Crewmember of M/V Maersk Alabama Recounts Initial Day of Pirate Attack

You know what happened to the captain of the M/V Maersk Alabama after it was attacked by pirates. Now read exclusive details of how the crew handled the attack. Village Voice writer Graham Rayman obtained e-mails from a crewman describing how shipmates took control of the engine and steering rooms...

By Ray Stern

April 16, 2009

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You know what happened to the captain of the M/V Maersk Alabama after it was attacked by pirates.

Now read exclusive details of how the crew handled the attack.

Village Voice writer Graham Rayman obtained e-mails from a crewman describing how shipmates took control of the engine and steering rooms.

Here's a sample:

"We kept swinging the rudder side to side," the crewman says. "The pirates' boat capsized ... after about 20 minutes, the engine was killed, I don't know by whom. At that point I shut off the air bottles and Mike [the chief engineer] killed power. He was also able to get outside and trip the fuel shutoff for the EDG [emergency generator]."

E-mail shows tense standoff

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.