The Ultimate Prison Break: How to Escape Alcatraz with Basic Engineering (Mark Rober Recreation)

Join Mark Rober and his team (Cleo Abram, Johnny Harris) as they attempt to recreate the most ingenious prison escape in history: the legendary 1962 breakout from Alcatraz by Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers.

Using modern engineering, meticulous research, and the exact materials the prisoners had, the team attempts all six critical steps of the elaborate plan to answer the burning question: Did they survive?

What the Escapees Had to Accomplish:

The Decoy Heads: Recreating the incredibly realistic fake heads made from soap, concrete dust, and human hair that fooled the prison guards [01:48].

The Digging: Discovering how the prisoners managed to secretly carve out a hole in their cell walls over six months using only stolen spoons and a homemade power drill [04:30].

The Secret Workshop: Sneaking into the utility corridor and using a makeshift periscope and an accordion to mask the noise of their work for months [05:59].

The Raft: Constructing a functioning, multi-person life raft and life vests using over 50 stolen army-issued raincoats, rubber cement, and an accordion as an air pump [11:51].

The Final Step: Testing the strong tidal currents of the San Francisco Bay to determine if a homemade raft could successfully navigate to land, revealing the escapees' true, rumored destination [18:15].

Watch the engineering ingenuity of a century-old prison break and find out if Mark Rober's team could beat the odds in the frigid, shark-patrolled waters!