"White Rabbit Project S01E02 "Jailbreak" Air Date:" "December 9, 2016" "Sync and Edited by:" "DeruGuy" "♪ [Intro music playing] ♪" "[man talks indistinctly over PA]" "[line ringing]" "[phone ringing] -[bird squawking]" "What?" "I can't last much longer in here ma." "Now that Chris is gone, I'm outnumbered." "You need to" "Watch what you say on the line." "You need to pick up the eggs and put them in the basket, Ma." "You do have the basket, right?" "Settle down, boy." "[cat growls] [bird screeches]" "Hurry up." "[squawking]" "[shooing] -[cat growls] [cat yowls] [sighs] I won't last much longer in here, Ma." "Look, stop acting like such a freakin' pansy." "Charlie and Mick picked up the basket last night." "You just be in the recreation area at the time I told you." "Mama's coming to get you." "Okay, Ma." "Got the weekend roster?" "Yeah, I did." "What did you get?" "I got the Sunday." "GUARD:" "Move!" "TORY:" "Wow." "That is nuts." "Escapes make the best stories." "We are gonna be looking at some interesting methods of escape." "TORY:" "In this White Rabbit Project, we're going down the rabbit hole to investigate some incredible flights" "from captivity." "To freedom." "In our lineup, two families who fled an oppressive regime in a homemade contraption." "Whoo!" "A guy who turned busting out by helicopter into an art form." "[men shouting] -[Grant] It's time to get out of here." "TORY:" "And the largest prisoner-of-war breakout from World War II." "[man yelling in German]" "TORY:" "As usual, we'll score and rank our six contenders using three criteria." "And our ranking criteria for this one: number of escapees, how long they were on the run before they got caught again and degree of difficulty." "Right." "Now, what is this?" "KARI:" "Back to my first story about a mother... and the classic "18-wheeler through the front door" method." "[Tory and Grant chuckle] [men chattering]" "KARI:" "At 3:00 p.m., Jay Sigler heads to the recreation yard." "But he has no plans to work out or serve the rest of his 20-year sentence." "Check it out." "Got a big truck coming in." "GUARD:" "He's coming in hot." "KARI:" "On board, his two buddies." "With Mama right behind." "[bird squawking]" "[bird screeching]" "Shoot the tires!" "[gunfire]" "Move!" "[bird squawking]" "KARI:" "While the hired help pin down the guards with covering fire..." "Jay makes a run to Mama." "Come on!" "Somehow all three make it to the getaway car." "MAMA:" "Move it!" "[gunfire] -[Mama] Let's go!" "[Mama whooping]" "And Jay flies free from his cage." "[guard grunts]" "We're clear." "We made it." "[laughing] [cheering]" "Okay, so what happens?" "Well, 20 minutes later, Ma and her accomplices, they got arrested." "The next day, Jay and his buddy got spotted by police, crashed their car, they got arrested and the cruel irony is that Ma testified against her son to reduce her sentence, so now she's in jail for 13 months, he's serving life." "So they ended up worse off?" "Yeah." "All right, so for ranking purposes, how many people broke out?" "One." "And they only escaped for 24 hours?" "Yes." "That's not very long." "No." "Degree of difficulty?" "I mean, it's audacious." "She drove a truck into a prison in broad daylight on Easter." "So I'm saying points for brute force, maybe not finesse." "All right, for my first contender, I'm working on an escape that is truly one of a kind." "A hand-made craft built from scavenged parts... and an epic breakout... not from a prison, but from an entire country." "It takes place in 1979, in an area under Communist control." "East Germany." "After World War II, it falls into the hands of the Russians." "[man speaking German]" "Sixteen million free citizens suddenly become inmates under the heel of the military and the Stasi secret police." "The only way to the west is through the death strip... a border zone covered with searchlights, trip wires, booby traps and armed troops." "In 1978, Gunter Wetzel and Peter Strelzyk decide that instead of trying to go through the death strip, they'll go over it." "Their plan was to escape by air in a hot air balloon taking their young families with them." "This is one of the most insane stories I've ever heard." "Their inspiration?" "A photo they saw in a magazine smuggled in from the west." "This story is too amazing to ignore." "I had to recreate it, using the same methods and materials they did." "Everything from a motorcycle to a kitchen stove." "These courageous MacGyvers transformed their everyday appliances into elements they needed to build their freedom balloon." "And I'm gonna do the same." "I'm here in Phoenix, Arizona, to find out how to build