Pretty interesting story, although a bit on the brief side.
If this stunt were attempted at your average prison yard in the U.S., how would they respond? Would the escapees be able to pull it off? I don’t know a lot about how air space and air traffic works, but I imagine they’d see the helicopter coming on radar, try to contact it by radio to see where the hell it’s going, and when it doesn’t respond… would most prisons have the capability to shoot it down? Would they be able to respond fast enough to chase it? Would it make a difference if it was a minimum/medium/max security prison?
I have no idea why you think a prison would have aerial radars at their disposal.
A helicopter can (if you’re a good shot) be shot down with lots of small arms fire, and if a prison has watchtowers they almost surely have dudes with rifles in them. But you need to have the helicopter pretty close to you for enough time to do enough damage to make it not fly.
The prisoner would have to make his way from the prison yard or wherever he was coming from, to the waiting helicopter, and you’d better believe they’d be shooting at him then.
Many super-max prisons prisons have anti-helicopter wire over the top of their very limited exterior yards so that is probably right out. Disregarding that, it would be a bitch to orchestrate getting everything in place at just the right time to make that type of mistake. Helicopters are load and the the prisoner would have to break free at just the right time.
I don’t think the airspace over prisons is typically controlled, so on the air traffic control end of things, there’s probably nothing to stop you from gingerly hovering over your local penitentiary. I seriously doubt they’re going to shoot down your helicopter either, given the amount of collateral mayhem associated with a helicopter crash. However, they are probably very likely to shoot the escapee and I would suspect that a certain amount of corruption on the part of the guards was a factor in the story.
The airspace around certain prisons in Ireland is designated “P” for prohibited, so it would not be legal to fly over them. However if you were flying low in a helicopter I don’t think you’d show up on Dublin or Shannon radar.
Now that I think of it, there was a case where some republican prisoners escaped from Port Laoise by helicopter - can’t remember the details.
Is it mostly ex-military that operate these surface to air missile batteries at the local penitentiary? Am I immediately shot down once i’ve been warned over the radio or will they scramble a few F-16s to check me out first? I guess the easiest thing to do is let the prisoner board the escape helicopter, then the warden can chase them down in his Apache attack copter.
One problem would be that if the helicopter had been hijacked (as in the Greek case cited), shooting down the helicopter would kill the innocent pilot.
There was an old computer game where you tried to break out of a prison complex. After collecting and combining various objects, you assemble a helicopter.
The one time I got the helicopter finished, I couldn’t find a place to land outside the prison walls.
Jesus. That’s fucked up. Solitary for 23 hours a day, no contact except for guards… how is that not cruel or unusual punishment? Makes the death penalty seem like a gift.
On the other hand, why would you need a courtyard or any outside area at all if they exercise in their own “separate concrete chambers” anyway?
Heh, I’ve spent 23 hours a day (or more) with no contact except a clerk if for some reason I had to go buy something for an extended period of time. I kinda preferred it.
I remembered something involving the IRA and a helicopter too when I saw the thread title, were you thinking of the 1973 Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape?
There was an escape from a South Carolina prison using a helicopter in 1985. I can’t find much about it at the moment, but you can look here for a follow-up not too long afterwards.
It’s one thing when you’re a free person doing your own thing for 23 hours a day by choice. Being forcibly locked in a concrete 7’x12’ cell with no telecommunications and no view except the roof and part of the sky is, I think, something entirely different. Unless you’re an avid reader, I would think sheer boredom would drive you quite nuts.
If you ARE talking about similar circumstances, maybe you’re just better at being alone? I know I didn’t like it much the few times I was kept in solitary. The first day was an absolute mindfuck, especially since I had no idea if I was ever going to get out again – like I’m sure many of those lifers now think.
It’s one thing when you’re a free person doing your own thing for 23 hours a day by choice. Being forcibly locked in a concrete 7’x12’ cell with no telecommunications and no view except the roof and part of the sky is, I think, something entirely different. Unless you’re an avid reader, I would think sheer boredom would drive you quite nuts.
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You’re right- we’d better get Ted “Unabomber” Kaczinski and Richard “Show Bomber” Reid out of there, before they lose their minds.
Wow, way to distort my opinion. “Those conditions are horrific” does NOT equal “so let them go free!”. I’m not saying society would be better served by having them free and able to do as they please.
If the point is purely segregation from society (so that the rest of us may be safe), I’m sure the ADX does that quite well. I just question whether it’s necessary to go to that extreme as a “punishment”.
I suppose, when you’re in something like ADX, they’re not even going to pretend parole or rehabilitation is an eventual possibility. Short of a miraculous revelation in psychology/criminology, I suppose they’re basically SOL. If that’s the case, what’s the point of keeping these prisoners alive on taxpayer money? Just kill them already, as opposed to stripping them of all their dignity and whatever sliver of humanity they may have left and keeping them locked up like a rabid dog for the rest of their lives. Maybe it’s vengeance for the victims’ families, but beyond that… it just seems like pointless torture.
Edit: But, I suppose, not all prisoners would choose that. If they prefer life in isolation over death… well, who am I to say otherwise?
