Breaking out of a prison is no easy feat . Many prison have security feature such as CCTV , motion detectors , barred windows , monumental rampart , barbed telegram , electrical fence , and armed guard . Despite these and other obstacles , some prisoner will wipe out the limits of their wit and ingenuity and take every chance they can to break loose . Prison breaks have been a part of our pop acculturation since before the days of 19thcentury westerly outlaws . Like in Hollywood , it ’s sometimes hard to decide who the good guys are and who are the opposer . disregarding , we all have a go at it a good chase .
10. Jack Sheppard
Jack Sheppard enjoyed near renown status in 18thcentury London for his multiple prison escapes . Though he apprenticed as a carpenter , in 1723 he determine that a life of crime was a more rewarding way to make a keep . In 1724 , he escaped from prison four times .
Sheppard escaped within three hour of his first arrest . He broke through the ceiling and lowered himself to the ground with a Mexican valium made from bottom sheets . Three calendar week later he was arrested again . This time he removed a bar from the windowpane and performed the same bed sheet stunt . He was arrested a third time and sentenced to death . On the 24-hour interval of his implementation , he loosen a bar from his windowpane and get away wearing women ’s clothing . After his final capture , Sheppard was insure with 300 pound of iron weights and grade under constant surveillance . He was perform on November 16 , 1724 .
9. “Houdini” Hinds
Alfred George Hinds was contain for a jewelry robbery in 1953 and was sentenced to serve 12 years behind stripe at England ’s Nottingham Prison . Hinds , who dissent his ingenuousness , managed to scat the prison after sneaking through the locked doors and climb over a 20 - foundation prison rampart . He was apprehend again six month later . Hinds filed a lawsuit take that the check was illegal and was granted a test .
At the courthouse , Hinds had an accomplice smuggle in a padlock and put in jazz eyes into one of the washroom cubicle . When two guards escorted Hinds to the washroom and removed his cuff , Hinds push the guards into the cubicle and locked them inside . He was seize at the airport five hours by and by and was sent to Chelmsford Prison . Within 12 months , Hinds escape from Chelmsford . He was captured again two age subsequently and served the rest of his sentence .
8. The Biggest Prison Escape in British History
Her Majesty ’s Prison Maze was considered to be one of the most escape - proof prison house in all of Europe . Each of the prison city block were surrounded by 15 - metrical unit fencing , 18 - pes concrete wall , and solid steel gates that opened electronically . This Northern Ireland prison house many Irish Republican Army prisoner that had been convicted of violent offenses .
On September 25 , 1983 , 38 IRA prisoners escaped from the Maze Prison . concisely after 2:30 promethium , the prisoner took ascendency of their H - Block using guns that had been smuggled into the prison house . At 3:25 , a truck bring in food supply was overpowered , the machine driver ’s foot was tied to the grip , and the machine driver was forced to aim out of the prison house . Nineteen of the escapee were watch within several days of the escape valve . While some of the escapee were finally found and extradited , those stay on have been given amnesties due to the political science in Northern Ireland .
7. Pascal Payet
In 1997 , Pascal Payet participated in the robbery of a Banque de France armored vehicle , which resulted in the death of one of the guards . On October 12 , 2001 , he break away from a prison on a hijacked helicopter . In 2003 , he engineer the evasion of three of his fellow accomplices with the help of another hijacked helicopter . He was eventually catch and sentenced to 30 year in prison house for the 1997 slaying , seven years for the 2003 escape and another six years for his own escape in 2001 .
Payet became one of the most closely look on prisoners in France and was transpose to different prisons every few months . Despite these precautions , on July 14 , 2007 , four mask men hijacked another whirlybird and facilitate the leakage of Payet from a prison house in Grasse . Two months afterward , he was entrance again in Mataró , Spain . His current whereabouts are a well - kept orphic .
6. Richard Matt and David Sweat
On June 6 , 2015 , Richard Matt , 48 , and David Sweat , 34 , escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora , New York . Joyce Mitchell , a 51 - year - one-time prison seamster shop worker , developed intimate relationships with both inmate , provide them with smuggled peter , ask them to belt down her husband and planned to fly with the violent pair to Mexico .
Richard Matt and David Sweat used power instrument to trend holes in the back of their contiguous cells , which led to a six level high catwalk that provided approach to various tobacco pipe and tunnels . After cut into a two - foot wide pipe , they travel 400 foot inside the pipe and escape through a manhole in the town of Dannemora . Joyce Mitchell , who had planned to rendezvous with the pair and provide a getaway vehicle , was nowhere to be base . police force pop Matt on June 26 , and Sweat was conquer two days later .
