The Woman Who Got a Pilot’s License to Help Her Husband Escape From Prison
By: Andrei Tapalaga
Tags: History, Crime, Life Lessons, Love, Law

The Woman Who Got a Pilot’s License to Help Her Husband Escape From Prison

Michel Vaujour’s 5th attempt to escape prison

The helicopter used for the escape (Source: ScoopWhoop)

Love can drive a person to do anything, no matter how irrational, in order to be with their other half. We have seen from many historic cases that love has driven people to make drastic decisions that have affected many people, but today I want to present you with a very unique case from 1986. This is the story of how a very loving wife went above and beyond prison walls to save the love of her life.

Sentenced to 18 Years in Prison

It all started with an armed robbery committed by Michel Vaujour, who was 34 years old at the time. The robbery didn’t go as planned and the authorities caught him as well as all the other members who partook in the armed robbery. Furthermore, this theft took place in France, where sentences can be quite severe. Michel Vaujour received 18 years in prison for armed robbery with no chance of early release.

Michel Vaujour in court (Source: ScoopWhoop)

Vaujour was placed in the Le Sante prison in Paris, but he never planned to stay there for too long. During his first few months behind bars, he made four different attempts to escape prison, but all of them failed. He stated that the love for his wife drove him to constantly try to escape prison, but he knew that he needed someone from the outside to help him in order to successfully escape.

Nadine Vaujour, Michel’s wife was visiting as often as she could and she was always giving him homemade treats where she would hide small notes with information that could not be disclosed when she was visiting as the guards might pick up on something. In March 1986, she gave Michel a note with her plan and a specific date on which he would go free.

A new hobby for Nadine

Nadine was taking piloting lessons in order to get her PPL (private pilot license). Everyone assumed that this was just a new hobby, however, it was very uncommon for someone in the 1980s to get a PPL, since it was very expensive. Everything was planned out by Nadine. It would take three months to get her license, meaning that she would get it on the 27th of May 1986. Therefore she planned to free her husband on the 28th of May around 10 AM in the morning.

She knew that a helicopter would not be enough, so she bought a toy pistol and spray painted it black to look real as well as painted some oranges green so that they would look like grenades. Her plan was to threaten the guards with these fake weapons in order to allow her to get close enough for her husband to jump on the helicopter.

Escape day

When the day of escape came around, things didn’t go exactly as planned. When she reached the prison site with her helicopter the guards were caught unprepared for a helicopter to fly inside the prison. Nadine had told Michael a few days before in a note that he would have to be on the roof of a building in order for the plan to work. Michael knew that he wasn't able to do it alone, so he asked a friend from inside by the name of Pierre Hernandez to help him reach the roof, in exchange he would come along with them on the helicopter.

Nadine reached the roof on which Michel and Pierre were waiting. She slung down a rope for them to climb on. Pierre helped Michel to climb, but Pierre was caught by the time Michel reached the helicopter, so they left him behind.

No shots were fired during this escape, although Nadine was told by traffic air control that she was flying in a restricted zone and that she had to land immediately. Nadine was heading towards the field from the Paris University campus. It was open enough for an easy landing and that is where a driver was waiting for them. She landed the helicopter with success and they were on their way to get out of the capital as soon as possible.

By the time the police arrived on campus at the abandoned helicopter, they were long gone. They traced the series number of the helicopter only to discover that it was rented from a local airfield. The agency said that Nadine had all the right paperwork and her piloting licenses so they saw nothing wrong.