US News

CREW HAILS HERO OF PIRATE ATTACK

Safely in port at last, the American crew of the Maersk Alabama — which included at least one New Yorker — hailed the still-captive skipper Richard Phillips as a hero last night while Navy forces and bumbling Somali pirates kept up a high-seas standoff that left the brave seaman’s life in the balance.

VALOR & HORROR IN FRENCH RAID

GREEDY GANGS NOT KIDD-ING

FBI KEEPS NY EYE ON CRISIS

PETERS: HANG ‘EM HIGH

PHOTOS: MAERSK ALABAMA REACHES SHORE

PHOTOS: PIRATE ATTACKS

Phillips remained at sea yesterday, held prisoner in a 28-foot lifeboat bobbing in the Indian Ocean surrounded by American warships.

“He saved our lives,” second mate Ken Quinn, of Bradenton, Fla., declared from the ship as it docked in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. “He’s a hero.”

The vessel was headed to Mombasa last week when four marauding Somali pirates waylaid the ship in a daring dawn raid and kidnapped its captain.

The tiny vessel drifted within 20 miles of the Somali coast late last night, and US officials were worried that the pirates and Phillips would be impossible to find if the boat reached land.

Fearing more pirate attacks, Navy officers had ordered the Alabama’s crew to sail on to Mombasa. Navy SEALs patrolled the deck when it arrived in port.

New Yorker William Rios, who has 23 years of experience on the high seas, called the ordeal a “nightmare” and said that he can’t wait to get back to the Big Apple to pray at St. John the Baptist Church in Manhattan.

The ship is being treated as a crime scene, and the 19 crewmen can’t disembark until the FBI has debriefed them. In the meantime, the sailors have access to phones to contact their families and will be flown home as soon as possible.

The good news reached the family of the second-in-command, Shane Murphy, who assumed command of the Alabama after Phillips was captured, in time for the holiday weekend. Relatives are planing a private reunion when he returns home to Seekonk, Mass., and a trip to his maritime academy, where his father is an instructor.

Phillips was at the helm Wednesday when a grappling hook and rope snaked over the Alabama’s stern.

Suddenly, a crew of pirates was on board and firing shots into the air. A violent struggle for control that lasted for hours ensued, with some crewmembers locking themselves inside a secure room while others played cat-and-mouse with the marauders.

But the US crew was able to regain the upper hand after shipmate ATM Reza, of Hartford, Conn., stabbed a pirate in the hand with an ice pick in the engine room and succeeded in tying him up.

The sailors hoped to trade their captive for Phillips, who had offered himself as hostage to safeguard his men, but the Somalis fled the ship in the Alabama’s lifeboat, and took the skipper with them. Attempts to trade the pirate for Phillips went sour when the Somalis reneged on the deal.

In Underhill, Vt., Phillips’ family struggled to stay upbeat as the 53-year-old captain ended his fourth day of captivity.

Time is now growing short for the desperate pirates, who are demanding $2 million and free passage back to Somalia in return for Phillips’ freedom.

They’ve threatened to kill the captain, a father of two, if the military moves aggressively toward them.

The Navy yesterday sent a small vessel towards the buccaneers, possibly for reconnaissance, but the panicky pirates shot at them, forcing the Navy negotiators to retreat.

The pirates had hoped to shield themselves and their captive behind a makeshift flotilla of buccaneer boats and captive ships — some with their hostages still aboard — that rushed to the scene from their Somali hideouts.

But the plan fell apart once their comrades got a good look at the hulking American destroyers in their way and military aircraft buzzing overhead.

The cutthroats scampered back to their safe havens without so much as a glimpse of the boat holding their terrified friends.

Farther north, near the coast of Yemen, other brazen buccaneers were on the prowl again yesterday, snatching a US-owned tugboat flying under an Italian flag in the Gulf of Aden.

The tug and its 16 sailors — all Europeans — are being held for ransom, Italian officials confirmed.

A Panama-bound carrier, the MV Anatolia, almost became pirate prey yesterday morning when it came under assault by gun-blazing buccaneers.

The Anatolia’s crew repelled the money-hungry swashbucklers with water hoses. But a nearby Portuguese warship suffered a spray of bullets, and its commanding officer’s cabin was hit with a rocket grenade that failed to detonate.

Some Somali elders are growing worried that there will be a violent resolution to the standoff. Several stepped forward yesterday to offer their mediation skills in the talks involving the four pirates, the FBI and Navy officers.

Neighbors gathered Friday night at Phillips’ home for a potluck supper as his wife, Andrea, welcomed their daughter, Mariah, 19, and son, Daniel, 20, home from college.

gotis@nypost.com