The US Navy missed a chance to rescue the American captain held by Somali pirates on a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean when he tried to escape by jumping into the sea.

Captain Richard Phillips fled through a back door in the covered lifeboat about midnight on Thursday local time and began swimming away, US officials said.

At least one pirate jumped in after him and brought him back aboard the boat, which is drifting without fuel, before the nearby US destroyer, USS Bainbridge, could intervene. The incident was captured on video by a US drone overhead. “He didn’t get very far,” one official said.

One of the pirates fired several shots during the escape attempt, and Captain Phillips was seen being helped back into the lifeboat. The US Navy had asked for proof that the skipper was still alive but was not able to talk to him by radio, NBC News said. However, US sailors saw Captain Phillips moving around and talking after his return to the lifeboat, and the Pentagon believes he is unharmed.

The pirates demanded $2 million (£1.4 million) yesterday for the release of Captain Phillips.

The unsuccessful escape attempt and the captain’s uncertain fate threaten to embarrass the Obama Administration, which has seen the US Navy thwarted by four pirates armed with AK47s.

The Bainbridge, backed by drones and surveillance aircraft, was standing guard a few hundred yards from the lifeboat, which had run out of fuel. The frigate USS Halyburton and the assault ship USS Boxer, armed with about two dozen helicopters and attack planes, sailed to the scene yesterday. The tension at the stand-off was intensifying last night as pirates sent for reinforcements, apparently carrying “human shields”, in an effort to assist those holding Captain Phillips hostage. It is believed they contacted fellow pirates by satellite phone.

Mohamed Samaw, a resident of the pirate stronghold in Eyl, Somalia, who claims to have a “share” in a British-owned cargo ship that was hijacked on Monday, said that four foreign vessels held by pirates were heading towards the lifeboat. The ships include a seized Taiwanese fishing vessel and a German freighter carrying a total of 54 captured crew members from China, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Tuvalu, Indonesia and Taiwan.

“The pirates have summoned assistance – skiffs and mother ships are heading towards the area from the coast,” a Nairobi-based diplomat said. A Somali in contact with a pirate leader said that the captors wanted a ransom and were ready to kill Captain Phillips if they were attacked.

Their strategy appears to be to link up with fellow pirates and take Captain Phillips to Somalia, counting on the presence of the other hostages to deter the warships from an attack.

“They had asked us for reinforcement, and we have already sent a good number of well-equipped colleagues who were holding a German cargo ship,” said a man claiming to be a pirate from the lair of Haradhere. “We are not intending to harm the captain, so we hope our colleagues would not be harmed as long as they hold him.”

Captain Phillips was taken hostage when the four pirates briefly hijacked the container ship Maersk Alabama in what is thought to be the first pirate seizure of a US merchant vessel since the Barbary Wars two centuries ago. The ship, transporting food aid to Kenya, was the sixth seized in six days as Somali pirates range farther south to avoid the fleet of warships guarding the approaches to the Suez Canal through the Gulf of Aden.

The unarmed 20-man crew retook control of the Maersk Alabama, capturing one of the pirates, and offered a prisoner exchange to free their skipper. The pirates, trying to flee on a lifeboat after their skiff failed to start, reneged on the deal.

The 28ft orange lifeboat carries provisions for 34 people for about ten days. Before Captain Phillips’s escape attempt, the Maersk shipping company said that more food had been sent aboard the lifeboat as well as extra batteries for a radio.

David Shinn, a former US ambassador in Ethiopia and an expert on the Horn of Africa, advocated a tougher policy against pirates, including sinking their “mother ships”. But he advised against a French-style raid, at least for now. “Obtaining his safe release is paramount. His circumstances in a small, enclosed lifeboat are very different than those of the French hostages,” he said.

- Somali pirates have released the Norwegian-owned MT Bow Asir tanker and its crew after receiving a ransom payment. Sources put the payment at about £1.6 million.

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