Maze Prison escape the prison walls using knotted sheets. A guard was shot and wounded during the escape, and the prisoners were captured after being chased across fields by guards and the police. In March 1997 a tunnel was discovered in H7 at the Maze Prison. The tunnel was fitted with electric lights, and was from the outside wall, having already breached the block's perimeter wall. On 10 December 1997 IRA prisoner Liam Averill, serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of two Protestants, escaped from the Maze dressed as a woman. Averill mingled with a group of prisoners' families
Maze Prison escape a soldier in a watch tower, and the other prisoner was captured after falling. The other prisoners escaped over the fence, and by 4:18 pm the main gate was closed and the prison secured, after 35 prisoners had breached the prison perimeter. The escape was the biggest in both British and Irish history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II. Outside the prison the IRA had planned a logistical support operation involving 100 armed members, but due to a miscalculation of five minutes the prisoners found no transport waiting for them and were forced to flee across fields