EgyptAir: Moscow-bound flight returned to Cairo after threatening message found

CAIRO — A Moscow-bound EgyptAir flight returned to the Egyptian capital shortly after takeoff today due to a threatening message found onboard, authorities say.

A statement by Egypt’s flagship airliner says flight MS728 has returned safely to Cairo International Airport some 22 minutes after takeoff. The flight was heading to the Russian capital, it says.

Citing an unnamed official, the statement says the written message was found on a seat of the Airbus A220-300. It doesn’t elaborate on the content of the message.

All flights between Moscow and Cairo were suspended for two and a half years after the local branch of the Islamic State group downed a plane over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in October 2015, shortly after the aircraft took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The flights between the two capitals were resumed in April 2018 after Egypt beefed up security at Cairo’s international airport. But Russia only allowed resumption of flights between its territory and Sinai’s Red Sea resorts in August, after a nearly six-year hiatus.