my freedom balloon, and I'm talking to one of the best balloon builders in the business," "Bob Romaneschi." "Dude." "You must be Bob." "I am." "I need to build a homemade hot air balloon," "and I don't know where to start." "I can help with that." "TORY:" "To begin, it's back to Bob's shop..." "Wow." "BOB:" "This is where the magic happens." "to brush up on the four B's." "Basket, blower, balloon, and first up, the burner." "Okay, so this is a modern day burner." "This is current technology." "Whoa!" "[laughs]" "BOB:" "We're pulling the fuel out of the tank as a liquid, and we're vaporizing it in these coils before we shoot it through this jet ring past this pilot light." "Dude, the heat off that is insane." "We also have a liquid valve here, which bypasses the coils and shoots a liquid flame past the pilot light." "TORY:" "That's what I'm gonna have to do, because that's what they used for the freedom balloon." "That was really the burners of that era." "Fire!" "[Tory] Liquid fuel burner it is." "Should we light both?" "No." "TORY:" "But that's only half the story." "When you're inflating a hot air balloon, you can't just blow hot air into the empty envelope?" "You fill it with cold air first, which we do with this purpose-built fan." "It's pretty straightforward, you have your prop, your engine." "BOB:" "Runs for about 15 minutes, then the balloon's full of air." "TORY:" "Sounds easy enough, until you remember the Stasi are breathing down your neck." "So, what about the basket?" "Traditionally, they're woven from wicker." "Flexible, strong and, most importantly, light." "Weave it, about four inches at a time, takes about six to eight weeks." "TORY:" "Gunter had neither the time nor materials." "He had to improvise." "So will I." "Last, but not least, the balloon, or canopy." "This is ripstop nylon." "Wow." "That seems pretty strong." "TORY:" "Modern nylon is heat resistant and tough." "Gunter had to source and sew over 19,000 square feet of fabric to make a canopy big enough for eight people." "That's how we put balloons together." "It's strong." "This is not coming apart." "No." "I've seen all the components I've gotta make." "Now let's see how they all come together." "How do we inflate this?" "BOB:" "I'm gonna teach you to use the burner." "And you'll stand the balloon up." "TORY:" "First, we three-quarter fill the balloon with cold air." "Then apply the burner." "TORY:" "This is so cool." "As the trapped air heats up..." "Look, it's going up." "the canopy rises" "So it takes about 10 minutes to fill these hot air balloons before they start flying." "Now, that might not seem like a lot of time..." "We getting in?" "[Bob] Come on in." "TORY: but when you're trying to escape, and your life is on the line, that could seem like an eternity." "You know, this is my first balloon ride." "Let's get it up in the air." "We're untethered." "This is it, we're gone." "We're flying." "BOB:" "The airsickness bag is over the edge, by the way." "TORY:" "Once you're up, you're at the mercy of the wind." "For the two escaping families, freedom lay to the west." "These guys were doing this at night, eight people." "Four of them were children." "We have a modern basket, a modern balloon, and it's still very dangerous." "This is such an incredible story." "TORY:" "I've had a taste of flying." "Now for the real challenge." "To freedom!" "To rebuild that freedom balloon using the exact same specs and materials as the original." "This is the actual balloon, and what's even better is I have one of the guys who made it on the line." "[beeping]" "Hi, Gunter." "Hello, Tory." "Now, it's amazing that you were able to build a hot air balloon from scratch, but what's even crazier to me is that you knew nothing about them, right?" "GUNTER:" "We knew nothing at all." "Of course, I completely underestimated the challenge at the time." "TORY:" "Seems like we're in the same boat, or basket." "If you build it, they will be free." "And that's where I'm starting." "The basket had to carry four adults and four children, and Gunter had to use whatever materials he could find." "GUNTER:" "We were clear that the one we had seen in the magazine, the one real hot air balloon pilots used, wouldn't be an option for us." "We knew it had to be a very lightweight platform instead." "It was a simple design, and they only used metal, wood and rope." "It's a scary reminder of just how desperate they were to escape." "6,500 feet in the air, in this." "And it's tiny." "How did eight people fit in such a small space?" "We don't even have the tanks in yet." "And speaking of the fuel tanks..." "An important element to the build