Lets imagine i had a friend who was in prison. I book a charter flight to Birmingham airport. As we aproach the airport i pull a gun on the pilot and say turn off your radio and take me to xxxxxxx prison, drop down in the so and so and a passenger will be waiting. What would be your reaction. I dont have a friend in prison incidentally, but i just thought that would be a terrible situation to be put in., and the thought crossed my mind that i am not aware whether people who book flights are checked out. Bug
I actually googled this after it happened the last time (Belgium / France? - happened twice I think in the space of a few months). The prison service do indeed realise the possibility, so I can't imagine it would be too successful
Damn!! I had something extremely similar in mind as a plot for a novel. Sounds like too many people have thought of it before. Back to the drawing board...or something.
Happened with an ex northern mountain helicopters machine that was sold while it was in Chile. The jail guards only had rubber bullets and couldn't knock it down and he flew away with a bunch of guys haha.
2.1 Oct, 1973 - Mountjoy Gaol, Ireland 2.2 Jan, 1983 - Melbourne, Australia 2.3 May, 1986 - La Santé Prison, France 2.4 Nov, 1986 - Federal Correctional Institution at Pleasanton, USA 2.5 Dec, 1987 - Gartree Prison, Leicestershire, UK 2.6 Aug, 1989 - Colorado prison, USA 2.7 1990 - Federal Holding Facility, Miami, FL, USA 2.8 1991 - Las Cucharas prison, Puerto Rico 2.9 1992 - Prison near Lyon, France 2.10 Sept, 1997 - De Geerhorst jail, Holland 2.11 March, 1999 - Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre, 2.12 2000 - Prison near Lyon, France 2.13 2001 - Luynnes prison in southern France 2.14 Mar, 2001 - Draugignan prison, France 2.15 May, 2001 - Fresnes prison, south of Paris, France 2.16 Jan 2002 - Parada Neto Penitentiary, Brazil 2.17 Dec, 2002 - Las Cucharas prison, Puerto Rico 2.18 2003 - Luynnes prison in southern France 2.19 July, 2005 - central France 2.20 Dec, 2005 - Aiton Prison, France 2.21 June, 2006 - Korydallos Prison, Greece 2.22 April, 2007 - Liege, Belgium 2.23 July, 15 2007 - Grasse prison south-east France 2.24 Oct 28, 2007 - Ittre, Belgium
Whirlybird, I'd say they've thought of it before Most of the prisons by the look of it focus primarily on prevention; anti helicopter netting or wire over places a heli could land, etc. I too thought of it as part of a book a while back but I believe it was already in one; something tells me a Frederick Forsyth novel maybe?
Wikipedia states that the Portlaoise prison hijack (mentioned in my post in that thread) was unsuccessful but my memory says otherwise. The Bo-105 hijack that both I and Hedski mention in that thread was not successful - I think the the milk churn bomb that Rose Dugdale tried to drop on a police station got stuck in the 105's sliding door......
I thought that exercise areas now had cables criss crossing them and that they have high visibility spheres to make it obvious you couldn't land there - not that I have any inside knowledge, honest....
The Wiki reference to Melbourne in 1983 is quite incorrect: the day I joined VicPol Air Wing, I was sworn in and issued Freddie 30 minutes after reporting to Williams St, and inside Pentridge Gaol 3 hours later to advise on where to carry out a (controlled) helicopter landing two days later
The gang who planned the break had been introduced in NSW to one of the Air Wing pilots (Dobbo), not an SAS pilot as per Wikki. Having been charged with Conspiracy, it was prudent to prove that a helicopter could be used as implied, so on a Wednesday sometime in June 1983 Dave A. flew a 206 into the exercise yard, doors off, and picked up 3 Sons Of God who were milling around looking lost. In and out in <30 seconds, case proved (SOG, the VicPol Special Operations Group.)
Later we advised the Prison Authorities to string marked wires over all open prison spaces, but to this day they haven't done so. We have a couple of private prisons north of Werribee, one mens, one womens. The Womens Prison actually has a helipad inside the prison walls, probably for those suffering PMT or similar
I think an interesting question would be what would your response be if the radio isn't turned off. Quite obviously you can't just say, "help I've got a gun to my head" if the man behind the gun has told you not to... and your worried about getting shot at the end...
In the US of course we have a squawk code and I've been advised by my local tower that any combination of that code in my normal radio call would be picked up on, ie, changing my N number, advising crossing the runway 7600 etc etc...
Not even sure what the UK equivilant to that squawk is...
