EgyptAir: International airline with a history of hijackings

EgyptAir is no stranger to headline-making incidents.

In the deadliest, the national flag carrier saw one of its jets, a Boeing 737, seized in November 1985 by gunmen said to have links to the Abu Nidal extremist group.

They diverted the plane shortly after takeoff from Athens, landing in Malta, where a raid by Egyptian commandos resulted in the deaths of 50 passengers and six hijackers.

To date, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s safety database, the airline has been the victim of no fewer than eight hijackings, including an incident in March 2016, in which an “unstable” man held passengers and crew of an EgyptAir A320-232 hostage with a fake explosive belt, forcing the plane to divert to Cyprus – apparently over issues involving his ex-wife, a Cypriot.

The others were mostly perpetrated by individuals or small groups acting independently.

In 1999, an EgyptAir pilot flying a Los Angeles to Cairo route crashed the plane deliberately into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 people on board.

This FBI sketch shows one of America's most famous skyjackers, a man called "D.B. Cooper" who bailed out of a Boeing 727 in 1971 and vanished with $200,000 in ransom. He was never caught and the FBI announced in 2016 it was closing the case after 45 years.

EgyptAir Flight 181 en route to Cairo from Alexandria was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in 2016. Here, some passengers disembark on the tarmac at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus. All the passengers eventually were released and the hijacker arrested, according to the airline and Cypriot authorities.

A Swissair plane was hijacked in September 1970 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The group hijacked four planes.

In 1971, a hijacker, tentatively identified as Richard Oberfell of Passaic, New Jersey, forced a Chicago-bound plane to land at New York's LaGuardia Airport. He then took two hostages in a maintenance truck on a nine-mile ride to JFK International Airport. There, FBI agents climbed a protective wall as they hunted down the hijacker, who demanded a plane to take him to Italy. FBI agent Kenneth Lovin, dressed in a striped shirt, fired fatal shots that killed the hijacker.

Charlie Hill is accused of killing a New Mexico State police officer and hijacking a plane to Havana in 1971.

In this July 1972 photo, FBI agents in Miami, wearing only swim trunks, per a hijacker's instructions, prepare to deliver a case containing a $1 million ransom to a hijacked Delta DC-8 jet.

Southern Airways co-pilot Billy Johnson of College City, Arkansas, was wounded in his right shoulder during a hijacking at Miami International Airport in November 1972.

An Israeli hostage is greeted on her return to Israel after Operation Entebbe in July 1976, in which Israeli special forces rescued 100 hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following its hijacking of Air France Flight 139. Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the only Israel Defense Forces' fatality during the operation.

The 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 lasted 17 days. One passenger, a member of the U.S. Navy, was killed.

In 1985, Palestinian terrorists hijacked EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Greece to Egypt. Hijackers allowed pilots to land the Boeing 737 in Malta for refueling -- which began a long standoff with authorities. Eventually, Egyptian forces stormed the jet. When it was all over, 59 passengers and crew were dead including two hijackers. The remaining hijacker, Omar Rezaq, eventually served seven years in a Malta prison and was released.

After Rezaq's release from prison in Malta, he lived in Africa, until 1993, when US authorities flew to Nigeria and took him into custody. He was flown to the United States, convicted of air piracy and is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

Twenty people were killed when Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked on September 5, 1986, at Karachi airport in Pakistan by four armed men of the Abu Nidal Organization. In this photo injured victims are evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany on September 6, 1986, after a 16-hour siege. One hijacker is still wanted by the FBI.

An Airbus A-300 was held by Islamic extremists of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) at the Marignane airport in Marseille, southern France. Members of the elite French troops GIGN (Intervention Group of the National Gendarmerie) staged a spectacular assault on the hijacked Air France airbus on December 26, 1994, killing four hostage-takers and ending a three-day drama which began in Algiers, where two passengers were shot and killed.

A Taliban security official receives a paper on which the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 have put their demands at Kandahar Airport in this photo, taken on December 27, 1999. The New Delhi-bound flight with 157 people on board was hijacked to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar by five men after it took off from Kathmandu, Nepal, on December 24. One person was killed.

Saudi forces storm a hijacked Russian airliner at Medina airport in March 2001. Two people, including a flight attendant, and a hijacker were killed during the raid to liberate the aircraft, which was commandeered by three Chechen hijackers.

Terrorists hijacked four airliners on September 11, 2001, including two that the attackers flew into the World Trade Center towers in New York. The third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Unidentified men stand by a hijacked Turkish airplane Atlasjet during the surrender of its two hijackers at Antalya Airport in August 2007. The two men who hijacked the Turkish airplane and forced it to land in southern Turkey surrendered, a Turkish official said.

Police evacuate passengers on February 17, 2014 from the Ethiopian Airlines flight en route to Rome, which was hijacked and forced to land in Geneva, where the hijacker was arrested, police said.

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EgyptAir, originally named Misr Airwork, was founded in 1932.

Name changes

It later became the first airline in the Middle East and Africa and the world’s seventh carrier at the time to join the International Air Transport Association.

The airline began international flights in 1934, with a service between Cairo and the Palestinian region.

From 1949 to 1957, as it expanded its international operations, the airline shortened its name to Misrair. Beginning in 1957, it was known as United Arab Airlines, finally changing to EgyptAir in 1971.

In 2008, EgyptAir joined the Star Alliance network to become the only member based in North Africa and the Middle East.

The airline operated 81 planes as of 2014, with aircraft ages averaging about 10 years, including the latest generation long-range Boeing 777-300ER, Airbus A330-330, and the B737-800.

Some 7.4 million passengers flew with the airline during its fiscal year of 2013-2014.

CNN’s Elaine Yu contributed to this report.