is the burner." "Now, the torch is what heats up the air and causes the balloon to rise." "Now, you gotta remember, all they had was some propane tanks, some gas pipes and hoses." "They even used a chunk of their stovepipe to make the build." "For the first attempt, I just put the gas bottle on the kitchen table, connected an oven pipe to it, opened the valve, and it worked." "TORY:" "With the most basic of burners" "MacGyvered and installed, it's time for a test run." "But here our hot air escapees hit a roadblock." "When they first assembled it, they had the propane tank standing upright." "This is what they discovered." "See how big this flame is?" "It still wasn't hot enough to get the hot air balloon to rise." "So they came up with a simple but ingenious hack." "They flipped the tanks upside down." "It actually gave them more pressure, which eventually gave them a bigger flame." "It gave them this." "[fire roaring]" "Whoo-hoo!" "I cannot imagine how eight people would be able to stand this much heat." "We've got the basket and the burner, but I still need a balloon and a blower." "Whoo!" "Holy" " That's hot." "How on earth am I gonna get this to fly?" "GRANT:" "We're presenting our contenders for greatest jailbreak." "And I've got one that could beat them all." "A French escape that combines audacity, technology and above all, clockwork precision." "In Cannes, on the French south coast, revelers celebrate Bastille Day." "[singing in French]" "A national holiday to mark the start of the French Revolution in 1789, when a crowd stormed a jail and freed the prisoners." "Close by, in Grasse prison, high-security convicts are locked down." "[door buzzes]" "In the isolation wing, guards begin the food round." "[door buzzes]" "One inmate, in prison for murder since 1997, prepares to turn in for the night." "So it looks like escape is the last thing on his mind." "This is Pascal Payet." "He's about to break himself out of jail." "And this jailbreak is gonna take just under 10 minutes." "GRANT:" "Two and a half miles to the south, it's a regular Bastille Day at Azur Helicopters." "Staff deal with tourist bookings, while pilot Herve Rougier watches the celebrations on television, and waits for his next clients to arrive." "[marching band playing over TV]" "[marching band playing over TV]" "What they didn't know is that they were about to become part of an elaborate plan organized by a man who holds the record for engineering the most prison escapes via helicopter." "Payet's already masterminded two such escapes." "Last caught in 2003, his third is almost underway." "[in French] Who's the pilot?" "Are you the pilot?" "[man speaking French] [man speaking French]" "[Grant] At precisely 6:25 p.m., the chopper's airborne, and it's on the way." "It's important for them to fly at low altitude, so that they don't show up on anybody's radar." "[speaking French]" "They haven't filed a flight plan, and they sure as hell don't have permission to do this." "And everything is precisely timed." "This happens right at a shift change for the guards." "And since it's a major holiday, nobody's expecting anything's gonna go wrong." "As the new shift comes on duty, the guards are momentarily distracted." "In his cell, Payet is on high alert." "[speaking French]" "This is incredible." "In just five minutes, this crew has not only managed to hijack a helicopter, but they've flown it and landed it on the roof of the prison and now they're going in to get Pascal." "The guards are in a serious predicament." "[speaking French]" "They can't shoot at the bad guys because it's a hostage situation." "They can only fire if fired upon." "[speaking French]" "[whirring]" "They're using a gasoline-powered multi-saw to cut through those hinges." "It should slice through like butter." "The gang knows the prison layout back to front." "And thanks to the authorities, it's not far to go." "Now, they know that Payet is an escape artist using helicopters, and yet they put him in solitary confinement on the floor right below the roof." "[saw whirring]" "It takes just over a minute to cut through the lock of Payet's cell door." "[alarm blaring] [speaking French]" "Then it's a race back to the roof." "[men yelling indistinctly]" "This is amazing." "In just 10 minutes, they've broken him out, and now he's making his way to freedom." "[yelling indistinctly]" "I think it's time to get out of here." "Before you can say "tighty-whities," he's home free." "And that, my friends, is the story of Pascal Payet." "The man who elevated breaking out of jail with a helicopter to an art form." "Looks like he ran a tight ship in tight