Since 9/11, the global security community has drastically improved its ability to detect and prevent aircraft hijackings. So when news broke earlier this week that an unnamed individual had taken control of Egypt Air Flight 821, the horrific event unfolding before the world's eyes was less a novelty than a tragic throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, a time when terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Black September frequently resorted to hijackings to make one political point or another — or, especially in Hezbollah's case, to extort the U.S. government to release prisoners. Fortunately this time the explosive vest was fake, and the man, a mentally unstable divorcee, was acting alone. After a safe landing in Cyprus and an orderly release of the passengers, hijacker Seif Eldin Mustafa fell into Cypriot police custody, and the media frenzy surrounding the whole affair came to an anticlimactic end.