Egyptian actress Hannah El Zahed has been a hot topic for many people and media outlets after sharing a photo from an airplane cockpit on Tuesday.
The photo stirred controversy especially since the timing arrives shortly after the incident of pilot Ashraf Abu Al-Yusr and actor-singer, Mohamed Ramadan.
The issue began after El Zahed shared photos on Instagram from her summer getaway with her husband, actor Ahmed Fahmy to the Zanzibar Islands in Tanzania.
The vacation is scheduled to last for about a week, then they will return to Cairo to resume filming new artistic production, according to El Watan.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPA56CrJ6vX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
In a press release on Wednesday, Bassem Samy Abdelkarim, Assistant Minister of Civil Aviation for International, Commercial and Media Affairs, stated that the photo was taken while the actress was sitting in the place of the assistant pilot in the cockpit of a plane.
He noted that the plane was not an Egyptian, adding that the flight took place outside the Egyptian airspace.
Abdelkarim pointed out that the Ministry of Aviation contacted Fahmy, who stated that the flight was on board a helicopter outside Egypt and was on the Zanzibar route to Serengeti, in Tanzania, therefore the incident does not fall within the scope of the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority.
Furthermore, El Zahed addressed the topic via Instagram stories, saying: "To clarify to the people who are asking, 'how did I take a photo inside the cockpit'; the plane does not even have a cockpit. As you see, there is a tourist taking photos in Tanzania while sitting beside the pilot."
She added the flight was Tanzanian aviation, noting it wasn't illegal to sit beside the pilot.