underwear." "[laughing] Oh, God." "All right, so how many people escaped?" "Just one." "Pascal." "All right, criteria number two, how long was he on the run for?" "He was recaptured after two months." "How about degree of difficulty?" "This is where it really shines." "Because, remember, he was inside the jail, had to plan the whole operation, hired the helicopter, the gang, and get all the equipment." "And plus, during the escape, he ran out barefoot and jumped to the helicopter in his underwear." "I don't have anybody running in their underwear, but I am in the middle of making my hot air balloon." "In 1979, two intrepid families decided to break out of communist East Germany in a homemade hot air balloon." "I got so hooked on this story that I decided to rebuild that freedom balloon myself." "I've replicated their tiny basket." "How?" "And their backyard burner." "But at 140,000 cubic feet, their giant canopy required an industrial-sized fan." "Look what I got." "Oh!" "TORY:" "The architect of the escape was GÃ¼nter Wetzel." "GUNTER:" "I took out the engine from my motorbike, tweaked and adjusted it, and that became the air blower." "It breaks my heart to tear apart a good motorcycle, but it's all in the name of freedom." "Now I've gotta figure out exactly how he did it." "Get rid of the seat, the lights." "It's my first time stripping a motorcycle." "I mean, legally." "We'll get rid of the shocks." "Cut the tire right off, get rid of the spokes." "TORY:" "Like 4th of July." "That was a first." "Then attach the fan blades directly to the hub." "We're basically replacing the back tire with a fan." "It sounds dangerous. [laughs]" "Yeah." "Looks dangerous, too." "[Tory] Yeah." "So I'm adding a cowling and a screen, just in case." "Now it's time to fire up this monster and see what it's capable of." "[revving]" "Whoo!" "It works!" "Now for the balloon itself." "Just as Gunter and his friend Peter turned their attention to the canopy, they got the fright of their lives." "GUNTER:" "The newspaper, Citizen's Watch, posted an article in which the police announced that they were searching for us." "[speaking German]" "GUNTER:" "That's why we had to buy fabric as inconspicuously as possible." "[speaking German]" "[in German] Three hundred and twenty-eight feet?" "[in German] That's right." "We run a sailing club." "For the youth." "[in German] We make sails." "[in German] Wait here, please." "[speaking German]" "Let's go!" "Wait, wait!" "[speaking German] [speaking in German]" "TORY:" "To evade detection, they traveled the country, buying fabric by day, and sewed by night." "With the secret police breathing down their necks," "Gunter and Peter had to hand stitch 19,000 square feet into their balloon." "And then assemble a fan, platform and burner." "[in German] Good, huh?" "[chuckles]" "Our freedom balloon is done, and now it's time for our freedom flight." "I have to be honest, looking at that tiny little basket with those ridiculous rope rails, I don't have a lot of confidence now." "[chuckles] Are we really gonna do this?" "Don't we have historical evidence that they made it?" "This is gonna be fun, 100%." "I do have a fear of heights, and falling and dying." "In fact, it's so precarious, so potentially dangerous, that the FAA refused permission to fly untethered." "So we're going up on the end of a rope, if we can get this monster airborne." "[engine revving]" "Cue my motorbike air blower." "[laughs] We're actually doing this!" "[Bob] Yeah." "TORY:" "Are we nuts?" "I kind of feel like we're a little crazy right now." "GUNTER:" "The air-blower was effective, so it didn't take more than 10 minutes to fill the balloon with air." "BOB:" "Fire in the hole." "[laughs]" "GUNTER:" "Peter added hot air with the burner, so that the balloon slowly filled and eventually stood up." "It's rising." "At precisely this moment in 1979, Gunter's balloon tipped over, almost wrecking the flight." "Incredibly, so does ours." "We have a crew, and just getting this balloon inflated is a challenge." "How they did it at night blows my mind." "This balloon, as you can tell, is out of control." "KARI:" "Looks like Tory's balloon escape will score high for degree of difficulty, but with three more jailbreaks to go, who knows which will come out on top in our final rankings." "Maybe this rare offering." "This is amongst some of the most unique documentary footage in the world." "It's from a POW camp during World War II." "Under 24-hour armed guard, the prisoners spend their time hosting cabaret shows and doing gym classes." "Seems like they're just keeping their spirits up." "But it's all a front for the largest