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There was no end in sight to the standoff between a small band of pirates and the U.S. Navy. Talks between the two sides to negotiate the hostage's release were getting nowhere.
Quietly, the White House had laid down rules of engagement for officers on the destroyer USS Bainbridge: If the captain's life is in imminent danger, attack.
At the end of the fifth day, the waters in the Gulf of Aden dark and choppy, the Americans on the Bainbridge peered at the lifeboat and saw something new happening. One of the pirates had an AK-47 aimed at the captain's back.
Navy snipers on the destroyer's fantail took aim at the pirates' heads and shoulders. The commander gave the split-second order: Fire. All three pirates were picked off. The captain was safe.
It was the culmination of five days of international tension and gamesmanship on the high seas. At stake was the life of a 53-year-old, no-nonsense sea captain from Vermont who volunteered himself as a hostage to save his crew.
Richard Phillips said goodbye to his wife, Andrea, left their home in the small Vermont town of Underhill at the end of March and made his way halfway around the world to join the ship.
His task was to pilot the Alabama, which at 500 feet long is relatively small for a container ship, on its trip from Oman and Djibouti to Mombasa, Kenya, to deliver 401 containers of food as aid.
Phillips is 6 feet tall and burly, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a thick Boston accent. People who know him say he has a keen sense of humor, always ready to regale friends with tales from the high seas.
At the helm, however, they say he is all business, a sailor's sailor. He diligently conducts emergency drills, including what to do if pirates attack. He is particular to the point of perfection.
Aboard the Alabama, Phillips kept in touch with his wife by e-mail. He wrote to her that they were headed for Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, just south of the Horn of Africa.
And he told her something else. He had heard, he wrote, that pirate traffic was up..
The bandits announced themselves first with grappling hooks and then with gunfire.
It was early Wednesday, so early that some of the Alabama's crew of 20 were still in their bunks. The pirates, four Somalis, tossed the hooks over the stern of the ship, hoisted themselves aboard and began firing into the air.
As they shot, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin. He surrendered himself as a hostage to keep his men safe, according to the crew.
The usual intention of pirates is not to kill but to extort, and they have done so successfully, to the tune of millions of dollars. And in general, the crews of ships like the Alabama carry no arms. When pirates attack, the defense is improvised and decidedly low-tech: They spray the bandits with hoses, or hurl old oil drums, or kick their ladders overboard.
Aboard the Alabama, the weapon of choice was an ice pick. ATM Reza, a Connecticut father and member of the crew, led one of the pirates, a small, skinny man, into the steamy engine room. There, he says, he stabbed the pick into the pirate's hand.
Now the pirates had Phillips, and the crew had a hostage of its own. According to accounts provided by the crew to their families, the crew gave up the pirate in hopes the pirates would give up their captain.
They did not. The pirates escaped to a lifeboat, taking the captain with them.
On Wednesday, the Navy sent a destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, chugging toward the Maersk Alabama. By Thursday, its crew, coached by FBI hostage negotiators, was talking to the pirates.
If the military tried to attack, the bandits said, they would kill Phillips.
Lifeboats used by ships like the Alabama are generally about 28 feet long, with enough food and water to sustain 34 people for 10 days, said Joseph Murphy, whose son, Shane, was second-in-command on the Alabama.
They are enclosed, with ports that can open and close. And they are uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that one crew member said Phillips was essentially surviving inside a 120-degree oven.
It was about midnight on the ocean, Thursday turning to Friday, when Phillips made a break for it.
He jumped out of the lifeboat and began to swim for his life. One of the captors fired an automatic weapon — perhaps at Phillips, perhaps only as a warning, either way enough to show that the pirates meant business. Phillips swam back to the lifeboat.
The USS Bainbridge was still several hundred yards away from the lifeboat — not nearly close enough to save him on his escape attempt. But the sailors on board were close enough to see that, back in the lifeboat, Phillips was moving around and talking.
He appeared — so far — to be unharmed.
By Friday, the tense standoff in the Gulf of Aden was the very definition of an asymmetrical conflict: Four pirates, holding one hostage and bobbing in a lifeboat, versus the United States Navy.
The Bainbridge kept constant watch, stalking the small boat from a distance. Its namesake, William Bainbridge, was a U.S. naval officer who two centuries ago fought the Barbary pirates off the coast of north Africa.
The destroyer was soon joined by the frigate USS Halyburton, which carries helicopters, and then by the amphibious USS Boxer, which is the size of an aircraft carrier and can launch missiles.
It was early Friday night in Washington, Saturday morning over the Indian Ocean, when President Barack Obama authorized the Defense Department to use military force to rescue the sea captain, according to administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
And as the standoff entered its fourth day, the president broadened the order so that it encompassed more military personnel and other equipment that had arrived in the Indian Ocean.
According to a timeline of events released by the White House, it was Saturday evening when the National Security Council presented the president its last update on its plans for rescuing Phillips.