Speechless If I remember correctly re the Rose Dougdale failed attempt which was on Strabane police station, the bomb (milk churn) did get stuck when over the "target" but was dropped into the river Mourne about 400/500yds past the station and did not explode. I was working in an engineering shop adjacent to the station and though it was lunchtime I was inside on a homer while most of the lads were out playing football in the yard. They told me that they had just seen a yellow helicopter trying to bomb the police station to which I replied thinking it a wind up "pull the other one, a yellow submarine I would believe but a yellow helicopter". It was only later when I saw the news that I realised what had happened. We were lucky on two counts that day as a few seconds earlier it could have been on the workshop and a few seconds later it would have been a housing estate on the other side of the river.
Location: Salt Lake City, UT or on a fire somewhere
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I flew for Alameda County SO for a while, and all of the outdoor exercise yards at "Club Fed" as we call it, in Pleasanton, the scene of the Nov, 1986, plot is now covered with cable which prevents a helicopter from landing. This is where Officer Stacy koon, of the Rodney King beating fame, spent time, also Heidi Fleiss spent time there...
One hijacking took place from Bankstown in Sydney, where the cheap-charlie hijacker only wanted to "charter" a B47 - she had earlier asked us to charter a B206 but didn't want to pay for it up front! I was talking to the B47 pilot on the radio just as the hijacker-lady yanked his mike cord out of the socket and pointed an AK-47 (goes with a Bell 47?) at him and told him to land in the Silverwater prison. (He had actually wondered why the passenger was carrying a large shopping bag.) I wondered why he didn't finish his sentence, but he was helping a prisoner to avoid finishing his sentence. The guards were gobsmacked, but still fired a couple of shots, hitting the frame. The machine flew for a while, but the pax realised the cars on the ground were going faster than the chopper, so they made him land on a sportsfield, tied him with the headset cords, and hijacked a passing car. They were caught the following day, I think. But what would I do? Hard to work out, but I would probably land in the prison and somehow accidentally shut the engine off and be unable to start it again, or maybe shut it down when a suitable field is in range and scream "AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHH THE F***** ENGINE IS ON FIRE! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" or words to that effect.
I remember reading about that. In the article, the pilot said he went to casually change the transponder to 7600, and she smacked his hand and said "NO TRANSPONDERS!!" She had done her homework for sure! Crazy as.
There is a former Schreiner pilot and now a CHC pilot who handled a hi-jacking quite nicely while flying for Bristow in Nigeria.....he merely haulled the collective up under his arm and flew away to the Funiwa. Upon his arrival he could not understand what all the finger pointing was about until he realized there was a very much subdued hijacker clinging to the skid. It appeared a fifteen minute flight dangling from the skids 3000 feet above the ocean distracted the villian from his intended exploit.
Now one must consider the pilot's steadfast adherence to a story that begs innocence about "knowingly" taking the hijacker for a ride as being a wee tad unbelievable as he claims nose bleeds routinely restrict his altitude to between 300-500 feet while transporting paying passengers internally.
I suspect the truth is more along the lines of being unable to climb to 10,000 feet in the time it took to fly out to the Funiwa from the beach.
So to answer your question, i'd 1/. ask if there was any money in it? 2/. make the most of it to have a bit of exciting flying for a change. ps, watch out for the nets strung across some prison compounds. I used to hate looking up at those things!
In the US of course we have a squawk code and I've been advised by my local tower that any combination of that code in my normal radio call would be picked up on, ie, changing my N number, advising crossing the runway 7600 etc etc...
7600 has been mentioned a few times now. I thought that was loss of comms, or is it different in the US?
Apart from the small matter that you would need to bust the Restricted Area that now occupies the airspace over prisons, would it be legally be charter work requiring an AOC and CPL?
the squaks are easily to remeber - the numbers rise with the intensity of the emergency. 7500 - radio failure - bad but nothing to worry about to much, except in IMC, but there you should know your procedures anyway 7600 - hijack - more distracting than a coms-failure, isn´t it? But the bird is still flying. 7700 - Emegency, you´re ******* going down or very close to, might skid over the runwy without brakes or with skids with high speed, you´re on fire and stuff like that. Bad news and air traffic should look on the radar either to know, where you´re going down and/or is shuffeling other traffic away, so that you get all the assisstance, i.e. direkt approach and so on, to give you the chance to handle the emergency succesfully.
So easy to remember, from a little problem to the shit 7500 to 7700 ;-)
Back to the drawing board...or something.
(SOG, the VicPol Special Operations Group.)
