The Piracy of the Quest
Several months later, on February 18, 2011, as a U.S. sailing vessel, the Quest, was making way from India to Oman as part of an international yacht rally, a group of Somali pirates hijacked the ship. The ship was manned by four Americans—its owners Scott and Jean Adams, and their friends Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle. The pirates, carrying automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, boarded the Quest in the Arabian Sea, roughly 400 miles from Oman and 900 miles from Somalia. The pirates planned to take the ship back to Somalia, where their colleague Shibin would negotiate a ransom.
The U.S. Navy learned of the Quest's seizure, and several Navy ships began shadowing it. After Navy personnel were able to establish bridge-to-bridge radio communications with the pirates, the pirates told the Navy that they lacked the authority to negotiate and that their job was to capture vessels and hostages and return them to Somalia where their English-speaking negotiator would arrange a ransom. As the pirates and the Quest continued towards Somali territorial waters, the Navy asked the pirates for the name and contact information of their negotiator. The pirates told the Navy that the person to contact was Shibin, and they provided the Navy with Shibin's cell phone number. The Navy did not, however, then attempt to call him, for strategic reasons.
By the morning of February 22, 2011, as the Quest was nearing Somali waters, Navy personnel advised the pirates that they had to stop. When the pirates did not comply, the Navy attempted to position one of its ships to block the pirates, prompting the pirates to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the Navy. As the Navy continued to close in, but before it reached the Quest, the pirates shot and killed all four Americans on board.