One of the traveller told the pilot he had an explosive belt and ordered the plane to land in Larnaca, the airline said, adding that talk started after the jet landed.

Cyprus initiated “competent crisis management plans” at the outset of the incident, the country’s external ministry said in a statement.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi talk on phone with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, according to a spokesman for the Cyprus government said.

Earlier, the hijacker offered to release women and children if police can move from the aircraft, the Mediterranean island nation’s former EU commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said on Twitter.

Larnaca is about 330 miles far away from north of Alexandria.

ISIS claimed accountability for downing the Metrojet plane and the tragedy raised questions about how any potential explosives may have made it on board and whether there was security failure on part of Egypt’s end.

However,the whole incident put the security of Egypt’s airports back under scrutiny less than a year after a Russian passenger jet thrust after takeoff from the country’s Sharm el-Sheikh airport.