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Destroyer arrives to assist hijacked U.S. freighter
The U.S.-flagged container ship Maersk Alabama was hijacked early Wednesday. The crew recaptured the ship later Wednesday, but Capt. Richard Phillips remained in the hands of the marauders, one of its officers said. "There's four Somali pirates, and they've got our captain," Ken Quinn said in a ship-to-shore phone interview. Phillips was being held in the Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat after the pirates reneged on an agreement to exchange him for a captured pirate, Quinn said. "We returned him, but they didn't return the captain," he said. Hijackers began pursuing the Alabama around 10 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, when it was about 350 miles off the coast of Somalia, according to Maersk. The pirates boarded the ship a few hours later. The 780-foot Alabama was carrying food aid bound for the Kenyan port of Mombasa for USAID, the U.N. World Food Program and the Christian charities WorldVision and Catholic Relief Services when it was seized, the ship's owner said. The pirates were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, while the freighter's crew carried no weapons, Quinn said. The crew -- minus the captain -- locked themselves in the compartment that contains the ship's steering gear and remained there for about 12 hours with their captive, whom they had tied up, Quinn said. The three other pirates "got frustrated because they couldn't find us," he said. The pirates scuttled the small boat they used once they climbed aboard the freighter, Quinn said, so Phillips offered them the Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat and some money. At 7 p.m. ET, a Navy P-3 aircraft flying over the scene spotted a lifeboat, a senior U.S. Navy official said. B.J. Talley, a spokesman for the Maersk line, said the pirates had departed aboard the lifeboat and none of the 20 people remaining aboard the ship was hurt. The ship was then about 215 nautical miles off the Somali coast, Talley said. The Maersk Alabama is the first U.S. ship to be seized in the latest wave of piracy off largely lawless Somalia. Posted by: Steve White 2009-04-09 |
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