Shortly after the coup, Nimeiry left Washington, D.C. and arrived in Cairo. He was met at the Cairo International Airport by senior Egyptian officials (President Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister Kamal Hassan Ali and Defense Minister Field Marshal Abd Al-Halim Abu-Ghazala). Initially intending to try and return to Khartoum, Nimeiry had been dissuaded from doing that by the pilot of his Boeing 707 presidential jet and by Mubarak, on the grounds that the trip would be too dangerous.[1]