NAIROBI, Kenya — Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on the U.S.-flagged ship who fired guns and a high-decibel noise device.
A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination on the Kenyan coast, while a pirate said that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday with 28 North Korean crew members on board had died of wounds.
Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama in April and took captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates.
After Wednesday’s attack, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said the Maersk Alabama had followed the maritime industry’s “best practices” in having a security team aboard.
“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,” Gortney said in a statement.
However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the international maritime industry was “solidly against” armed guards aboard vessels but that American ships have taken a different line.
The owners of the Maersk Alabama have spent a considerable amount of money since the April hijacking to make the vessel pirate-proof, said Capt. Joseph Murphy, a Massachusetts Maritime Academy professor who is the father of a sailor who was on the Maersk Alabama during the April pirate attack. The most dramatic change, he said, is a force of “highly trained ex-military personnel.”
Former crew members of the Maersk Alabama said they had asked the company to rename, repaint or reroute the ship after the April incident. Former crew members John Cronan and Shane Murphy said they feared another attack but that the company didn’t heed their request.
Maersk spokesman Kevin Speers says that the company instituted a defense system and that Wednesday’s thwarted attack shows that it works.
