Months after its skipper was rescued at sea by the Navy, the U.S.-flagged container ship Maersk Alabama repelled an attack by suspected pirates today off the northeast coast of Somalia.
Back in April, the Maersk Alabama was boarded by pirates, who took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage. Phillips was freed after Navy snipers shot and killed three of the pirates who were holding him prisoner in a lifeboat.
This time, the pirates didn't get that far. According to a statement released by the U.S. 5th Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, when a pirate skiff approached the ship this morning, the security team on board responded with evasive maneuvers, and blasted them with Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) and small-arms fire. The pirates then broke off the attack.
April's Maersk Alabama incident forced a rethink of counter-piracy measures, including embarking armed security teams. Shipping companies and their insurers had in the past been reluctant to have armed security teams on board, but as recent incidents have shown, sometimes the combination of the LRAD, firehoses and evasive maneuvers is not enough.
Take, for instance, the case of the cruise ship MSC Melody: An Israeli security team used guns and firehoses to repel the attackers.
And while the LRAD was famously used to repel pirates in a 2005 attack on a cruise ship, a team of three security operatives was unable to outgun pirates with a sonic blaster in a separate incident. They were forced to jump ship.
Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, praised the operators of the Maersk Alabama for their willingness to take on more-robust defenses. "This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take proactive action to prevent being attacked, and why we recommend that ships follow industry best practices if they're in high-risk areas."
The Maersk Alabama is now underway to its initial destination of Mombasa, Kenya.
UPDATE: The chief mate of the Maersk Alabama is now using the incident to advocate for putting armed mercenaries on all U.S. ships. "We cannot play roulette with the lives of the U.S. Merchant Marines, choosing to arm some and not others with various levels of expertise," Captain Shane Murphy says in a statement. "It is imperative that we utilize private armed security consisting of American, former military special operatives that can consistently make the necessary shot to mitigate the RPG on each and every U.S. flagged vessel traversing the High Threat Waters. Anything less is not enough."
Photo: Wikimedia
See Also:
- Navy Pirates Wired With Online Sea-Jacking Game
- Exclusive: Somali Pirates' Homemade Hijacking Video
- Note to Pirates: Don't Mess with Egyptian Fishermen
- Tanker-Grabbing Pirates Drown, with Bounty
- Pirates Beware: Next-Gen Snipers Could Get Guided Bullets, Super Scopes
- Israeli Mercs 1, Pirates 0 in Cruise Ship Gunbattle
- Video: Pirates Take Potshot at U.S. Navy Helo
- Pirates Get Millions for Arms-Laden Ship
