Flying Bull, cheers for that, but what's confusing me was that I learnt 7500 Hijack, 7600 comms failure and 7700 for a 'mayday'.

I just googled it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transponder_(aviation)
7700: General Emergency[1]
7600: Lost Communications[1]
7500: Unlawful Interference (Hijack)[1]

yet the consenses on here seems to be as you say, 7600 hijack and 7500 comms failure

I learnt '75, taken alive; 76, box of tricks [ie radio playing up]; 77, going to heaven'

I remember flying near a jail in flight training where someone trampled out HELP in the fresh layer of snow in their big field haha. Me and the instructor had a good laugh at that.

The prison escape in Chile (Dec 30, 1996) was actually performed by a pilot WILLING to do it. The pilot flying the helicopter on a chartered flight was made to land near Santiago at gunpoint and then another pilot took over to fly back to the prison yard. That prison is in an area of heavy air traffic, so the guards didn't immediately react when a low flying helicopter approached the central yard. The rescue itself was performed by suspending a homemade basket, fitted with several bulletproof vests acting as armour, and taking 4 inmates in it. The guards fired live bullets, but somehow only 3 impacts were received by the helicopter, all in non-critical areas. By the way, the helicopter was NOT a Northern Mountain Helicopters machine, it was a B-206L operated by a local company.

Ioan, you are correct - There is some confusion.

7700 - Emergency - Not in dispute !!

7600 - Radio Failure

7500 - Hijack / Unlawful interference


Seem to remember the old aide memoir to be

Seven-Seven: Going to Heaven
Seven-Six: Nothing but clicks
Seven-Five: Taken alive

But don't try and recall that when you've got a gun to your head

seven six, radio in a fix! how i remember it anyway,

md 600 driver,
You have swallowed the official BS hook, line and sinker then! How on earth does putting a prohibited zone around a prison stop a highjacked hele from landing there.....................?
A complete piece of offical nonsense - "we must be seen to be doing something so lets restrict law-abiding pilots" :mad:
If they want to stop a hele landing in any space, wire it up. No amount of garbage regulation will do it.

And we do have one of our regular brethren on here that has been hijacked during a prison break, but he is not usually too keen to tell the tale normally

Good to see pro-pilots getting the squawk numbers correct :ok::ok::ok:

Ioan.....I thought maybe it was a Welsh thing as well!

Huh? Are you sure? :confused:

Ian seemed to be happy enough to tell us about it last year:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showpos...&postcount=126


And, I think that md600 driver meant to include some sort of smiley to indicate that he had his tongue in his cheek. Unless you missed his 'lol' at the end... ;)

As far as I know, there has only been one helicopter escape in the UK - exactly 20 years ago.

In December 1987, a B206 was hijacked and used to spring two prisoners from Gartree prison, Leicestershire.
Gartree was a high security prison in those days - but the authorities hadn't anticipated escape by helicopter.


http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/as...0B3gartree.jpg


Two prisoners escaped - John Kendall, serving 10 years for organising a series of high value commercial burglaries and another serving life for murder.

I represented one of Kendall's gang at the original trial and remember it trial well for a couple of reasons, one of which is that they used a very simple - almost comical - method to steal large quantities of booze and tobacco from cash & carry warehouses in night time burglaries all over the South East. They had a long run, until an underworld informant tipped off the police.

The pilot was Uncle Ian of 'Age Discrimination' fame.

FL,

That must have been in the last 15 days then :D

LB :ok:

If I was ever in that urgent situation, I would utter that hackned phrase, "Oi watch this"..... at least being the pilot you would be ready if things really went to rat!!!!!:eek:

Peter R-B
Vfrpilotpb

Hi-Jacks
 

On a lighthearted note as its Christmas and as a 'wannabee' author myself ... I can list a few books where a heli is used for a prison break. But first just to say how well I remember the actual news footage of the Gartree event.

If the tape gets re-run, note particularly how the prisoner struggles to open the right hand rear door of the B206 and assumes it is locked ... so prompty dashes under the tail boom to the opposite door. He probably came within a foot or so of the T/R.

A dear friend is the author Eric Clark who consults me on any aviation aspects for his novels. His villain used an Enstrom 480 for his prison break and asembles the M/R shortly before the flight. Eric uses the phrase ... "the 'Jesus nut' might not be tight enough ,, but it wasn;t intended to last very long anyway!

In the mid 1990s, I had the pleasure of training the lovely Juliette Binoche who was making a film as the wife of a political prisoner she wanted to spring from a Spanish jail using a heli. She simply wanted to learn enough to make her acting authentic.

Sean Connolly told me he did the same for his golfing piece in 'Goldfinger' Now he's off about nine I think.

Hats off to all this Christmas lads & safe flying in 2008.

Dennis Kenyon.

Helinut and MD600Driver
There are both procedures and systems in place at high security prisons to reduce the likelihood of a successful helicopter-borne escape. The purpose of the restricted area is to avoid spurious triggering of elements of these.
So it really isn't BS!
Sven