List of helicopter prison escapes

A helicopter prison escape is made when an inmate escapes from a prison by means of a helicopter. This list includes prisoner escapes where a helicopter was used in an attempt to free prisoners from a place of internment, a prison or correctional facility.

One of the earliest instances of using a helicopter to escape a prison was the escape of Joel David Kaplan, nicknamed "Man Fan", on August 19, 1971 from the Santa Martha Acatitla in Mexico. Kaplan was a New York businessman who not only successfully escaped the prison but eventually escaped Mexico and went on to write a book about his experience, The 10-Second Jailbreak.

France has had more recorded helicopter escape attempts than any other country, with at least 11. One of the most notable French jail breaks occurred in 1986, when the wife of bank robber Michel Vaujour studied for months to learn how to fly a helicopter. Using her newly acquired skills, she rented a white helicopter and flew low over Paris to pluck her husband off the roof of his fortress prison. Michel was later seriously wounded in a shootout with police, and his pilot wife was arrested.

The record for most helicopter escapes goes to convicted murderer Pascal Payet, who has used helicopters to escape from prisons in 2001, 2003, and most recently 2007.

Another multiple helicopter escapee is Vasilis Paleokostas who on February 22, 2009 escaped for the second time from the same prison. Because of this, many prisons have taken applicable precautions, such as nets or cables strung over open prison courtyards.

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Seamus Twomey
Kevin Mallon

The Mountjoy helicopter escape became Republican lore and was immortalized by "The Helicopter Song", which contains the lines "It's up like a bird and over the city. There's three men a'missing I heard the warder say".

The pilot then explained, in great detail, exactly where they were and where they would be landing on arrival at the Quebec City airport. He added that the police would surely be aware by then, that she had hijacked the helicopter but would not yet be aware that she had given up her arms to the pilot. All the time Jenner was squeezing the transmit button on his cyclic stick and the tower was picking up all the details. The moment they touched down at the airport, the woman bailed from the helicopter but the police, who had been advised of the situation by the control tower, were hiding out all over the place and captured Paquet within seconds.

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