Thread: Pirates Attack MSC Melody!!!!

From Fox News:
Italian Cruise Ship Fires on Somali Pirates

Sunday, April 26, 2009

MSC Melody

ROME — An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits and drove them away, the commander said Sunday.

FOXNews.com - Italian Cruise Ship Fires on Somali Pirates - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

From CNN:

Melody Successfully Evades Pirates Near Seychelles


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- MSC Cruises confirms that the Melody cruise ship was attacked by pirates near the Seychelles Islands on Saturday evening, April 25, 2009. The ship initiated avoidance procedures and quickly escaped the attack with no injuries to any of the approximately 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members onboard.

The pirates approached the ship in a small speedboat firing automatic weapons at 7:35 pm GMT while the ship was sailing 180 nautical miles from Port Victoria in the Seychelles. MSC Cruises immediately informed the Italian government foreign office (La Farnesina), the Maritime Security Center in London and the Coordination Center for Security in Dubai.

A military vessel from the international security forces in the region has been sent to escort the Melody as a precaution, and the ship is continuing to Aqaba, Jordan, on its scheduled itinerary.



SOURCE MSC Cruises

- from: Melody Successfully Evades Pirates Near Seychelles=

The MSC website is down. It's been down for at least two hours that I know of.

MSC Cruise Lines | Deals On Cruises | Cruise Vacations | Vacation Cruiselines

This does seem to prove having guns on board is a good thing ....

Israeli security guards. What a great idea.

Cruise ship captain tells of battle with pirates - Yahoo! Canada News

Those guys are GOOD. Not smart to mess with them. Here's an excerpt about the Israeli Security Officers, from the above ditd article:

Domenico Pellegrino, managing director of the liner's owners MSC, said the Melody was protected by Israeli security guards.

"We use them because they are the best. And we have had a demonstration of that," said Pellegrino.

According to CNN the MSC Melody was attacked close to the Seychelles. The islands are ver far from where the pirates normally operates.

Yes - they are going farther and farther afield, making it harder and harder for the coalition ships to protect ships, as the area in question is so enormous.

The MSC site, which had been down yesterday is up dotay, but there seems to be no mention of the attack by pirates on the Melody.

There IS a copy of an announcement of an itineray change for the Melody. The announcement is dated 4/17 - about a week before the incident, and details precautionary changes that were being made in order to take a supposedly safer route.

It sure seems to me that we posted that itinerary change on CLF, but I am not finding it. Perhaps it's here, and I'm just not seeing it. Or, perhaps it was a similar announcement from another line.

At any rate, MSC DID make adjustments designed to take them around the most dangerous araeas, cut that clearly, wasn't enough.

Here's the link to that announcement: http://www.msccruisesusa.com/msc-cruises-press#