Most Daring Escapes in History

Alcatraz Escape

Three convicts spent months carving through their cell walls with sharpened spoons, hiding the work behind painted cardboard grilles, then slipped into San Francisco Bay on June 11, 1962 aboard a raft stitched from raincoats. They left behind eerily lifelike papier-mâché dummy he

Year: 1962Number of Escapees: 3Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 9/10Method: Tunneled through cell wall with spoons, escaped via raincoat raft

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The Great Escape (Stalag Luft III)

Codenamed Tom, Dick, and Harry, three tunnels burrowed thirty feet under a POW camp in a scheme requiring forged papers, tailored civilian suits, and a homemade air pump. On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied airmen slipped out through Harry before guards discovered it, though only three

Year: 1944Number of Escapees: 76Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 10/10Method: Three secret tunnels dug beneath a POW camp

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El Chapo's Altiplano Tunnel Escape

Rather than climb a wall, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán had his cartel dig beneath one — a mile-long tunnel with lighting, ventilation, and a motorcycle on rails leading straight from his cell's shower to freedom. He vanished in July 2015 on prison cameras, humiliating Mexico's most

Year: 2015Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 9/10Method: Mile-long tunnel with rail-mounted motorcycle

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Casanova's Escape from The Leads

Legendary gambler Giacomo Casanova was locked in The Leads, a supposedly inescapable attic prison atop Venice's Doge's Palace. Using an iron spike smuggled inside a Bible, he tore through the lead-lined roof, crossed rooftops in darkness, and dropped through a stranger's window t

Year: 1756Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 8/10Method: Broke through lead-covered roof, descended by rope

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The Colditz Cock Glider

Deep in the attic of the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle, British POWs secretly built a two-seat glider from bed slats and cotton sheets, planning to catapult it off the roof using a bathtub of falling concrete as counterweight. The war ended before it ever flew, but the a

Year: 1944-45Number of Escapees: 0Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 9/10Method: Secretly built glider for rooftop launch

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Sobibor Uprising and Escape

On October 14, 1943, prisoners in the Sobibor death camp turned on their SS captors, killing a dozen guards with hidden knives and axes before storming the fences under machine-gun fire. Roughly 300 fled into a surrounding minefield and forest, and though the Nazis hunted most do

Year: 1943Number of Escapees: 300Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 10/10Method: Armed prisoner uprising and mass breakout

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Henri Charrière's Devil's Island Escape (Papillon)

Convicted forger Henri Charrière endured years in France's brutal Guiana penal colonies before lashing together a raft of coconut sacks and paddling it through shark-filled waters to Venezuela. His years of failed attempts and eventual success became the basis for his bestselling

Year: 1941Number of Escapees: 2Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 8/10Method: Coconut-sack raft across open ocean

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Ronnie Biggs' Wandsworth Prison Escape

Already notorious for the Great Train Robbery, Ronnie Biggs scaled a rope ladder over Wandsworth Prison's wall in 1965 and dropped into a waiting furniture van in under thirty seconds. He then spent decades on the run across Australia and Brazil, evading Scotland Yard until age a

Year: 1965Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 8/10Method: Rope ladder over prison wall into getaway van

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The Wooden Horse Escape

British POWs at Stalag Luft III built a wooden vaulting horse, carried it daily to the same exercise spot, and dug a tunnel from inside it while gymnasts vaulted overhead in plain view of guards. After months of digging hidden by the horse's cover, three airmen slipped out in Oct

Year: 1943Number of Escapees: 3Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 9/10Method: Tunnel hidden inside a gymnastics vaulting horse

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Vrba-Wetzler Escape from Auschwitz

In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler hid inside a woodpile at the edge of Auschwitz for three days while dogs searched around them, waiting out the standard search radius before sprinting for the Slovak border. Their escape produced the Vrba-Wetzler Report, the first det

Year: 1944Number of Escapees: 2Ever Recaptured?: —Daring Level: 10/10Method: Hid in woodpile, then fled camp perimeter on foot

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Maze Prison Escape

In September 1983, IRA prisoners smuggled handguns into HMP Maze, seized an entire wing, and hijacked a food delivery lorry to blast through the gates in the largest prison escape in British history. Thirty-eight men broke out in a chaotic dash that left one guard dead of a heart

Year: 1983Number of Escapees: 38Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 9/10Method: Armed seizure of prison wing, hijacked lorry breakout

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Jack Sheppard's Newgate Escapes

Eighteenth-century thief Jack Sheppard escaped London's Newgate Prison four times in a single year, once picking his way out of manacles using a nail, and once climbing through six locked doors and over the prison roof dressed as a woman. His flair for public escape made him a fo

Year: 1724Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 8/10Method: Repeated lock-picking and rooftop escapes

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John Dillinger's Crown Point Escape

Facing an Indiana jail nicknamed 'escape-proof,' John Dillinger carved a fake pistol from a washboard and blackened it with shoe polish, then bluffed his way past guards and locked doors with it. He calmly walked out, stole the sheriff's own car, and drove it across state lines,

Year: 1934Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 7/10Method: Bluffed guards with a carved wooden fake gun

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Ted Bundy's Courthouse and Jail Escapes

Serial killer Ted Bundy leapt from a second-story courthouse library window in Colorado in 1977, sprained his ankle, and still evaded capture for six days. Recaptured, he escaped again months later by slimming down to slip through a gap cut in his cell's ceiling, staying free lon

Year: 1977Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 7/10Method: Window jump, then ceiling crawl through cut hole

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Texas Seven Prison Escape

Seven convicted killers and rapists overpowered guards at a Texas maximum-security unit in December 2000, stripped them, and walked out disguised as maintenance workers in a stolen prison van. Their month-long crime spree ended in a shootout and a national manhunt, with one membe

Year: 2000Number of Escapees: 7Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 7/10Method: Overpowered guards, disguised as maintenance staff

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Pascal Payet's Helicopter Escapes

French robber Pascal Payet became a legend by escaping prison via hijacked helicopter not once but three times between 2001 and 2007, using accomplices who commandeered choppers and forced pilots to land in prison courtyards. He was even convicted of helping orchestrate other inm

Year: 2001-2007Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 8/10Method: Hijacked helicopters landing in prison yard

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Libby Prison Escape

Union officers held in Richmond's notoriously grim Libby Prison spent weeks digging a 50-foot tunnel through a rat-infested basement wall using little more than a chisel and a spittoon for hauling dirt. On February 9, 1864, 109 men crawled out in the dark in the largest prisoner

Year: 1864Number of Escapees: 109Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 8/10Method: Hand-dug tunnel through basement wall

added by IJRLibby Prison Escape

El Chapo's Puente Grande Escape

Before his legendary tunnel escape, El Chapo pulled off a simpler but equally audacious breakout from Puente Grande prison in 2001, reportedly smuggled out inside a laundry cart after bribing guards with millions of dollars. The escape kicked off thirteen years as Mexico's most w

Year: 2001Number of Escapees: 1Ever Recaptured?: ✓Daring Level: 8/10Method: Bribed guards, smuggled out in laundry cart

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