FD-350 clipping: UPI story on Himmelsbach's view that Cooper is dead

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

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FBI thinks skyjacker was an amateur and lies dead in tangle of blackberries

PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) — The Federal Bureau of Investigation thinks skyjacker Dan Cooper was an amateur and is almost certainly dead.

Even if he was alive, Cooper, who bailed out of a Boeing 727 on Thanksgiving Eve five years ago with $200,000 in $20 bills, can still be prosecuted, FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach says.

Despite reports that Cooper would be free from criminal prosecution this Thanksgiving, Himmelsbach says there is no statute of limitations for him or his possible accomplices.

There is no statute of limitations in capital crimes, and air piracy or aerial hijack was a crime punishable by death in November 1971 and still is, Himmelsbach, who has been working on the case for five years, reports.

He adds that there is no statute of limitations protecting fugitives from justice, which Cooper is.

And, Himmelsbach says, seizure of the aircraft with its 36 passengers and crew of six could be considered kidnaping, a crime also exempt from the statute of limitations where injury or death is involved. He said if Cooper was killed when he bailed out the plane, then it was a capital crime. "If he had any accomplices, which is not indicated by any evidence so far, they would be equally guilty," Himmelsbach added.

Even if Cooper avoided criminal prosecution, he'd better stay away from agents of the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has estimated Cooper would owe $217,523 in taxes and penalties, and a possible civil penalty could raise that figure another $60,000.

Himmelsbach said he believes Cooper was an amateur because he left the two best parachutes in the plane he commanded, and used the shrouds of the third best to tie the 10,000 bills to his belt.

"He wore a pilot's seat pack parachute with a 28-foot canopy. He also took with him a chest pack parachute used for training. It was unusable. The panels were sewn together."

Although Cooper left no fingerprints in the plane, he did leave a couple of personal items which the FBI is not revealing because they could help identify the hijacker.

Himmelsbach said Cooper could not have known where he was when he jumped, and further more, he was not dressed properly.

"It was a stormy night, with freezing rain at his altitude and winds gusting from 25 to 45 knots at Portland International Airport, maybe stronger along the Lewis River in southwest Washington where he bailed out. He was dressed in a business suit and Oxford type street shoes. He had no hat or goggles."

Parachute experts have told the FBI that Cooper would have lost his sho[es]

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) Page 1 TheDaily Chronicle Centralia, Washington

Date: 11/15/76 Edition: afternoon Author: UPI Editor: Eric Hoxit Title: NORJAK

Character: CAA-Hijacking or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

[x] Being Investigated

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[stamp] NOV 19 1976 INDEXED FILED

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DB Cooper-23109

immediately upon opening the door of the plane, which was traveling at nearly 200 miles per hour. The experts have said Cooper would also have been blinded by the wind. "With that 28-foot canopy he would have descended 26 miles an hour ver- tically. Add a 30 to 55 mile an hour wind and he would have hit at a speed of 50 to 70 miles an hour. The experts say it is inconceivable that he could have escaped serious injury or instant death — even assuming his parachute opened." Shortly after the hijacking, the FBI conducted a dummy run of the incident, dropping a deadweight from the plane. It's trajectory was plotted and com- puters figured in wind speeds and other factors. The authorities wound up with a likely landing area for Cooper that was 6.5 miles long and four miles wide. The area was the subject of an in- tensive search that uncovered the body of a murdered girl and some parachute canopies attached to weather balloons. But there was no sign of Cooper or his white chute. "It is impossible to conduct a 100 per cent effective search in some of this area," Himmeslbach said. "There are acres and acres of blackberries so dense as to be inpenetrable and some of the terrain is too steep to be searched on foot. A man could fall into one of those blackberry patches and disappear.

"From all I've seen I lean to the hypothesis that he landed in the dense woods either dead or mortally hurt. It could be years before he is found. Planes have disappeared in that kind of terrain and been missing for 10 years or more." None of the money Cooper took with him has showed up yet, adding further evidence to the belief that he died when he bailed out that stormy night. But Himmelsbach and other FBI agents continue to check into leads. "We still get several tips every week," Himmelsbach said. "We pledged at the outset to investigate any information we received from the public. "We have checked more than 1,000, maybe several thousand, reports altogether. We have checked a long list of missing persons. And after five years we still don't know if there ever was a Dan Cooper. We have no more in- formation on his identity today than we had five years ago." The incident was not without its side benefits, however. Cooper's hijacking led to an airport security program which Himmelsbach says has stopped several possible hijacking attempts. The Federal Aviation Administration says that during the first six months of 1976, the security efforts resulted in the con- fiscation of 2,840 firearms and seven explosive or incendiary devices, and the arrest of 422 persons.

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DB Cooper-23110