FD-350 clipping, Herald Examiner: Coffelt as D.B. Cooper, part two, with flight-route map

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

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) A-1 HERALD EXAMINER LOS ANGELES, CA Date: 12/17/79 Edition: Monday Latest

Title: HIJACKER COOPER

Character: or CAA Classi b6 Submitting Office: An [illegible] b7C

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Hijacker Cooper's $200,000 — is it still near Mount Hood?

Was Byron "Jack" Cof- In July 1977, Wheeler was shown felt the mysterious hi- photographs of Coffelt by Holly- jacker D.B. Cooper? wood producer Dirk Summers, Although the case is who was investigating the case. far from proven, there are two Summers said in an interview that areas of evidence to suggest that she positively identified Coffelt as Coffelt, an ex-convict with alleged the man who hijacked the plane ties to the Federal Bureau of and signed a statement attesting to Investigation, was indeed the man the fact. She has since repeated her who parachuted from Northwest positive indentification of Coffelt Flight 305 in 1971 with $200,000 on a number of occasions to ransom. various people, including a pro- First, two people who were ducer for CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" aboard Flight 305 were shown a program. photo­graph of Coffelt and identi- Wheeler now lives in Columbia, fied him as the hijacker. Mo., and is a stewardess for Fron- Second, Coffelt apparently told a tier Airlines. Her husband, a col- former cell mate, Jim Brown, im- lege football coach, represents her portant details of the crime that in all negotiations, and she will have never been released by law- reportedly share in any book or men or published by newsmen. movie profits Summers makes on Florence Schaffner Wheeler, a the Coffelt-Cooper story. Despite stewardess aboard Northwest repeated requests, she refused to Flight 305, told investigators that be interviewed for this story. she saw the man who boarded as George LaBissoniere, a govern- D.B. Cooper without his hat and ment maritime attorney who lives dark glasses. Before the plane took in Seattle, was a passenger on off at Portland International Air- port, she said she had to go down the ramp to get Cooper, who was standing with a drink in his hand watching the plane being loaded with provisions. He boarded the plane only after the storage doors were closed. Shortly after takeoff, she saw him writing a note, which he soon passed to her. The note claimed that he had a bomb in his briefcase and that she should sit next to him. Then he opened his briefcase and showed her what looked like sticks of dynamite and a battery. Cooper told her he wanted $200,- 000 in $20 bills and four parachutes when the plane landed in Seattle, its scheduled destination. She wrote down his demands, and relayed them to the pilot, Captain William Scott, and co-pilot, William Rataczak. (Scott is still with North- west Airlines and commands 747 jumbo jets. Rataczak is a captain, too, for another airline.)

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164-497-1011 SEARCHED INDEXED SERIALIZED [illegible] FILED [illegible]

DEC 2 0 1979 FBI — LOS ANGELES

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ORIGINAL TO THE BUREAU DB Cooper-25922

Flight 305. LaBissoniere, who also saw the hijacker without his hat, said in an interview that he identified Coffelt's story. The account released by the FBI has the an FBI photo of Coffelt a month after the hijacking. plane taking off from Seattle and heading directly But he said nothing more ever happened as a result of over Portland. Then the plane continued south to the identification, as far as he knows. He added that he Medford, Ore., staying on the west side of Mount Hood tried calling the FBI several times, but no one ever and the Cascades range. Somewhere in northern returned his calls. California, the FBI says, the plane turned east toward Reno.

The hijacking points

Coffelt's story is at odds with this. He told Brown According to Jim Brown, a former cell mate, that the plane flew to the east of Mount Hood and that Coffelt told him that, during the hijacking, when the he jumped in an area northeast of the mountain. $200,000 was delivered and the plane was still on the So, if it could be proved that the plane took the ground in Seattle, he ordered the pilots over the cabin route released by the FBI, Jack Coffelt was not D.B. intercom to "get this bleeping show on the road." The Cooper. But, on the other hand, if it can be shown that quotes used in news reports were "Let's get this show the airliner flew east of Mount Hood — in direct on the road" and "Let's get this damn show on the contradiction to all published accounts — then one road." might have to believe that Coffelt hijacked Flight 305.

Summers claims that co-pilot Rataczak confirmed FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, the agent in to him that Cooper used such language. charge of the D.B. Cooper investigation since the

Coffelt told Brown that when the plane left beginning, stands firm on the published route. Seattle, he was alone for a time with stewardess Tine Macklow Larsen, and he flirted with her. "It's not possible that the hijacker jumped out

Nothing like this has ever been reported in the anywhere near Mount Hood or the east side of it," he press. However, in an interview with Summers at the said in an interview. "Air traffic control tracked the home of her brother-in-law (who is an FBI agent), route of the plane." But those radar records are not Larsen admitted that D.B. Cooper had "made a pass" at available to the public, nor is the black-box informa- her. Also, in an interview conducted by another tion from the plane's cockpit. "We're not going to source, stewardess Wheeler said that Larsen told her release a detailed map of the thing," Himmelsbach the same story about flirting shortly after the said. hijacking.

