(FD-350): editorial 'Canny skyjacker', The Oregonian
Document date 30 November 1971
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Id: Cooper-Part-54:083-083
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-54:083-083 Document: Clipping (FD-350): editorial 'Canny skyjacker', The Oregonian Id: Cooper-Part-54:083-083 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A083-083 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
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FBI 164-81, Vault Part 54 p. 83 (DB Cooper-23009), News clipping, dated 30 Nov 1971 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A083-083
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Canny skyjacker
Authorities who have been trying to find a trace of the skyjacking parachutist for the past several days in the Clark County, Wash. foot- hills admit that this was no ordinary aircraft pirate of the type that has made Cuba a stop on far too many flights in recent years.
He was canny enough to know that a Boeing 727 was one of the few commercial planes from which a person could bail out without danger of colliding with engines or flaps. He obviously knew something about parachutes, as well.
He evidently was convinced that no one would endanger the lives of passengers and crew by trying to subdue him after he had shown a stew- ardess a real or simulated bomb shortly after the Northwest Airlines plane took off from Port- land International Airport. He appeared equally certain that the $200,000 in cash he ordered would be produced in Seattle, along with the parachutes.
The perpetrator of one of skyjacking's most bizarre incidents had planned his crime with ut- most thoroughness. Therefore, it is quite proba- ble that he did not jump into the black night over Clark County, as surmised, but stayed with the plane a bit longer.
A light went on in the cockpit when the rear door of the plane was opened and the ladder descended, soon after the pirate and crew ex- changed their last words over the intercom. This is the basis for the search in Southwest Washington. But a man bold enough to stage such a crime and to parachute from a jetliner at 200 miles an hour in darkness and bad weather might well have staged the bail-out to confuse the authorities and to have jumped later.
He may have been foiled in the end by the elements. He may be dangling from a tree somewhere in the Oregon mountains, the $200,- 000 of no use to him.
Whatever the answer may prove to be to the questions raised by the skyjacking, the man who committed it cannot be regarded as a Rob- in Hood. Some people are said to sympathize with the fugitive, holding him in esteem for his boldness and his victory, temporarily at least, over the system and its technology. This is akin to the folklore of earlier years when bank rob- bers and gangsters sometimes won public admi- ration. The parachuting skyjacker is—or was— a criminal who endangered his fellowmen in a bizarre effort to enrich himself.
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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)
THE OREGONIAN PORTLAND, OREGON
Date: 11/30/71, pg. 20 Edition: Author: Editor: Title:
Character: or Classification: Submitting Office:
☐ Being Investigated
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SEARCHED ______ [illegible] SERIALIZED ______ [illegible]
DB Cooper-23009