(FD-350): 'Accomplice may have picked up skyjacker at backwoods landing strip' (duplicate copy), The Oregonian

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

---

Accomplice may have picked up jet skyjacker at backwoods landing strip

By DARYL LEMBKE LA Times-Washington Post Service

WOODLAND, Wash. — A light plane swept in out of the stormy night and circled over a crude airstrip in the hills 10 miles east of here.

The weather was rainy and windy—no fit night for a joy- riding pilot to be landing on the bumpy, unlighted hilltop airstrip near a wooded ra- vine.

Yet some nearby residents say that a small plane did land at a little after 8 p.m. Nov. 24, at the same time and in the same area where a hijacker is believed to have parachuted from an airliner with $200,000 in $20 bills.

The eyewitness accounts of the strange plane could ex- plain how the hijacker es- caped a three-day manhunt, or at least how he had plan- ned to escape if he survived the parachute jump.

He could have had an ac- complice who flew in and waited for him, or there could have been a third party in a car who picked him up and brought him to the plane.

Adding credence to this theory is the fact that some- one in a car apparently rendezoused with a pilot at another, nearby airstrip the night before the hijacking and went for what could have been a pre-hijack scout- ing flight in equally bad weather.

Those who say they saw the light plane on the night of the hijacking have been questioned several times by FBI agents, who also [guess: combed] the wooded ravine near the airstrip during the manhunt last weekend. Th[e]

---

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

18 THE OREGONIAN PORTLAND, OREGON

— — — —

Date: DECEMBER 3, 197[1] Edition: Author: Editor: ART BUSHNELL Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office:

☐ Being Investigated

164-1 1 Sur[b] 1

SEARCHED __ [illegible] [illegible] SERIALIZED [illegible]

---

DB Cooper-23006

FBI refused comment Thurs- day on the significance of the reports about the small plane.

The airstrip is on prop- erty owned by the McClel- lan family. Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. McClellan Jr. live in a new house at the south end of the airstrip. McClellan formerly owned a plane but sold it. His par- ents live in an older house a little farther from the landing field.

Deer hunters and others flying light planes fre- quently set down on the strip, which is surrounded by foot-high weeds, but seldom at night in a rain- storm.

A flight recorder in the commandeered Northwest Orient 727 indicated that the hijacker opened the rear door of the plane at 8:13 p.m.

Mr. and Mrs. Emil Neiger, who live just down the road from the McClellan airstrip, said that a little after 8 p.m., they saw what seemed to them a puzzling sight, con- sidering the severity of the storm.

"We were gone for a while and came home about 8 o'clock," said Mrs. Neiger.

---

"I was washing the dishes when both of us saw this plane swoop down low. We thought it was going to land and it put its landing lights on. Then we thought it took off again."

Two miles down the road to the west, Mrs. Frank Distefano saw something that made an impression on her [guess: about] 8:30 p.m.

"I was home alone [illegible]

---

plane. It was raining and the wind was blowing. I thought, 'What's he doing out here this time of night?' It was weird to me because we don't see many planes at night here."

Plane seen

Mrs. Melvin Andersen, who resides just across the road from the north end of the McClellan landing strip, said she heard a plane land there and saw lights indicating that it was turning around.

"He was parked an hour or so and then it left," she said.

Opinion on what happened

---

to the hijacker is divided in Woodland, population 1,650, but interest in the subject runs high because the FBI used an office in the attrac- tive new city hall here as a command post.

"We had more newsmen here than ever before in Woodland's long history," said Bob Reed, editor and publisher of the Lewis R[guess: iver] News.

"Woodland is the gate[illegible] to great camping and ing country in the su[illegible]. We got a half a milli[illegible] [guess: dollars] worth of publicity that hijacking."

---

DB Cooper-23007