British man becomes famous after his selfie with EgyptAir hijacker goes viral

Benjamin Innes was among the passengers aboard the EgyptAir plane that was hijacked on Tuesday. Before getting off the plane the British man sneaked in a selfie with Seif al-Din Mustafa, the man who claimed to have a bomb on his belt and forced the plane to land at Cyprus’ Larnaca airport. Benjamin’s photo with Mustafa went viral after he uploaded it to his Twitter account.

“I’m not sure why I did it, I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity. I figured if his bomb was real I’d lose nothing anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it,” Innes has said as to why he clicked the selfie.

He also elaborated on the state of the 62 passengers during the six hours of being held hostage by Mustafa on the flight from Alexandria to Cairo. The 58-year-old man faked a bomb threat, holding the passengers hostage only so he could get to Larnaca to see his ex-wife and kids. Officers have described Mustafa as ‘psychologically unstable’.