escape attempt in the history of World War II." "[man yells in German]" "And that's just the half of it." "These captured French soldiers didn't just escape, they secretly filmed it." "It does not get more ballsy than that." "Let's back up." "In the summer of 1940, Nazi Germany takes control of France." "The entire French army, two million men, are taken prisoner." "Five thousand French officers are sent by cattle car to Oflag XVII-A near Edelbach in Austria." "The prisoners suffer overcrowding, limited rations and bitter cold." "Everything is restricted." "To be caught with a camera means death by firing squad." "But in 1943, one prisoner takes that terrible risk." "That man right there, that's Marcel Corre." "He's a passionate photographer who vows to secretly document a life-or-death escape attempt." "How he actually filmed inside the POW camp without the guards ever seeing the camera is incredibly brave and somewhat genius." "He grabs a large dictionary." "He cuts out all the pages to fashion it into a camera case and then he cuts a hole in the back of the dictionary for the lens to come through." "That is literally how they shot it, right under the noses of the guards." "And smuggling in their escape equipment was equally risky." "They were allowed to get mail-in packages from family back home, but the guards would routinely search them, so they developed a system." "When the prisoners in the mailroom saw a package addressed like this, they'd throw it out the window." "[banging]" "A diversion to distract the guards, the package is whisked away out of sight." "All kinds of contraband are smuggled in this way, including a stills camera to take photos for their forged identity documents." "Now for the escape route itself, a tunnel over 300 feet long to exit beyond the wire." "Another thing they did was conduct their exercise classes in front of the guys digging the tunnel, so they couldn't be spotted from the watchtowers during a shift change." "When the tunnel hits about 30 feet long, they hit a huge problem a sheet of granite rock." "Every strike of the pick-axe can be heard above." "♪ [upbeat music playing over speakers] ♪" "So to mask the sound, the prison drama group puts on music performances." "[all cheering]" "After almost four months of digging, on September 14th, 1943, the prisoners break through, well beyond the perimeter." "At noon four days later, 68 men enter the tunnel." "Marcel's camera captures the incredible moment." "When night falls, the lead man emerges from the tunnel and makes a run for it." "[guard yells in German]" "But the guards hear something." "The searchlight hones in." "[guard yelling in German]" "But it's just young lovers from a nearby town." "He gives the all clear." "One by one, the men emerge from the earth." "Before the tunnel is discovered, well over 100 prisoners manage to get away, in the biggest mass breakout of World War II." "Okay, so let's score Oflag." "First of all, how many escapees?" "132." "It was the greatest escape of World War II." "How long were they free?" "Sadly, within a week, 126 were recaptured, but six made it to freedom." "So you're gonna go with a week." "A week." "Degree of difficulty?" "Well, they are covertly digging a tunnel in a Nazi prison camp, all the while documenting it on film." "I'm thinking this scores off the charts." "TORY:" "My next contender, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, drug boss Joaquin Guzman, AKA "El Chapo"." "His 2015 escape from a Mexican jail shocked authorities." "[man speaking indistinctly over radio]" "Here's the police and army making sure he doesn't try to break back in." "And here he is on the run." "He sure knows how to dress." "El Chapo's escape made headlines around the world, and he went straight to the jailbreak hall of fame." "I didn't know there was one, but there is." "Let's start with the scale of the challenge." "In February, 2014, El Chapo took residence at the Altiplano prison." "It was Mexico's only maximum security prison." "It made Alcatraz look like a bed and breakfast." "Overhead was a no-fly zone." "Airwaves were restricted to block cell phone transmission." "Walls were designed to withstand rocket attacks." "Armed convoys stood ready to repel ground assaults." "And high-risk inmates wore monitoring bracelets 24/7." "Authorities assumed that Altiplano prison was escape-proof, but El Chapo and his Sinaloa crew had other plans." "Since 1989, the Sinaloa cartel had been burrowing beneath the Mexico-US border, carving out over 100 narco tunnels." "By 2015, they'd become the drug underworld's most sophisticated tunnel rats." "But Altiplano poses