Seemingly taking notes from classic action movies, inmates were caught on video making a theatrical escape from a Canadian jail via a rope dangled from a helicopter.
The escape actually took place in 2013 but the footage from the security cameras of the jail have just been released in connection with a trial for Hudon-Barbeau, unrelated to the escape.
The footage shows a helicopter hovering over the yard of St.-Jermone Detention Centre near Montreal, Quebec with a long rope dangled outside of its door.
Guards, who do not carry guns at that facility, could only hopelessly stand by as they watched two inmates, Danny Provencal and Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, trying to grab hold of the rope.
The pair scale an exterior wall but seem to get stuck halfway up.
A man leans out of the helicopter to try to grab their hands but fails to get ahold.
Finally two men from the chopper decide to just hold on to the rope as it flies away, inmates still attached.
Investigators later learned that the helicopter would go on to land in a spot where a getaway car was waiting.
The pair’s spectacular escape was short lived, though – they were caught hours later along with the two men who hired the helicopter, then hijacked it to help their buddies break out.
The pilot, who was ordered at gunpoint to fly the chopper, was unharmed.
Provencal and Hudon-Barbeau, along with hijackers Billi Beaudoin and Steven Mathieu Marchisio, all pleaded guilty to escape and hijacking charges.
Mobile users see video here.