By C1 Staff
Escapes always make the news – everything from El Chapo’s brazen escape from a Mexican prison to the Clinton Correctional Facility break out, inmates are constantly thinking of new and bizarre ideas to release themselves from custody. Not all inmates go through the ground when working their way through a prison’s walls – some go above and beyond.
Here are eight of the craziest escapes that included none other than a helicopter. Not all of these attempts were successful, and most of the escapees were caught within 24 hours even if they managed to get away from the facility. Think we missed one? Add it in the comments.
Santa Martha Acatitla Prison, Mexico
New York businessman Joel David Kaplan and Venezuelan counterfeiter Carlos Antonio Contreras Castro escaped in a chopper painted to look like that of Mexico’s attorney general’s helicopter on August 19, 1971. Kaplan was serving time for the murder of a business associate in Mexico City. Both successfully made it to the U.S. and disappeared, inspiring the book “The 10-Second Jailbreak” and the Charles Bronson movie, Breakout.
Mountjoy Jail, Ireland
During a tumultuous period in Irish history, members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) managed to hijack a helicopter on October 31, 1973 and landed it in the exercise yard of one of the jail’s wings. After the escape, the IRA released a statement: “Three republican prisoners by a special unit from Mountjoy Prison on Wednesday. The operation was a complete success and the men are now safe, despite a massive hunt by Free State forces.” The escape was later the subject of a song by the Irish folk band, The Wolftones.
Perry Correctional Institution, South Carolina
An unnamed woman hijacked a chartered helicopter and forced it to land within the perimeter fence of the South Carolina prison, where it picked up three prisoners on December 19, 1985. During the escape, a corrections officer was shot in the mouth. The prisoners were serving decades-long sentences for violent crimes. After the successful escape, the four sped away in a car that was left four miles outside of the facility.
Unfortunately for them, they were found five days later asleep in a stolen car in a rest stop in Georgia. The woman had apparently struck up a long-distance romantic relationship with one of the inmates, leading to the breakout.
Prison de la Sante, France
Michael Vajour, an infamous bank robber, coordinated a prison escape with his wife Nadine on May 26, 1986. Nadine flew a rental helicopter through Paris and picked her husband off of an unsecured prison roof. She dropped a rope down to him, allowing him to climb aboard the aircraft. After they flew off, they remained free for another couple of months – Nadine was discovered hiding in a villa in the south of France, and Michael succumbed to a coma when he was shot in the head during arrest.
Prigione di Rebibbia, Italy
Two gunmen hijacked a Red Cross helicopter on November 23, 1986 and forced it to fly to Rebibba Prison, where the hijackers laid down suppressing fire with semi-automatic weapons while two convicts climbed aboard the chopper. The inmates were a French-Tunisian murderer and an Italian arms dealer.
The chopper was then made to land in a soccer field in Rome, where the four criminals stole two cars. Two of the criminals were caught a month later in France.
La Cucharas Prison, Puerto Rico
Two men first chartered a helicopter from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to the city of Ponce, then hijacked the aircraft near the prison and forced the pilot to land on a roof inside the complex on December 30, 2002. They picked up five convicts, who were each serving multiple life sentences for murder and other violent crimes, and then flew toward a remote mountainous region in central Puerto Rico. They then ran on foot.
All five were caught within a month.
Grasse Prison, France
Pascal Payet, a convicted murderer, escaped from prison via helicopter for the second time on July 14, 2007. He had first escaped in 2001, and had also helped organize another escape in 2003.
In the 2007 escape, four armed men hijacked a helicopter and landed it on the roof of the Grasse Prison. The group then flew 24 miles to Brignoles on the Mediterranean Coast. Payet was captured three months later in Spain.
Korydallos Prison, Greece
Two inmates successfully escaped from Greece’s largest high-security prison for the second time on February 22, 2009, this time by helicopter. The Greek bank robber Alket Rizai and, Vassilis Paleokostas, an Albanian hitman, boarded a helicopter that landed on the roof of the facility toward the evening. After landing post-escape, the two continued to flee on motorcycles.
The Albanian was recaptured, but Paleokostas is still on the run and is considered to be a folk hero in his own country.