FD-350 clipping: 'Light Plane Escape for Phantom Skyjacker?' (UPI)

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

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Light Plane Escape for Phantom Skyjacker?

VIEW, Wash. (UPI) Three women said Friday they saw a light plane land and take off at a small airstrip the night a hijacker parachuted from a jetliner after receiving $200,000 in ransom.

The FBI declined to comment on the reports regarding the thanksgiving eve aerial extortion.

None of the residents near the darkened McClellan airstrip said they saw the plane close enough on the dark, rainy and gusty night to give a detailed description.

Mrs. Emil Nelger, who lives close to the airstrip, said she got a good look at the low- flying aircraft but added, "All planes look alike to me."

Mrs. Melvin Anderson, who lives across the road from the end of the strip, said she saw the light of the plane as it came in for a landing, sitting on the field and taking off. She said she was not sure how long the plane was down.

"I don't know whether it was over there an hour or how long," she said. "I didn't time it. I couldn't see the plane itself."

Mrs. Frank Distefano report- ed she was returning home when she saw the plane flying low.

"I thought to myself, what's that put doing up in the air on a night like this," she said. "It was a small plane, but the engine sounded louder than a small plane's. I remember a large red light on the tail."

Mrs. Distefano said she believes she saw the same plane on the previous night circling a spot to the east near St. Helens, Wash.

She said the plane on the night of the hijacking was in the area about 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., flew north, circled and came back. She said she does not know where it went after that since it was raining and she was not watching anymore.

The Federal Aviation Admin- istration's flight control center in Auburn, Wash., said there was no indication on radar of a light plane near the hijacked Boeing [guess: 727] in the southwest Washington area.

"If he was flying too low, a controller said, "we wouldn't see it."

The hijacker, who used the name "D. B. Cooper," paid cash to buy a ticket at the Northwest Airlines office at the Portland International Airport and then about a half hour later boarded the 727. He threatened the crew with a purported bomb, and after obtaining $200,000 from the airline on the 727's arrival at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, vanished from the craft by parachuting out a back door on a flight to Reno, Nev.

The FBI has not ruled out the possibility of an accomplice in the case, but said it had no evidence to substantiate that there had been more than one person involved in the esca- pade.

The FBI conducted a search in the area around View and Woodland, Wash., earlier on the basis of plane flight information that the hijacker may have jumped near View. The time of the jump was believed to have been [guess: 8:13] p.m. on Nov. 26.

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

2. Los Angeles Herald Examiner

Date: 12-4-71 Edition: Author: Editor: Title:

Character: or Classification:

Submitting Office:

☐ Being Investigated

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DB Cooper-22772