GlobalSecurity.org "The admiral gave a timeline of the action. Pirates captured the vessel about 190 nautical miles southeast of Masirah Island, Oman, Feb. 18. Four U.S. Navy warships responded: the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the guided-missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf and the guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Bulkeley.
"The ships found the vessel and made contact with the pirates via bridge-to-bridge radio, and began a series of negotiations. Yesterday, two pirates boarded the USS Sterett to continue negotiations.
|
Southern California residents Jean Adam,
66, and her husband, Scott, 70, were in
the seventh year of an off-and-on,
round-the-world
trip on their beloved sloop, Quest.
(Del Rey Yacht Club / October 20, 2005) |
"“At 8 a.m. this morning … a rocket-propelled grenade was fired by the pirates from the Quest toward the Sterett,” Fox said. “Immediately thereafter, gunfire erupted from inside the cabin of the Quest. Several pirates appeared on the deck of the Quest and moved up to the bow with their hands in the air in surrender.”"
Four Americans, including Southern California couple, are killed by Somali pirates, U.S. officials say "Such a jarring end to what had seemed a charmed life devastated scores of people around Southern California, in the array of communities they touched — at Fuller Theological Seminary, where Scott Adam was a long-time student; in the television industry, where he had worked in production and direction; among patients Jean Adam had treated as a dentist; and in Marina del Rey, where the couple hosted deck-top dinners and holiday parties with Christmas lights wound through the rigging of their yacht."
Remember that LA is the home of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone; you may expect the LA Times to run some columns on understanding-the-poor-pirates-side-of-things in three...two...one.