AFR: US warship with helicopters joins pirate standoff
11 Apr 2009 3:05 AM
WASHINGTON, April 10 AFP - A second US warship -- this one carrying helicopters -- has arrived off the Somali coast amid a tense standoff with pirates holding a US ship captain whose recent escape attempt failed, the Pentagon said.
The guided-missile frigate USS Halyburton "is on site, in the vicinity" of the small lifeboat where pirates are holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage, US Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said on Friday.
The Halyburton "brings helicopters" to the volatile scene, said Whitman, who declined to say if the warship was within view of the lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean.
The US destroyer on site, the USS Bainbridge, has been monitoring the lifeboat but has no helicopters, another US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer is also in the region but further away than the other two vessels, he added.
Phillips jumped into the water during the night and tried to swim towards the USS Bainbridge, but pirates jumped in and recaptured him, the official told AFP.
"The captain jumped off and tried to escape," the official told AFP, adding that he had no details about how the pirates managed to take him back.
The incident lasted "around half an hour", the official said.
The Bainbridge, accompanied by a P-3 Orion surveillance plane, was preventing the pirates from moving their hostage to a larger ship.
The added firepower increases pressure on the pirates, who earlier in the week stormed the freighter Maersk Alabama that was carrying supplies for refugees sailing off the coast of Somalia.
Phillips has been held hostage on the lifeboat since Wednesday when the gang of four pirates hijacked the ship. Although the pirates were later overpowered by the unarmed US crew, they were able to separate Phillips and bundle him onto a lifeboat.
Meanwhile Vice Admiral William Gortney, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, told CNN that negotiations between officers on the Bainbridge backed by FBI experts and the pirates are continuing.