a whole new set of challenges." "How do you dig out of one of the best guarded prisons in Mexico?" "The answer?" "You don't." "You dig in." "The cartel bought a block of land here, at Santa Juanita, exactly one mile from El Chapo's cell." "On it, they quickly built a cinder block shack." "Now, they'd got themselves a building site." "They could move men and equipment in and out without causing any suspicion." "Inside the shack, they sunk a vertical shaft just over 32 feet deep." "Then, using pneumatic shovels and jackhammers, they started the long dig north, towards El Chapo." "Along the floor of the tunnel ran a modified motorbike on rails, to shift rock and soil." "They also installed a ventilation system and underground lighting." "Now that these guys could see, how did they know where they were going?" "First, you get a satellite image of the shack... and your endpoint, El Chapo's cell." "You plot the target line, take the azimuth, or compass bearing, there's your direction." "To stay level, you use a tunnel control laser fitted with a spirit level." "Then you just keep digging." "A year after you started, you arrive beneath El Chapo's cell." "Guided by the plumbing, you zero in on the shower." "At 8:52 p.m., on July 11th, 2015, you break through, right on target." "Then the boss calmly puts on his shoes and joins you underground." "Poof." "Just like that, El Chapo is gone." "Now, how does El Chapo score?" "One person escaped." "How long did he escape?" "He was out for six months." "[sirens wailing]" "Scale of difficulty?" "Well, Altiplano was deemed escape-proof, and they dug a mile long tunnel, which hit the bull's eye." "But allegedly, El Chapo got a lot of help, from inside and out." "One, El Chapo is put in a ground-floor cell." "El Chapo, the head of the cartel, who is known for being an expert at digging tunnels is put in a ground floor cell?" "Two, El Chapo's tracking bracelet was mysteriously deactivated the day he escaped." "And get this:" "The prison was fitted with anti-tunneling sensors, but they were turned off." "Why?" "They kept being triggered by public works near the prison." "And it was alleged that El Chapo bribed officials to start this work for exactly that purpose." "So after all that, it puts the scale of difficulty in a different light." "But you've gotta admit, it's the stuff that movies are made of." "GRANT:" "El Chapo's escape was meticulously planned, but when it comes to jailbreaks, Latin America can be a place where they say "no" to months of meticulous planning, and "yes" to just going for it." "Example number one, this is Maria." "She's on her way to visit her husband, Juan, in Mexico's Chetumal Prison." "On the way out, the guards notice that her suitcase is just a little bit fatter." "No." "GRANT:" "They unzip it." "[all laughing]" "TORY:" "Juan in the bag!" "[laughs]" "How did he fit in there?" "He's like a contortionist." "[all laughing]" "And then, there's this Brazilian Houdini, who somehow managed to punch a hole in his shower wall with a metal pipe, and on the way out, he got a little..." "stuck." "[all laughing]" "TORY:" "That looks painful." "And then there's a guy who absolutely takes the cake in this category in terms of creativity." "His name is Ronaldo." "[sighs]" "It's 2012, and he's awaiting trial for drug trafficking in Brazil's Penedo Prison." "Ronaldo wants out." "But he's not relying on the power of prayer." "Instead, he's got a master plan." "It involves his ravishing young wife and her regular conjugal visit." "[giggling]" "But Ronaldo isn't interested in getting his wife's clothes off, because he wants to get it on." "No, he's getting his wife's clothes off... because he wants to get them on." "Yep." "That's the master plan." "[in Portuguese] It's not gonna work." "[in Portuguese] Remember." "You're all woman!" "You're all woman." "GRANT:" "It's the moment of truth for Ronaldo" " Ronalda." "Will he-- she make it past the guards?" "Talk about a walk of shame." "[Ronaldo in Portuguese] You're all woman." "You're all woman." "[Ronaldo in Portuguese] You're all woman." "[speaking Portuguese] [speaking Portuguese]" "[Grant and Kari laughing] -[Tory] Wow." "Wait a minute, how did he get past the guards?" "I thought Brazilian women were known to be gorgeous." "What I want to know is how they confused the woman that walked in with the woman that walked out?" "Look, only Ronaldo and the guards know what happened for sure." "So how did it end?" "Check it out." "GRANT:" "Ronaldo's out, but now he's gotta get to the local bus depot." "In high heels, without being noticed." "[guard speaking Portuguese]" "Which is where his plan