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Captain Richard Phillips was safely rescued Sunday from four Somali pirates, who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, as reported by a  U.S. intelligence official.

Three of the pirates were killed and one was in custody after what appeared to be a swift firefight off the Somali coast, the official said.

Initial reports indicate Phillips jumped overboard for a second time and the military was able to take advantage of the situation.

Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vt., was transported to the USS Bainbridge nearby. He is resting comfortably after a checkup, the Navy said.

“Andrea and Richard have spoken and you can imagine their joy and what a happy moment it was for them,” family spokeswoman Alison McColl said outside the Phillips’ house.

McColl said Andrea wanted to thank the world for their prayer and wishes for her husband’s safe return.

Asked whether the pirate arrested will now be brought to the U.S. for prosecution, the Department of Justice told FOX News, they will be “reviewing the evidence and other issues to determine whether to seek prosecution in the United States.”

Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart said in a news release that the U.S. government informed the company around 1:30 p.m. Sunday that Phillips had been rescued. He was to hold a media briefing later Sunday.

Reinhart said the company called Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the news. He said the crew of the Maersk Alabama was “jubilant” when they received word that Phillips was safe.

They placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the Maersk Alabama and whistled and pumped their fists in the air. Crew fired a bright red flare into the sky from the ship.

The rest of the crew and the ship had made it safely to a port in Kenya.

Rear Admiral Richard Gurnon, president of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where Phillips graduated from, said there was no doubt in his mind Phillips would be released.

“He was the good sheppard — he exchanged his life for the life of his crew,” Gurnon said. “We are truly thankful that it has turned out this way. This is exactly the way we wanted it to end.”

A government official and others in Somali with knowledge of the situation had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips’ release had broken down.

Talks began Thursday with the captain of the USS Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the U.S. destroyer.

U.S. warships and helicopters stalked the lifeboat holding Phillips and his four Somali captors Sunday, while his crew briefed FBI agents about how they fought off the pirates who boarded their ship, the Maersk Alabama.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S. defense officials say the crew of the U.S.-flagged cargo shipped hijacked Wednesday off the coast of Somalia has retaken control of the ship.

Officials say the crew captured one pirate and three others are believed to be in the water.

The 17,000-ton Danish-owned container vessel ‘Maersk Alabama’ was seized early Wednesday about 450 kilometers southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia. It has a crew of 20 U.S. nationals aboard.

The ship was carrying emergency food aid to Mombasa, Kenya. A spokesman for the U.N. food agency (Nairobi-based Peter Smerdon) said the cargo includes 990-tons of vegetable oil and more than 4,000 metric tons of corn-soya blend.

The incident marks the first time an American-registered ship has been hijacked by the pirates operating off the coast of East Africa.

The ship was the sixth vessel seized in the region within a week.

The United States and other nations deployed warships near Somalia late last year in an effort to stop pirates from seizing ships, but pirates appear to be venturing further out to sea to avoid the naval patrols.

Bahrain-based U.S. Navy Spokesman Nate Christensen said the closest ship was more than 550 kilometers away.

Somali pirates have seized more than 50 ships over the past 18 months, sometimes receiving multi-million dollar payments for their release.

The pirates, who operate from bases on Somalia’s east coast, are currently holding more than a dozen ships and their crews.

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The hostage crisis 300 miles off the coast of Somalia is the first time an American has been held captive by pirates in recent memory. The situation has focused worldwide attention on the fragile fate of the small craft bobbing in the Indian Ocean, and a man half a world away from his small-town New England roots.

“We’re waiting in limbo,” said Tom Coggio, Phillips’s brother-in-law, who was among the relatives gathered at the Phillipses’ white clapboard house near the base of Mount Mansfield. “It’s such a helpless feeling.”

The pirates are demanding a ransom and safe return to Somalia in exchange for Phillips, whom relatives de scribed as a devoted family man and a cool-headed leader who is fiercely protective of his crews.

Phillips, a 1979 graduate of Massachusetts Maritime Academy and a veteran of the pirate-infested waters off Somalia, gave himself up as a hostage to avoid bloodshed, his relatives said. The ship’s crew believed they had brokered an exchange for Phillips, family members said, but the pirates apparently broke the deal and fled the ship in a small rowboat.

