Key figures: Richard Phillips (captain, MV Maersk Alabama), Abduwali Abdiqadir Muse (surviving pirate), Frank Castellano (commanding officer, USS Bainbridge), Barack Obama (US President)
Summary
On April 8, 2009, four Somali pirates boarded and seized the MV Maersk Alabama, a United States–flagged container ship, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia. It was the first successful pirate capture of a US-flagged vessel since the early nineteenth century. The ship’s crew resisted and regained control of the vessel, but the pirates took Captain Richard Phillips hostage and fled in the ship’s covered lifeboat. After a multi-day standoff, US Navy SEAL snipers aboard the destroyer USS Bainbridge killed three of the pirates and freed Phillips unharmed on April 12, 2009. The incident drew international attention to the surge of Somali piracy and was later dramatized in the 2013 film Captain Phillips.
Background
The Maersk Alabama was operated for Maersk Line, Limited, the US subsidiary of the Danish shipping group A.P. Moller–Maersk. Carrying thousands of tons of cargo — including humanitarian food aid — it was bound for Mombasa, Kenya, when it was attacked roughly 240 nautical miles off the Somali coast, in waters that had seen a sharp escalation of piracy during 2008 and 2009. The vessel carried a crew of about twenty.
The Hijacking and Rescue
Four young Somali pirates boarded the ship from a small craft on April 8, 2009. The crew fought back, secured most of the ship, and disabled key systems, but the pirates seized Captain Phillips. The pirates then left the Maersk Alabama in the ship’s enclosed lifeboat, taking Phillips with them as a hostage.
The destroyer USS Bainbridge, commanded by Commander Frank Castellano, responded along with other US Navy vessels, including the frigate USS Halyburton, and shadowed the drifting lifeboat. President Barack Obama authorized the use of military force should commanders judge Phillips’s life to be in imminent danger. On April 12, 2009 — Easter Sunday — when one pirate was seen aiming a weapon at Phillips, three Navy SEAL snipers positioned on the Bainbridge fired simultaneously, killing the three pirates aboard the lifeboat and freeing Phillips unharmed.
The fourth pirate, Abduwali Abdiqadir Muse, had left the lifeboat earlier and was aboard the Bainbridge during negotiations; he was taken into custody. Muse was prosecuted in US federal court in Manhattan, pleaded guilty in 2010, and on February 16, 2011 was sentenced to 405 months — about 33 years and 9 months — in prison for the hijacking and related acts.
Disputed Accounts
The widely publicized account that Captain Phillips had voluntarily offered himself to the pirates to protect his crew was later contested. Eleven crew members sued Maersk Line, Limited and the ship’s operator, alleging that the vessel had been knowingly routed too close to the Somali coast despite piracy warnings. The suit was settled out of court, and the competing accounts of Phillips’s conduct were never definitively resolved.
Significance
The Maersk Alabama hijacking was the most prominent episode in the wave of Somali piracy that peaked in 2008–2009 and the first seizure of a US-flagged ship in some two centuries. The standoff and the SEAL rescue brought the problem to global prominence and helped accelerate expanded multinational naval patrols off the Horn of Africa and the wider adoption of onboard security measures, including privately contracted armed guards on commercial vessels. The events were dramatized in Paul Greengrass’s 2013 film Captain Phillips, with Tom Hanks as Phillips and Barkhad Abdi as Muse.
Sources
- Maersk Alabama hijacking — Wikipedia
- Maersk Alabama hijacking — Britannica
- U.S. Ship Captain Freed; 3 Pirates Killed By Snipers — NPR
- Somali Pirate Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 405 Months in Prison — FBI