East Wood Affair

USCGC Rush.

The East Wood Affair was a pirates aboard the cargo ship East Wood after 30 of her 527 Chinese illegal immigrants took control of the vessel before being taken back by her crew.

Radio messages

On January 27, 1993 a distress message went out from the freighter that had been hijacked by pirates the East Wood had left from Hong Kong to Taiwan. On February 7 the US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Rush, after gaining permission from the Panamanian government (the ship was registered and as a Panamanian vessel), boarded with armed sailors but by then the mutiny had already been put down. They found signs of violence and discovered 527 illegal immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong provinces, China. The only weapons were pocket knives and machetes, and two crew members were missing.

Investigation

Upon interviewing the remaining crew with conflicting accounts the general consensus was the mutiny occurred on December 29, 1992 when a dispute between a smuggler and the captain broke out. The dispute lead to some of the migrants taking control of the ship and the two missing crewmen abandoned ship and jumped overboard. The immigrants sailed the ship toward Hawaii to illegally immigrate there, but were thwarted by the distress message and the subsequent response.

Aftermath

The ship was escorted the Marshall Islands, breaking down twice, and arrived at Kwajalein where the immigrants stayed for 20 days to recover their health before being returned to China.