Occasionally, you hear about someone escaping from prison. It happens. But it doesn’t happen like McGyver.
If you haven’t seen that episode, a helicopter was used to to break an inmate out of prison. It looks like someone actually tried this.
In Belgium, Mike Gielen decided he would try to break his wife out of prison by hijacking a helicopter. Mike hired a helicopter for a “fun” ride, only to pull a fake gun on the pilot and forced him into flying the aircraft to the prison with the plan to land it on the grounds and help his wife escape.
There were a few problems with this plan: Mike got motion sickness and the prison yard was too small to land the helicopter. So they circled the prison yard several times only to fly off.
As Mike was barfing in the whirlybird, the mission was aborted.
As you might expect, the mission was cancelled and Mike was arrested…because he used his real name, so he was pretty easy to find.
Mike is now spending some time in prison. The part that sucks for him is that his wife, who was suspected to have stabbed someone and killing them, will be released before Mike.