Australia — HMAS Melbourne disrupts pirate attack in Arabian Sea

Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy frigate HMAS Mel­bourne has dis­rupt­ed a pirate attack on a tanker in the Ara­bi­an Sea.
HMAS Mel­bourne steamed to the aid of the UK-flagged chem­i­cal tanker MV CPO Chi­na, which had been board­ed by pirates in the Ara­bi­an Sea at approx­i­mate­ly 1.45pm Bahrain time on Mon­day, 3 Jan­u­ary.

When ini­tial­ly alert­ed to the inci­dent HMAS Mel­bourne was approx­i­mate­ly 267kms north of the MV CPO Chi­na but was able to cov­er that dis­tance in just over six hours. 

While steam­ing to the aid of the MV CPO Chi­na, HMAS Melbourne’s heli­copter launched and on arrival in the vicin­i­ty of MV CPO Chi­na was able to deter the pirates from attempt­ing to take con­trol of the ship. As a result the pirates abort­ed the attack and left the ves­sel when HMAS Mel­bourne arrived on the scene. 

The crew of MV CPO Chi­na had suc­cess­ful­ly secured them­selves in the ship’s citadel (an anti-pirate strong­hold) from where they could main­tain satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions and con­trol the ship. The engine con­trols and steer­ing equip­ment for the tanker are locat­ed in the citadel. 

“This is a ter­rif­ic exam­ple of how Australia’s mar­itime con­tri­bu­tion to the Mid­dle East Area of Oper­a­tions pro­vides anoth­er lay­er of secu­ri­ty for the region and to the con­duct of trade and sup­pres­sion of crim­i­nal activ­i­ties,” said the Com­man­der of Joint Task Force 633, MAJGEN John Cantwell. 

“One of our objec­tives for oper­a­tions in the Mid­dle East is to assist the efforts of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in reduc­ing acts of pira­cy. Our men and women aboard HMAS Mel­bourne deserve recog­ni­tion for their role in pro­vid­ing mar­itime secu­ri­ty and coun­ter­ing pira­cy in the Ara­bi­an Sea. 

This is one of those occa­sions where their efforts have become high­ly vis­i­ble,” he said. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →