On the day of the hijacking the plane had an entirely Sudanese passenger complement, the only exceptions being a British citizen and an Italian military attaché. Mohamed Abdu Altif (also referred to as Mohamed Abdelatif Mahamat[5]), a 26-year-old from Al-Fashir, in North Darfur, entered the cockpit of the aircraft at 09:00 local time (0600 UTC), approximately half an hour after takeoff from Khartoum International Airport. He ordered the pilot to fly to Rome, Italy and then on to London, England.[2][6] It was originally mistakenly reported that his weapon was an AK-47 assault rifle,[7] but subsequent reports stated that the weapon was in fact a handgun.[6]