Three escape Belgian jail in hijacked helicopter

[Äike]

Full article

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Three prisoners escaped from a jail outside the Belgian city of Bruges in a hijacked helicopter on Thursday, authorities said.

Media reports said the escapees flew to the town of Aalter, then seized a black Mercedes from its female driver and robbed a service station before heading for the Belgian coast.

A Justice Ministry spokesman said no one had been hurt, and that the jailbreak had not been from the high-security wing, which had nets to prevent such escapes.

However, media said the escapees included one of Belgium's most dangerous criminals, Ashraf Sekkaki, who had more than 16 convictions for violence, including kidnappings for ransom.

Using a helicopter for such purposes, that's quite rare.

[Kempenzoon]

Not all too rare. It has happened like 3 times here in the past couple years. They have "helicopter nets" covering the courtyards of the high security wings for that purpose, but not in the general population courtyards yet.

Then again, a year ago 28 people escaped from a prison not far from there, because the doorlocks were rotting and the gov't didn't want to repair them until that shit finally happened -_-

Our prison system is pretty close to swiss cheese with all the holes in it. I believe it's long past due time to start just giving violent criminals the bullet instead of locking them up.

[Äike]

The criminals in Belgium are either very rich (if they can afford helicopters) or very skilled (if they can succeed in hijacking helicopters).

[Kempenzoon]

They had two people outside prison who rented the helicopter, then once inside the helicopter they pushed a gun against the pilot's head. It doesn't need much skill or money.

The private company they rented the helicopter from only started screening passengers for weapons starting today, AFTER this incident -_-