Crew of ship attacked by pirates heads home; captain remains on warship

By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff

The crew of the Maersk-Alabama is heading home.

The 19-member crew left Mombasa, Kenya, on a chartered flight today and is expected to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland late tonight. The crew will be reunited with loved ones in a private reception area, the shipping line said today.

Captain Richard Phillips, the cargo ship's captain who was held hostage by pirates before Navy sharpshooters shot them dead in a dramatic high-seas rescue, was not able to reach Mombasa in time to join the flight and remains aboard the USS Bainbridge in the Indian Ocean.

The Bainbridge responded last night to a pirate attack on the American cargo ship, Liberty Sun, and is escorting the vessel to Kenya. Pirates damaged the Liberty Sun with mortar rounds and gunfire but failed to board the ship. The crew was unharmed.

It was not known when Phillips would arrive in Kenya or return home. In a statement, his wife, Andrea Phillips, said: "Like Richard, I appreciate that the US Navy is there to help other seafarers as well. The most important thing is that Richard is safe, and our family owes that to the Navy. I am immensely proud of Richard, the crew, and everything they did to assure each other's safety. Our family joins with the families of crew members in celebrating the return of their loved ones. We again thank everyone for their prayers and support."

In an interview this morning with ABC-TV's "Good Morning America," Shane Murphy, the Alabama's chief officer, who took command when Phillips was taken hostage, said he had no regrets about the pirates' deaths.

"I gave these guys 100 chances to take what they want and go," said Murphy, a Seekonk resident. "People ask, 'Did they get what they deserve?' Human life is human life, but these people had so many opportunities."

"But they got greedy ... At the last second, they changed on us," he said of the pirates, who had agreed to leave the ship if the crew handed over a pirate it had seized. Instead, they took Phillips anyway, Murphy said.

"That was something that didn't go as planned," he said. "You have to realize, this was after a 13-hour ordeal. There was physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion."

Murphy's wife, Serena Murphy, joked today that she will take her husband hostage when he gets home.

"Well, I'm going to give him food and water. That's a positive for him. But I think I'll make the accommodations a lot more pleasant than the pirates did," she said on NBC-TV's "Today" show.

Serena Murphy said she did not want her husband to return to sea but said she would "support him in whatever decision he decides to make."

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