quickly unravels." "It's a classic case of wardrobe malfunction." "And even though this humble escape ended in failure... [in Portuguese] I am all woman." "it surely has to go down as one of the all-time great attempts." "[all laughing]" "GRANT:" "So, he did make it out." "And here, for reference, is his actual police mugshot before the escape... and after." "[all laughing]" "That is a mascara massacre." "How did he get past the guards looking like that?" "They must have been blind. [laughing]" "I have no idea." "One escapee." "How long before he was caught?" "Fifteen minutes." "All right, the scale of the challenge." "The fact that he dressed up like a woman and got past the guards," "he's gotta get points for that." "Yeah." "I mean, even though the overall level of difficulty wasn't that high, still he had to do a really good job of selling it, especially looking like that." "KARI:" "What's next?" "[Tory on TV] Oh!" "TORY:" "Check this out." "BOB:" "Over we go!" "Hold on!" "We tried to go for our freedom flight, our first attempt was a massive failure." "The wind started tearing this balloon apart." "Was that just the Velcro ripping?" "But the families that had to escape, they didn't have a choice." "They had to get out." "This is crazy." "We have a full crew, we have experts, we have safety harnesses This family did it in the dark, scared for their lives, plus they had their children with them, which just shows how desperate and how courageous they were to escape." "Against all odds, at 2:32 a.m. on September 16, 1979," "Gunter Wetzel, Peter Strelzyk and their families inflated their homemade balloon and cut the anchor ropes." "TORY:" "We're off the ground!" "Four decades later, history is finally repeating itself." "We're flying." "It's a huge moment for us, but imagine what it was like for those families." "GUNTER:" "When we powered up the burner, that was just an overwhelming feeling as we were lifted up with force." "We were euphoric." "TORY:" "That is crazy." "Just going up that 15 feet, you can feel the lift." "It's terrifying." "This is a homemade balloon and it actually works." "BOB:" "We're flying." "TORY:" "The families took off from the rural town of Possneck," "Twenty-eight miles from the border, rising quickly to 6,500 feet." "Disoriented, they could only pray they were headed in the right direction." "Twenty-eight minutes later, at 3:00 a.m., they crash landed... in the West." "We're free!" "Freedom!" "This is nuts." "I cannot believe how much courage they had to make this escape." "This whole experience has been a journey." "Good job." "Thank you." "Figuring out how they built this, and the conditions that they were able to fly and escape." "But for us, our motivation is curiosity." "For them, their motivation was survival." "So, tell me, GÃ¼nter, what was it like to finally taste freedom?" "GUNTER:" "It was overwhelming because we had arrived in a new life." "That's probably difficult to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself." "The old life was gone and a new one was ahead of us." "What an inspirational story." "Yeah, all eight escaped and survived, and they never got caught." "Let's look at the rest of the contenders." "We've just seen some of the bravest, most audacious and downright bizarre escapes ever attempted." "Good job, man." "Now, let's score them against our three criteria." "How many escaped, how long were they on the run, and degree of difficulty." "At number six, Wardrobe Malfunction." "The Brazilian escapee scored low for time on the run, at only 15 minutes." "And with that outfit, only 2 out of 10 on degree of difficulty." "Number five, Mother Trucker." "Just one escapee, and after all that wreckage, her son was only free for one day." "Number four, El Chapo." "He was on the run for six months, and it was a well-engineered breakout, but he loses points for all the help he got on the inside and out." "Number three, Get To Da Choppa, Pascal Payet-style." "This was a daring and difficult escape, but despite all the planning, he was soon re-apprehended." "That leaves our last two stories, Balloon Escape and Oflag." "And both those escapes get a 10 out of 10 for degree of difficulty." "Secretly designing and building a hot air balloon under such conditions is an incredible feat." "And so is coordinating an elaborate escape from a POW camp while filming it!" "And you have to remember, both those escapes were done with limited resources under horrific circumstances." "So, with all the scores in, Balloon Escape takes top spot, with Oflag a close second." "And that's how our six jailbreaks stacked up." "♪ [Ending music playing] ♪"