The message from the White House to the USS Bainbridge: If Phillips' life is in danger, take action.
source: news.yahoo.com
Quietly, the White House had laid down rules of engagement for officers on the destroyer USS Bainbridge: If the captain's life is in imminent danger, attack.
At the end of the fifth day, the waters in the Gulf of Aden dark and choppy, the Americans on the Bainbridge peered at the lifeboat and saw something new happening. One of the pirates had an AK-47 aimed at the captain's back.
Navy snipers on the destroyer's fantail took aim at the pirates' heads and shoulders. The commander gave the split-second order: Fire. All three pirates were picked off. The captain was safe.
It was the culmination of five days of international tension and gamesmanship on the high seas. At stake was the life of a 53-year-old, no-nonsense sea captain from Vermont who volunteered himself as a hostage to save his crew.
Richard Phillips said goodbye to his wife, Andrea, left their home in the small Vermont town of Underhill at the end of March and made his way halfway around the world to join the ship.
His task was to pilot the Alabama, which at 500 feet long is relatively small for a container ship, on its trip from Oman and Djibouti to Mombasa, Kenya, to deliver 401 containers of food as aid.
Phillips is 6 feet tall and burly, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a thick Boston accent. People who know him say he has a keen sense of humor, always ready to regale friends with tales from the high seas.
At the helm, however, they say he is all business, a sailor's sailor. He diligently conducts emergency drills, including what to do if pirates attack. He is particular to the point of perfection.
Aboard the Alabama, Phillips kept in touch with his wife by e-mail. He wrote to her that they were headed for Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, just south of the Horn of Africa.
And he told her something else. He had heard, he wrote, that pirate traffic was up..
The bandits announced themselves first with grappling hooks and then with gunfire.
It was early Wednesday, so early that some of the Alabama's crew of 20 were still in their bunks. The pirates, four Somalis, tossed the hooks over the stern of the ship, hoisted themselves aboard and began firing into the air.
As they shot, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin. He surrendered himself as a hostage to keep his men safe, according to the crew.
The usual intention of pirates is not to kill but to extort, and they have done so successfully, to the tune of millions of dollars. And in general, the crews of ships like the Alabama carry no arms. When pirates attack, the defense is improvised and decidedly low-tech: They spray the bandits with hoses, or hurl old oil drums, or kick their ladders overboard.
Aboard the Alabama, the weapon of choice was an ice pick. ATM Reza, a Connecticut father and member of the crew, led one of the pirates, a small, skinny man, into the steamy engine room. There, he says, he stabbed the pick into the pirate's hand.
Now the pirates had Phillips, and the crew had a hostage of its own. According to accounts provided by the crew to their families, the crew gave up the pirate in hopes the pirates would give up their captain.
They did not. The pirates escaped to a lifeboat, taking the captain with them.
On Wednesday, the Navy sent a destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, chugging toward the Maersk Alabama. By Thursday, its crew, coached by FBI hostage negotiators, was talking to the pirates.
If the military tried to attack, the bandits said, they would kill Phillips.
Lifeboats used by ships like the Alabama are generally about 28 feet long, with enough food and water to sustain 34 people for 10 days, said Joseph Murphy, whose son, Shane, was second-in-command on the Alabama.
They are enclosed, with ports that can open and close. And they are uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that one crew member said Phillips was essentially surviving inside a 120-degree oven.
It was about midnight on the ocean, Thursday turning to Friday, when Phillips made a break for it.
He jumped out of the lifeboat and began to swim for his life. One of the captors fired an automatic weapon — perhaps at Phillips, perhaps only as a warning, either way enough to show that the pirates meant business. Phillips swam back to the lifeboat.
The USS Bainbridge was still several hundred yards away from the lifeboat — not nearly close enough to save him on his escape attempt. But the sailors on board were close enough to see that, back in the lifeboat, Phillips was moving around and talking.
He appeared — so far — to be unharmed.
By Friday, the tense standoff in the Gulf of Aden was the very definition of an asymmetrical conflict: Four pirates, holding one hostage and bobbing in a lifeboat, versus the United States Navy.
The Bainbridge kept constant watch, stalking the small boat from a distance. Its namesake, William Bainbridge, was a U.S. naval officer who two centuries ago fought the Barbary pirates off the coast of north Africa.
The destroyer was soon joined by the frigate USS Halyburton, which carries helicopters, and then by the amphibious USS Boxer, which is the size of an aircraft carrier and can launch missiles.
It was early Friday night in Washington, Saturday morning over the Indian Ocean, when President Barack Obama authorized the Defense Department to use military force to rescue the sea captain, according to administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
And as the standoff entered its fourth day, the president broadened the order so that it encompassed more military personnel and other equipment that had arrived in the Indian Ocean.
According to a timeline of events released by the White House, it was Saturday evening when the National Security Council presented the president its last update on its plans for rescuing Phillips.
The message from the White House to the USS Bainbridge: If Phillips' life is in danger, take action.
source: news.yahoo.com
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