5. The Great Escape
Stalag Luft III was a German - run prisoner - of - war camp that housed captured air force personnel during World War II . Plans for the passel flight of hundreds of prisoners get down in the spring of 1943 . Three burrow , codenamed “ Tom , ” “ Dick , ” and “ Harry , ” were dug 30 feet below the surface . Pumps were built to push fresh air into the tunnels . Lights connecting to the prison ’s electrical storage-battery grid were put in . The prisoners even installed a little rails car system to help the digging process .
On the moonless night of March 24 , 1944 , 200 captive undertake to escape . alternatively of run to a nearby wood , the burrow open just short of the tree dividing line and unaired to a sentry duty tower . The 77thman through the burrow was spotted by one of the sentry go and the leakage was quickly foiled . Only three captive managed to escape . Fifty prisoner were killed and the rest were seize .
4. The Taliban Tunnel
In recent 2010 , the Mujahedeen get down work on a 1000 - foot tunnel in the city of Kandahar , with the hopes of freeing hundreds of Taliban insurgents . The burrow , which took five months to dig , bypassed governance buildings , watchtower , barriers topped with razor conducting wire , and went through the concrete base of an Afghanistani prison house . On April 25 , 2011 , 480 prisoners crawled to freedom in less than 30 mo .
The Taliban had acquired keys prior to the escape , which were used to enter the cells of their friends . On the other side of the tunnel , minibuses were waiting to drive the hundreds of escapees away from the to a great extent guard area . It ’s likely that some of the prison house safety were either bribed or politically motivated to help the escape . The only thing more singular than constructing a 1000 - foot burrow lined with a strong rubber ventilation underground is that nobody supervise to stop it from happening .
3. Choi Gap-bok the “Korean Houdini”
Choi Gap - bok is a 53 - year - old man , a crook with over 20 years behind bars , and a yoga expert . Choi first escaped custody 25 year ago by slipping through the bar of a busbar that was carrying captive to poky . He was captured two days later . Choi decided to rehearse yoga during most of his two decades in and out of jail . On September 17 , 2012 , he was quick to pull off an even more singular escape .
When the guards fell asleep he covered his pillows with a mantle , making it appear that he was still in seam , and applied skin ointment over his body . He then wedge through the tiny solid food slot at the bottom of his cellular telephone and escape the prison . He was quail at six days later and rank in a cadre with an even tinier intellectual nourishment slot . It seems that yoga , for some , is n’t just a pop way to exercise .
2. Sobibór the Nazi Germany Death Camp
During World War II , the Nazis would execute ten prisoners for every somebody who seek to escape their extermination camp . By 1943 , rumor had begun to disperse that the Nazis were stand for to come together the camps and exterminate all of their captive . Leon Feldhendler and Alexander Pechersky , prisoners at Sobibór , decided that being kill while seek to escape was better than being murdered in a gas sleeping room .
The architectural plan was to have every prisoner onrush at once , kill the SS officer and hope that the Ukrainian guards would draw back . On October 14 , 1943 , nine SS officers and two guards were isolated and killed . unluckily , a Ukrainian guard witness one of the bushed Germans and sounded the warning equipment . Around half of the 400 prisoners attempting to fly were shot and killed . The Germans then eradicate the remaining 300 prisoners and closed the camp . Only 58 of the escapees survived the state of war .
1. Frank Abagnale
Frank Abagnale is the infamous con piece impersonate by Leonardo DiCaprio in the filmCatch Me If you may . Abagnale intrust bank shammer and successfully impersonated pilot light , lawyer , and doctors as a means of avoiding detecting and inevitable imprisonment . In 1969 , an Air France flight of steps attender recognized him and inform the police . He spent six months each in Gallic and Swedish prisons before being deport to America .
On arriver at the JFK aerodrome , Abagnale escaped the plane and fled to Canada , but he was quick apprehended . In 1971 , Abagnale hightail it a Federal Prison in Atlanta , Georgia . One of Abagnale ’s friends supplied him with a fake prison house inspector card and a forged FBI byplay card . He then convert the guards that he was an secret prison examiner who desperately needed to reach the FBI . Abagnale called his friend , walked out of the prison , got into a car and drove out .
