WASHINGTON — After days of tense negotiations, the U.S. Navy rescue of an American sea captain came in a matter of seconds Sunday when a few sniper bullets killed three Somali pirates who authorities feared were about to kill him.
The commanding officer of the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge had already received approval from President Barack Obama to attempt a rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by force if the seafarer’s life appeared to be in imminent danger after five days of captivity off the coast of Somalia.
And with the seas becoming choppier and the increasingly agitated captors pointing an automatic weapon at Phillips, Cmdr. Frank Castellano decided he had no other option.
The Bainbridge skipper gave the green light, and sharpshooters on the fantail of the naval warship opened fire on the partially exposed pirates aboard the small, enclosed lifeboat.
Phillips, who was bound and standing, was uninjured in the attack, which occurred in the Gulf of Aden, according to Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
Gortney gave an account of the rescue operation and the events leading up to it in a Pentagon telephone conference from the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain on Sunday evening.
Phillips’ three captors, who were armed with AK-47s and small-caliber pistols, most likely were killed instantaneously. “We pay a lot for their training, and we earned a good return on their investment tonight,” Gortney said of the military snipers.
A fourth man who had been holding Phillips captive since the pirates failed Wednesday in their attempt to seize the captain’s cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, was aboard the Bainbridge negotiating with the Navy at the time. He was taken captive by U.S. authorities.
Captain praises Navy, SEALs
After the rescue, Phillips was whisked to safety aboard the nearby amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, given a routine medical evaluation and was “resting comfortably,” Gortney said.
Once he was there, military officials confirmed that the soft-spoken captain had placed his own safety at risk in an effort to protect his crew, helping fight off the initial pirate attack and then later, offering himself as a hostage.
From then on until the time of his release, Phillips was aboard the 24-foot lifeboat and repeatedly threatened by the pirates, who were seeking millions of dollars in ransom for his release.
Asked if he had any message for a public that had been captivated by his ordeal, Phillips was self-effacing.
“I’m just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the SEALs, those who have brought me home,” he told Maersk Line Limited President and Chief Executive John Reinhart.
In nearby Mombasa, Kenya, where the Maersk Alabama had arrived on Saturday without its captain, the crew erupted in celebration when news of his release came through.
Two flares were fired in the air and the ship’s horn sounded. Nine crew members came to the stern, pumping their fists skyward, one of them wrapped in a U.S. flag.
“He’s one of the bravest men I’ve ever met,” one crew member shouted to reporters from the stern of the ship, referring to Phillips. “He’s a national hero.”
Friends and family in Phillips’ hometown of Underhill, Vt., were more subdued. Alison McColl, a family friend, read a brief statement to reporters outside the Phillips home, saying the captain and his wife, Andrea, had spoken by phone.
“I think you can all imagine their joy, and what a happy moment that was for them,” McColl told the Associated Press.
Phillips’ 5-day ordeal
Phillips, 53, was taken hostage by the pirates after the crew defeated their attempt to take over the Maersk Alabama, an American-flagged and Danish-owned vessel that was carrying humanitarian aid to Africa.
As the pirates scrambled aboard shot in the air, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said.
Phillips and his captors had been floating in a covered lifeboat ever since, out of fuel and shadowed by U.S. Navy warships.
The captain jumped off the lifeboat Friday night and tried to swim for freedom, but he was quickly recaptured by the pirates.
For much of the past four days, the effort to secure Phillips’ release appeared to be a stalemate.
FBI hostage negotiation experts and the military were careful not to portray themselves as being open to paying a ransom for Phillips, but also hesitant to close off any opportunities to peacefully settle the crisis.
By Saturday, the U.S. negotiators had convinced the pirates to allow them to send an inflatable boat out to their lifeboat with food, water and even a change of clothes for Phillips, Gortney said.
That effort proved invaluable when one of the captors agreed to come aboard the Bainbridge to negotiate, and enough rapport was built up with the pirates so that the warship was given permission to tow the lifeboat when bad weather caused the seas to become overly choppy and potentially dangerous.
It was during that tow that the snipers got a clear view of Phillips’ captors, Gortney said. “The on-scene commander made the decision that Captain Phillips’ life was in immediate danger.”
Pirates vow retaliation
The rescue was a blow to the pirates of Somalia, who have for years preyed on international shipping and who still hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 civilian sailors from many nations. Gortney and other military officials said they believed the rescue could provoke retaliation.
Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: “Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,” he told the Associated Press.
“We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men.”
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told the AP from one of Somalia’s piracy hubs, Eyl, that: “From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages).”
“Now they became our number one enemy,” Habeb said of U.S. forces.
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