Dirk Summers said that, in an interview with

In published accounts, the FBI said the hijacker Rataczak, the co-pilot referred to flying "to the left was obviously an amateur and noted as proof that he of ... easterly" of Mount Hood. (This could not be had parachuted from the plane wearing street shoes, confirmed; the entire cockpit crew refused to grant apparently unaware that the slipstream would pull interviews.) Summers speculated that the FBI might them off. But Brown said Coffelt told him that he have given a misleading route so tha: the landing area changed from street shoes into boots before the jump, wouldn't be swamped with treasure hunters while

Wheeler, the stewardess, has reported to several agents combed it. sources that she saw D.B. Cooper change into boots Two F-106 jets from McCord Air Force Base before jumping. followed Flight 305, after it took off from Seattle. Lt.

The FBI's official version is that Cooper told the Col. Harvey L. Wallace, now retired, piloted one of the pilot he wanted to go to Mexico and that the crew — jets and remembers that night. "We were in heavy not Cooper — selected Reno as a refueling stop. This weather. There were a few breaks in it but it was version suggests the hijacker did not plan to jump over pretty dark and thick and I didn't see him jump. I a specific area. stayed above the plane because I know what these

But Brown said Coffelt told another story: That he mountains around there are like." To the crucial ordered the pilot to fly directly to Reno, at an altitude question of whether or not they flew to the west or of 10,000 feet and at a speed of no more than 200 miles east of Mt. Hood, Wallace says, "I really don't know. I per hour, with the plane's flaps at 15 degrees. Coffelt was radar-controlled the whole way. I know I broke off said he knew when to jump because the spot had been somewhere south of Medford, probably into California, staked out with beacons. He added that he had a Jeep when my fuel got low after following him [the plane] hidden nearby. for more than two hours."

Summers said co-pilot Rataczak confirmed that Cooper selected Reno as a refueling stop and directed him to fly at 10,000 feet at 200 mph and with 15-degree flaps.

As recounted by Brown, Jack Coffelt's account of the hijacking is detailed and plausible: [illegible] feet and legs, he managed to get the chutes off. Then Coffelt said he had planned to steal a few million he sprayed them with an aerosol can of solvent until dollars, which he thought would be aboard the flight, they melted. He buried what was left of the chutes — headed for the Federal Reserve Bank in Seattle. mostly metal snaps and buckles — next to a large rock, But after watching the loading of the plane and on which he scratched large Xs and Os. Seeing that the bank money was not there, he carried He now considered his dilemma. He could hear out his alternate plan to demand the $200,000 ransom signals from the beepers in both the Jeep and the Coffelt said his bail-out point was not around Lake moneybag, but the latter was weak and beginning to Merwin in Washington, as stated by the FBI, but rather fade. He thought about going after the money, but 70 miles farther southeast in the Cascades range in quickly dismissed the plan when he realized he would Oregon, on the east side of Mount Hood. have a difficult enough time reaching the Jeep from Coffelt said he had an accomplice with a Jeep this steep, inaccessible area. So he mustered his waiting in the brush. He added that the four-wheel- remaining strength and began his trek though the drive vehicle was equipped with an electronic pitch-dark forest, homing in on the Jeep beeper. "beeper." When the sun came up, he was still miles away He also said he had stashed another vehicle, a from the Jeep. At one point, he crossed a road and was white Cadillac, close to a paved road. stunned to see a bulldozer at work nearby. He turned Standing at the open door, Coffelt said he soon his face so the driver couldn't identify him later. saw the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and Around noontime, some 15 hours after his landing, he knew the plane was just east of Portland. reached the Jeep. He said he put the bag containing the $200,000 and He loaded it with an explosive charge, rolled it an electronic receiver he was carrying inside a green into a lake and blew it up. He then got into the back plastic bag he had in his briefcase. After throwing the seat of the Cadillac and his accomplice drove him to briefcase overboard, he tied a line around the Kansas City, where he got medical attention. moneybag and made a loop for his arm. The following spring, after the snow melted, he Spotting a beacon on Mount Hood, he was able to chartered a helicopter and pilot and returned to the see a triangle of three small runway lights located east area, but when the pilot became suspicious he gave up of Mount Hood, apparently set in place by his on his efforts to spot the moneybag. accomplice. He put his arm through the moneybag He tried again on foot with his cellmate Brown loop and waited. Soon he received a signal from the and Brown's son a few years later, but that trip was a Jeep beeper below. But as he waited to jump directly failure, too. over the beacon lights, he was suddenly swept off Coffelt died a year later, before he could try again. balance by the swirling wind and sucked down into the So, if believe Jack Coffelt was D.B. Cooper, you must darkness. also believe a bag of money is still in the Cascades, just At that altitude, he said, he figured a count of 50 waiting to be found by a lucky treasure-hunter. would be about right before opening the chute. But as That's part of the magic of the mysterious D.B. he fell farther into the black hole, he made it only to Cooper. about 30 before pulling on the chest-pack rip cord. Nothing happened. He desperately pulled at the D-ring on the seat- pack chute — and it opened with a jolt. At that moment, relieved that he wouldn't die by hitting the earth at nearly 200 miles per hour, he relaxed his grip on the moneybag, and it slipped off his arm and into the night. He would never see the moneybag again. The combination of a strong wind and the early chute opening caused him to drift far from the meadow he had selected, he said. He hit the ground hard at more than 30 mph, was dragged along and smacked into a dead tree.

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DB Cooper-25924

Map labels: Seattle Washington F.B.I. Route Drop Area Columbia River Coffelt's Route Portland Drop Area Mt. Hood Oregon

Caption: Coffelt and FBI disagreed on hijacked plane's route.

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DB Cooper-25925