Hot Air Escape Route

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 15

Hot Air Escape Route

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) NASHVILLE (Tennessee), Sept. 9. A group of convicts had apparently planned to escape from the State penitentiary in Nashville by floating ovar the walls on a home-made balloon, the warden in charge, Mr Murray Henderson said today. “1 know it sounds ridiculous, but I honestly think some inmates were planning

to float over the walls on a balloon,” he said. Mr Henderson reported that prison investigators had uncovered evidence that several convicts were planning to escape over the prison walls on a home-made balloon filled with hot air. He said a 30ft doth hose had been sewn together and the convicts were sewing on the cloth balloon when they apparently gave up in desperation. He said they apparently ran out of time after spending “two or three days” on the project over the Labour weekend just ended. The warden said the convicts had stolen a tank of oxygen from the prison metal

shop and had carted it across the prison compound—under the noses of guards—into the tailoring shop, where the balloon was being assembled.

Mr Henderson said investigators believed the inmates had planned to use the oxygen to intensify a fire, sending hot air through the hose and into the balloon.

He said the escape apparently was to be carried out from the prison roof after dark. “This is rather fantastic that they think they could get away with it,” said Mr Harold Smith, meteorologist in charge of the United States weather bureau. “But the truth is, it could be done.”