A British man who posed smiling for a selfie with a hijacker on board an EgyptAir flight said he did it to take "a closer look" at the apparent explosives belt.

The Guardian quoted the man as saying "I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway."

Ben Innes, 26, was one of three passengers and four crew held to the end of a hostage siege, after Seif Eldin Moustafa hijacked the EgyptAir flight bound for Cairo from Alexandria and forced it to be redirected to Cyprus.

"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 nothing to lose anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it," he said.

"I got one of the cabin crew to translate for me and asked him if I could do a selfie with him. He just shrugged OK, so I stood by him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap. It has to be the best selfie ever," he added.

The plane landed at Larnaca airport, where Innes was snapped standing next to Mustafa – who was still wearing what he claimed to be an explosives belt – in the cabin of the Airbus 320.

The bomb was later found to be fake. 

Source : MENA