“That’s just the type of guy he is,” Coggio said. “He put the lives of those other 19 sailors ahead of his own. I don’t think he was trying to be a hero. He was just trying to defuse the situation and get those SOBs off the ship.”

The shipping line that operates the Maersk Alabama said the Navy had made contact with Phillips and that he appears to be unharmed. The USS Bainbridge, the naval destroyer, was in sight of the lifeboat and has provided food and water to him and his captors, relatives said. So far, the weather has been mild and the seas calm.

With a spy plane patrolling the skies, US ships escorted the Alabama to Kenya, where it was expected to arrive by tomorrow. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the world needs to unite against the “scourge of piracy” and that the Obama administration was closely monitoring the situation.Continued…

Relatives of crew members also shed light on the bold maneuvers that thwarted the hijacking attempt Wednesday. As the pirates clambered aboard the 17,000-ton vessel, firing their weapons, Phillips had ordered his 20-member crew, who were unarmed, to lock themselves in a safe room to avoid capture. The crew later managed to overpower one of the four attackers and take him hostage, relatives said.

Yesterday, the maritime academy celebrated the fact that Shane Murphy, a 2001 graduate serving on the Alabama, was bound for home because of Phillips’s sacrifice.

Joseph Murphy, a professor at the Bourne school, said he expects his son back home by Tuesday or Wednesday. Yesterday on campus, as he talked about the ordeal, a cadet leaned over the railing of the USS Kennedy, the school’s training ship, to ask about Shane, the Alabama’s second in command.

“He’s safe,” replied Murphy, a burly, bearded man in his academy uniform, which resembles the Navy’s dress blues. “My son is coming home.”

The father spoke in a calm, even tone, showing emotion only when he talked about Phillips’s selfless act.

“I believe he saved my son’s life,” Murphy said, as his voice cracked and his eyes watered.

Murphy, a former ship’s captain who was at the helm of tankers and trade vessels for three decades and now teaches a maritime security course, said his son was raised to love the ocean. He recalled Shane as a baby wearing a life preserver in a portable crib on the deck of his grandfather’s lobster boat.

Last month, Shane Murphy, who lives with his wife and two young children in Seekonk, visited his father’s class to warn cadets about the dangers of piracy. On his Facebook page, he had written: “I feel like it’s only a matter of time before my number gets called.”

Somali pirates currently hold a dozen ships, with more than 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau. They have staged 66 attacks since January.

Keenly aware of the danger, Phillips sent an e-mail to his wife, Andrea, as the ship entered the trouble zone, saying the crew had posted sentries to keep watch. Family members said Phillips had left Vermont for the United Arab Emirates about two weeks ago for the voyage to Kenya.

Coggio said Phillips has always loved the ocean, playing basketball at the YMCA, snowboarding and tubing, and boating on Lake Champlain. With an easygoing personality and a thick Boston accent, Phillips made friends quickly, he said.

“You can’t help but like the guy,” he said, quipping that “he’s probably made friends with the four in the lifeboat.”

Phillips, an ardent Red Sox fan who drove cabs to help pay for college, has seven brothers and sisters, his family said. They would continue to keep a quiet vigil and are “praying like the dickens.”

Patty Howard, Phillips’s younger sister, said she and other family and friends gathered at her Southborough home are “just waiting on pins and needles for his return.”

“We know he’s level-headed and has a sense of humor. We hope he keeps it during this difficult time.”

Catherine Coggio, Phillips’s mother-in-law, said officials told her that the pirates are looking for money and that negotiations were going well. The ship’s owner, she said, has asked the military to let the company handle the situation.

Coggio said she is angry over the pirates’ ability to operate with seeming impunity. She hopes her son-in-law’s captors will pay dearly for their actions.

“It’s gotten out of hand,” she said. “You give them a little and they want more.”

Across the street from the Phillipses’ house in Underhill, east of Burlington, longtime neighbor Sheila Aiken described Phillips as someone who “puts everyone at ease.”

“I just want him to come home safe,” she said.

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