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US warship with helicopters joins pirate standoff
A second US warship — this one bearing helicopters — arrived Friday off the Somali coast amid a tense standoff with pirates holding a US ship captain whose recent escape attempt failed, the Pentagon said. The guided-missile frigate USS Halyburton "is on site, in the vicinity" of the small lifeboat where pirates are holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage, said US Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.The Halyburton "brings helicopters" to the volatile scene, said Whitman, who declined to say if the warship was within view of the lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean. The US destroyer on site, the USS Bainbridge, has been monitoring the lifeboat but has no helicopters, another US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer was also in the region but further away than the other two vessels, he added. Phillips jumped into the water during the night and tried to swim towards the USS Bainbridge, but pirates jumped in and recaptured him, the official told AFP. "The captain jumped off and tried to escape," the official told AFP, adding that he had no details about how the pirates managed to take him back. The incident lasted "around half an hour," the official said. The Bainbridge, accompanied by a P-3 Orion surveillance plane, was preventing the pirates from moving their hostage to a larger ship. Posted by: Steve White 2009-04-11 |
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