The boat was too small to move even an inch, and they had to drift for eleven days with no idea where they were. Fortunately, the crew was rescued by a Thai fishing vessel when it was drifting south of Phuket Island, Thailand.
Though the communication with the Rainbow had been cut, the ship's owner sent the first message to the IMB Piracy Reporting Center via a maritime insurance company four days after the incident occurred. The next day, the Maritime Safety Agency (MSA, the Coast Guard) learned of the matter and that night decided to dispatch a helicopter-equipped patrol ship and a jet airplane to search the eastern sea approaches to Malaysia.
Search for the missing Rainbow began. The Maritime Safety Agency (The Coast Guard) and Japan Shipowners' Association (JSA) called for the information while IMB sent out a search alert.
At noon on November 13, a ship that was off the southern tip of India reported sighting a ship matching the description of the missing ship.
A high seas chase ensued, and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships caught up with the ship by noon of November 14. Despite repeated warnings on the VHF radio, the ship refused to comply with the ICG ships request to stop and permit examination as required by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The ICG ships opened fire, but the ship still refused to comply. On receipt of a request for assistance, the Indian Navy dispatched a missile corvette which was exercising in the area.
On the morning of November 16, approximately 450 km west of Goa, India, the pursuing team fired at the ship's steering room, forced the ship to stop, and sent armed guards aboard for examination.
Although the fifteen Indonesian pirates did not resist at the time, the master set fire to the ship and had his men open the valves of the ship's bottom to scuttle it to destroy the evidence. Therefore further efforts, to extinguish the fire and drain the water, were needed to keep the ship from sinking.
When they started to examine the ship, they saw the name “Mega Lama” painted on the ship. They found, however, the documents of the Rainbow in the ship and concluded that it was the Rainbow.
According to the confession of the arrested pirates, they refueled and got water in Manila. They transferred about half of the cargo to another ship and repainted the ship name to “Mega Lama.” They were arrested by the Indian Coast Guard on the way to the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) with the rest of the aluminum ingots.
It was during the late 1980s when the number of highjackings at sea increased, resulting in attacks on ships, deaths of crew and passengers without qualms. Not only were money, valuables, and cargo taken, but also the ships were plundered or captured and the crew members were held as political hostages. The first seajacking case among Japanese ships, which occurred in September 1998, was that of the Ten-yu, a 2,660t cargo ship owned by Masumoto Shipping Co., Ltd.
The incident: the Ten-yu left Kuala Tanjung for Inchon, Korea with approximately 3,000t of aluminum ingots.
