FD-350 clipping, Waterloo Courier, 'Legend of D.B. Cooper still alive after 10 years'

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) [illegible]2A Waterloo Courier Waterloo, IA. Date: 11/29/81 Edition:

Title: Character: or Classification: Submitting Office:

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Legend of D.B. Cooper still alive after 10 years

SEATTLE (AP) — D.B. Cooper, who jumped into legend by jumping out of the back of a jetliner and vanishing with $200,000, probably was an aging, bumbling crook with nothing left to lose, says the man who tracked the myth for a decade.

Dressed only in a dark business suit, white shirt, narrow tie and loafers, Cooper disappeared literally into thin air the night of Nov. 24, 1971, somewhere over southwest Washington. He parachuted out the back of a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727, with 10,000 $20 bills in a bank bag strapped to his body.

He became the first, and only, "suc- cessful" parachute skyjacker in American history. His notoriety helped lead to elaborate airport security systems and redesign of the Boeing 727 jetliner so the rear door can't be opened in flight.

"IT'S CONJECTURE, but I think he was a stupid, desperate rascal, a brutal, unscrupulous man who en- dangered the lives of more than 40 people for money and caused his own death," says Ralph Himmelsbach, the FBI agent assigned to the Cooper case before he retired last year.

"He was very likely an ex-con who was going to make one last, desperate [guess: go] for the big one," the 56-year-old Himmelsbach said. "If he made it fine. If not, he probably felt he had very little to lose."

The FBI feels Cooper's skeleton lies crumpled in the thick forests of southwest Washington. Conceivably, agents say, Cooper is buried under tons of volcanic ash because 150 square miles of the search area was coated by Mount St. Helens' eruption last year.

But no one can prove Cooper isn't

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An artist's conception of the man known as D.B. Cooper, who jumped into legend by jumping out the back of a jetliner and vanishing with $200,000.

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DB Cooper-19086

living a smug life of anonymity somewhere, enjoying the profits of his air piracy.

The case remains the FBI's only major unsolved skyjacking — and his disappearing act is celebrated in twangy song, T-shirts, an annual celebration in the tiny town of Ariel, Wash., and a new movie.

TO PUBLICIZE the movie, "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper," Universal Studios offered $1 million for informa- tion leading to the arrest and convic- tion of Cooper, who's name probably wasn't even Cooper. The studio still has the money.

His start as a folk hero began when a "Dan Cooper" bought a one-way ticket on Northwest Airlines Flight 305 from Portland, Ore., to Seattle.

Moments after takeoff, Cooper handed a stewardess a hand-written note, announcing the skyjacking and demanding $200,000 and four parachutes. He also opened his brief- case and showed her what she later said looked like a bomb.

Instructions were radioed to the ground and, while the plane circled Seattle-Tacoma Airport, money and parachutes were rounded up. Cooper chain-smoked filter-tipped cigarettes and bought and sipped two bourbon- and-water highballs during the negotiations.

In Seattle, the 36 passengers and two stewardesses got off, while one stewardess and three cockpit crewmen stayed aboard. Cooper became fidgety as refueling took too long and told the stewardess, "Let's get this circus on the road."

THE PLANE took off for Reno, Nev., at 7:37 p.m., while a storm raged outside. Cooper was alone in the passenger section and the crew re- mained in the cockpit. At 8:11 p.m., the crew noticed a drop in cabin pressure, indicating the plane's rear door was opened.

FBI agents who scrambled aboard in Reno found no trace of Cooper — and a legend was born.

In February 1980, an 8-year-old boy picnicking with his family along the Columbia River west of Vancouver, Wash., unearthed packets of rotting $20 bills from the sand, which turned out to be $5,880 of Cooper's loot.

A hunter on a road near Castle Rock found a placard which wind had ripped from the wall of the plane's stairwell when Cooper jumped, Himmelsbach said.

He said Cooper bailed out while the plane was traveling at almost 200 mph at 10,000 feet, where the temperature was minus 7 and the wind chill factor a minus 69 on a raw and stormy night.

COOPER JUMPED with two parachutes — an emergency chute in front that was "by simple, honest error" defective, and a small sport chute in back that would land a novice sky-diver "fast and hard," Him- melsbach said.

He insists the FBI did not plot to sabotage the jump because "we don't have the right to sentence anyone to death and what would have happened if he took a hostage?"

Some people like to think Cooper lives, such as sponsors of the annual D.B. Cooper Festival" in Ariel, a town of two buildings near where Cooper is thought to have jumped. Once a year hundreds of people crowd into the Ariel Store and Tavern to buy T-shirts, swill beer and trade Cooper theories.

"I think he got away because they didn't find anything but the money and who's to say he didn't drop it to lead them off the trail," says Laural Fis- [guess: her], who owns the store-tavern with her husband, Dave, president of the D.B. Cooper Fan Club.

Who's to say, indeed? After 10 years of searching, "We know 1,000 people who he isn't and 1,000 places where he didn't land," says Dave Hill, FBI spokesman in Seattle.