Prison break: Five daring escapes from history

This photo shows an exhibit at the Alcatraz Island museum depicting Frank Morris (left), Clarence Anglin and John Anglin, the only men ever to escape from the prison. The dummy heads they left behind are also shown. (AP / Eric Risberg)

Not all prison breaks are created equal, but every so often, someone pulls of an escape so daring, creative or violent that it’s remembered forever.

Two U.S. prisoners may have pulled off one of those memorable escapes earlier this week, when they used power tools to cut their way out of the high-security Clinton Correctional Facility in New York State, leaving only a taunting message behind.

“Have a nice day,” the message read.

Authorities are now hunting for convicted killers David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48.

But for all the theatrics of their escape, Sweat and Matt are hardly the most brazen criminals to stage a prison break.

Here are a few other bold prison escapes from the last century.

Escape from Alcatraz

Nicknamed “The Rock,” Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, Calif. was long thought to be impossible to escape.

Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin proved that notion wrong on June 11, 1962, when they slipped out of their cells in the night and floated a raft out into the waters of San Francisco Bay, never to be seen again.

The three men used spoons to dig escape tunnels in their cells, and left dummies in their beds made from soap and hair to cover their disappearances until morning. They then used an inflatable raft made from raincoats to escape into the bay.

It’s still unclear whether the three men survived the treacherous waters of the San Francisco Bay, but a Dutch study last year concluded they might have escaped alive if they set out at the right time.

Inmate Allen West was originally supposed to leave with the three escapees, but he couldn’t get out of his cell in time to join them. He later told prison guards how they got away.

Alcatraz prison was closed on March 21, 1963, less than a year after Morris and the Anglins escaped.

Helicopter prison break, part I

Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of a brazen prison break involving a helicopter in Quebec. Serge Pomerleau, Denis Lefebvre and Yves Denis escaped from the Orsainville Detention Centre near Quebec City on June 7, 2014, when a helicopter picked them up in the prison courtyard and flew them out.

Denis, 35, Lefebvre, 53, and Pomerleau, 49, were awaiting trial on numerous charges, including first-degree murder, gangsterism and drug trafficking. After their escape, they were added to Interpol’s “Most Wanted” fugitives list.

The three men were apprehended two weeks later, when SWAT teams cornered them in an early-morning raid at a luxury condo in downtown Montreal. No shots were fired and the men surrendered immediately.

Helicopter prison break, part II

Pomerleau, Lefebvre and Denis weren’t the first Quebec prisoners to escape using a helicopter.

On March 17, 2013, a young helicopter pilot picked up two passengers for what he thought would be a routine flyover of the Montreal shoreline. However, he soon found himself an unwilling pawn in a jailbreak, as the passengers forced him at gunpoint to pick up two inmates from St-Jerome prison.

The helicopter pilot was forced to hover over a prison tower and let down a rope for two inmates to hold onto for the escape. This illustration shows what happened:

The pilot was then forced to land in a nearby field so the inmates could get inside the aircraft. Next, he was ordered to drop them off at a hotel in the Laurentian Mountains.

The pilot was not harmed in the ordeal and the inmates were later arrested, along with two other individuals suspected of orchestrating the escape.

Tissue bomb jailbreak

French bandit Redoine Faid took four guards hostage and blasted his way out of the Sequedin prison with explosives on Apr. 13, 2013. Faid used a gun and explosives concealed in tissue packets to destroy several armoured doors during his escape, then fled in a getaway car that he later ditched and burned.

Faid was visited by his wife at the prison earlier that same day.

He was apprehended a month-and-a-half later after a manhunt in France.

Maze Prison uprising

The largest jailbreak in British history occurred on Sep. 25, 1983, when 38 imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Army seized control of a cell block at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. The inmates smuggled in guns and used makeshift blades to take control of their cell block without raising the alarm. Then, several disguised inmates captured a delivery truck driver and forced him to transport them all out of the prison.

One prison guard died of a heart attack during the uprising, while 20 other guards were injured.

Most of the escaped prisoners were later apprehended, but a few were never found.

Several of those who were arrested after the escape faced murder charges for the guard’s death, but they were acquitted.