FD-350 clipping, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 'Mystery remains in the saga of D.B. Cooper'
Document date 13 February 1980
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Id: Cooper-Part-43:148-151
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-43:148-151 Document: FD-350 clipping, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 'Mystery remains in the saga of D.B. Cooper' Id: Cooper-Part-43:148-151 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-43%3A148-151 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
A person reads every report. Corrections are made by hand, to the data — titles, dates, names, which pages belong together — never to the scans, and they can take a while to appear.
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 43 pp. 148–151 (DB Cooper-17352, DB Cooper-17354, DB Cooper-17355), News clipping, dated 13 Feb 1980 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-43%3A148-151
FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)
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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) A-1 HERALD EXAMINER LOS ANGELES, CA Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Wednesday Latest
Title: MYSTERY REMAINS IN SAGA OF D.B. COOPER Character: or DAILY Classifi__________________________b6 Submitting Office: Los Angeles b7C
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Mystery remains in the saga of D.B. Cooper
PORTLAND, Ore. — The mystery surrounding D.B. Cooper's skyjacking and disappearance eight years ago has been rekindled by a Vancouver, Wash., family's inad- vertent discovery of worn packets of $20 bills on the Columbia River shoreline — part of Cooper's $200,- 000 ransom.
The saga which changed the nature of airline piracy began on Thanksgiving Day, 1971, when Cooper boarded Northwest Air- lines flight 305 for a flight from Portland to Seattle. Once aboard, he handed a crew member a note, saying he was carrying a bomb in a satchel and wanted $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills.
When the jetliner landed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Air- port that evening, authorities had arranged the cash and had also obtained four parachutes, as in- structed by Cooper.
Cooper then allowed the flight's 38 passengers and all crew mem- bers but two pilots and one stew- ardess to disembark. He then ordered the aircraft to take off for Reno, Nev.
At one point in that flight, the crew felt a fluctuation in cabin pressure, which suggested the jet- liner's rear cabin door had opened.
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Subs B; E, [guess: 4], M b6 b7C
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SEARCHED........INDEXED........ SERIALIZED.\ FILED........... FEB 18 1980 FCI — LOS ANGELES
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ORIGINAL [guess: ROUTED TO] SEARCHED.....INDEXED...BUREAU SERIALIZED..... [guess: FILE] FEB 9 1980 [guess: FBI] — SEATTLE BI/DOJ
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DB Cooper-17352
When the pilots attempted to talk to the hijacker by intercom, they got no response.
The FBI believes it is at that point — over La Center, Wash., about 25 miles north of Portland — that Cooper strapped on the bag of money and the satchel containing the supposed bomb, and leaped out.
He tumbled into the heart of a Pacific Northwest storm, with temperatures at the 10,000-foot altitude at the minus end of the thermometer. Authorities estimated Cooper experienced a headwind of up to 200 miles per hour.
He would have landed on the ground at a speed of 50-70 miles per hour, authorities calculated.
The FBI conducted numerous reconstruction flights over southwest Washington and employed complicated computer calculations to help determine where Cooper might have landed.
Ralph Himmelsbach, the FBI agent who has invested the past eight years on the case, concluded shortly after Cooper's jump that the daring man was killed in the attempt.
Exhaustive searches by the Washington National Guard and the FBI produced only one clue — a placard from the jetliner's rear door.
Hundreds of treasure hunters have prowled southwest Washington environs hoping to find the missing cash of Cooper.
Until the Harold Dwayne Ingram family made its discovery of a dozen packets of tattered $20 bills, those efforts had failed.
Cooper's daring and unorthodox air hijacking — which came to be known as "skyjacking" — provoked other efforts to extort money from commercial airlines. That increase in airline piracy triggered the installation of beefed-up security systems at the nation's airports to spot potential hijackers.
Over the years, many people refused to believe that Cooper had died in his effort, and a few even claimed to be the mysterious skyjacker.
In one case, Byron "Jack" Coffelt, an ex-convict who claimed to be the mysterious hijacker, told a friend that he landed after parachuting from the airliner.
However, the site of the discovery of the D.B. Cooper ransom money is some 70 miles northwest of the area where Coffelt said he touched down.
The distance involved tends to belie Coffelt's story of the hijacking, which he told over a period of months in 1974 to an old friend who helped him search for the lost money. Coffelt died of apparent natural causes in Hawaii in 1975.
Further weakening Coffelt's claim of being Cooper is his assertion that he landed just east of Mt. Hood, which is about 25 miles south of the Columbia River.
Experts agree that even if the money entered the river at that point, it would be unlikely that it could wind its way down the wide waterway some 60 miles to where it was found on the north bank of the river.
"The money would have had to float through locks, reservoirs, spillways and power units on the Columbia," said a geologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland. "I don't think it could have done that and been intact."
Robert Wagman, a producer for "60 Minutes" who has spent more than a year investigating Coffelt's claim to the D.B. Cooper legend, said, "Based on conversations I've had with FBI agents and engineers who know the river, it doesn't seem possible that the money could have washed up (where it was found) from where Coffelt said he lost it. It actually defies belief."
And some people still refuse to believe that Cooper is dead.
Journalist J.D. Reed, the author of the recently released fictional book "Free Fall," dealing with the Cooper adventure, said he disagrees with the FBI that finding the money tends to support the probability that D.B. Cooper did not survive the jump.
"It doesn't rule out that Cooper got away," said Reed.
An artist's sketches of D.B. Cooper based on recollections of passengers on the jet he hijacked and parachuted from in 1971.
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DB Cooper-17354
[Map labels:] Washington Columbia River Money found here Original D.B. Cooper search area (shaded area) Woodland Amboy La Center Vancouver Portland Oregon [Interstate 5 shield symbols] N [compass arrow]
[Caption below map:] The cash discovery has brought a new twist to the D.B. Cooper saga. Cooper was believed to have bailed out over La Center, Wash. But the money was found approximately 20 miles south of there.
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DB Cooper-17355