The crew of a U.S.-flagged container ship has retaken control of the ship from pirates but its captain is being held hostage, the freighter's second officer said Wednesday.
"There's four Somali pirates, and they've got our captain," Ken Quinn told CNN in a ship-to-shore phone interview.
Capt. Richard Phillips is being held in the Maersk Alabama's 28-foot lifeboat, Quinn said.
The crew had a plan to make an exchange for their captain.
"We had a pirate we took and kept him for 12 hours," Quinn told CNN. "We tied him up and he was our prisoner." Quinn describes the hijacking to CNN »
The crew gave back their prisoner but the pirates reneged on the plan and are continuing to hold Phillips captive.
"So now we're just trying to offer them whatever we can, food, but it's not working too good," he said.
Quinn said the crew is trying to hold off the pirates for three more hours until a coalition warship is expected to arrive. Watch what is being done to free the captain »
The 780-foot (237-meter) Alabama was carrying food aid bound for the Kenyan port of Mombasa when it was seized, the ship's owner said. Twenty American crew members were on board.
Quinn said the pirates were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, but the freighter's crew carried no weapons."
Our nearest Navy ship was 300 miles away when this went down. They radioed for help when this started and at 25 knots they should get there about now. Should be fun fucking these toads up.
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