A French gangster, Redoine Faid, is on the run after escaping from a prison south of Paris by helicopter on Sunday, according to French justice ministry.

The gangster was meeting his brother in the visitors' room when two gunmen in balaclavas broke in. The two accomplices, with smoke bombs and angle grinders, took Faid to the helicopter that had landed in the prison courtyard and flew to the nearby Gonesse area.

The razed helicopter was later found by local police.

The pilot of the helicopter had been hijacked from a flying club, where he was waiting for a student. The flying instructor was later released by the gunmen with no physical injuries.

A manhunt has been launched to locate the fugitive, according to the justice ministry.

This is the second time the 46-year-old gangster broke out of the prison. His first escape was in 2013, when he used explosives to blast through five prison doors, and held four prison wardens hostage. He was on the run for six weeks before he was captured by the police.

Faid has been serving a 25-year sentence for a failed armed robbery which led to the death of a policewomen in 2010.

In 2009, still on parole, Faid wrote a book recounting his past and his rise as a criminal in the tough suburbs of Paris. In the book he claimed to have turned his back on criminality, but was jailed again only one year later for committing yet another robbery.

Xinhua