, that's good news on their part. >> well, it's very good news. as you know, the flight was scheduled to be 30 minutes, flying from alexandria to cairo. somewhere during that flight, the hijacker allegedly announced to the pilot that he was hijacking the plane. and that he wanted the plane to fly to istanbul. supposedly the pilot said we don't have the gas to get to istanbul. so somehow this decision was made to land in cyprus. that's the one question i have -- if in fact that's true, according to the egyptair authority, if the individual originally wanted to go to istanbul, you know, it makes this domestic situation a little challenging. let's see, i'll go to turkey, well, if i can't go to turkey i'll go see my ex-wife somewhere else. the authorities have to understand what's

joining us is former fbi profiler, clint van zandt. you be listening for details and what motivation there may be in the case? >> very much so. normally when we see something like this, it is someone with a significant mental illness. that was the case in july of 1998 when an individual shot his way in, shooting and killing two capitol police officers. that person had a significant mental health issue. i've heard two different reports on today. one suggested that an individual had in fact shot a capitol police officer but had been captured and the most recent report that i've heard that suggested it may have been a suicide attempt, in essence, an individual with mental health position which had strong statements to make against government or taxing, things like that, chose to act out in a manner that could have taken his own life because he perhaps thought that was where he could get the most attention for his cause. and again, perhaps because of mental illness was willing to give up his life to make some type of statement. we've yt to