What if this was an AQ or other terrorist engineered attack and these captives were going to be murdered in any case?
Would you take that chance as a helpless captive or would you have done the "Lets roll" thing? - A real question.
I hope that this crew had thought out contingency plans beforehand.
All the better.
I'm very glad they were able to regain control from the pirates. Though, it's difficult to say for sure what might have happened otherwise. These Somali pirates do not have a reputation for killing or hurting their hostages. Partly, I'm sure because they'd rather not have crews fighting back so much.
There's a whole cottage industry that's sprung up in ports in Somalia, providing services and catering and such for all of the hostage ships that they have at any one time. So... chances are better than average that these crews won't be hurt. But since the standard response by shipping companies is to just pay off the ransom, it just encourages more and more piracy. As it is, piracy over there is a low-risk high-reward industry. We need to change that.
The right answer, IMHO, is to fight back-- take the pirates on and inflict some casualties. Make piracy a very risky business, and there will be a lot less of it.