FD-350 clipping, Minneapolis Star column 'Sky Caper Something to Admire' by Don Morrison

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

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Don Morrison

A Washington state sheriff's deputy, helping in the manhunt for the parachutist hijacker who bailed out of a Northwest Airlines plane with $200,000 ransom money, said aloud what I'll bet many of us have guiltily said to ourselves:

"You just can't help admiring the guy!"

I wouldn't defend the verb "admire," exactly, but then I don't know just how I'd describe the awed gasp I ex-haled when I learned how slick the caper was.

SKY CAPER SOMETHING TO ADMIRE

Now, we could fill the whole column with sternly ringing syllables of disap-proval for such criminal and potentially murderous activities. I agree that air piracy is a plague, an out-rage and a terrible danger.

In no way am I rooting for this particular hijack-er. Yet, since it happened, one can assign points without in any manner condoning what happened. Most airliner hijackers we've read about are loonies.

My strong impression is that the boy who boarded the 727 jet at Portland, Ore., was no loony — or at least an inspired one with the American dream of hustling $200,000 in scratch and getting away with it.

In his credit balance, let's agree he never really endan-gered anyone (I'm making the assumption that his red cylinder "bomb" was a bluff) and that, while he incon-venienced his fellow passengers more than somewhat, he did put them ashore at Seattle as his first move.

He collected 200 Big Ones as ransom, along with four parachutes, and ordered the driver to head for Mexico. Mexico, ha! Apparently, he hit the silk before the plane had even gotten out of the state — having required of the pilot that he leave the aircraft's back gate open and that he be granted decent privacy to mull on his sins.

All this is grand larceny and in violation of federal laws stipulating a death penalty for violation. The male-factor had dash, but I don't consider him any Robin Hood.

However, let me ask you how many dozens of Big Heist movies have you enjoyed over the past 10 years? All those imaginative wrongos who have figured out some artistic way to get into the Chase Manhattan Bank's petty cash room or to make off with Bess Tru-man's priceless collection of moustache cups. The cuter the caper, the better.

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

8B Minneapolis Star — Minneapolis, Minn.

Date: Nov. 29, 1971 Edition: Evening Author: Editor: Robert W. Smith Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: Minneapolis

☐ Being Investigated

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11/4/73 34 INDEXED [stamp] 1971 b6 b7C

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DB Cooper-33796

This was a very dramaturgical caper, indeed. It may be a pilot for a TV series. A bunch of us at a cocktail party over the weekend, was running up scenarios, to comply with the iron law of the movies that no one gets away with a Big Heist and that the cuter the heist the cuter must be the quirk of fate whereby the heister is disap- pointed of his swag.

Someone started it with the rudimentary idea that our hijacker jumps from the plane with the money and his parachute doesn't open. Too crude. Uncute.

Another was that the guy straps on a parachute and the moneybag, then jumps. He pulls the ripcord, but it is the cord to the moneybag and $200,000 in double-saw- bucks fills the air while he plummets downward saying "Oh shucks!"

A macabre idea was for him to come down in the for- est. His chute snags on a tree and the 20-odd pounds of money tied round his neck, slowly strangles him.

Naturally, I prefer my plot device. The hijacker, a sea- soned professional sky-diver, gets his rigging all squared away. He's wearing two parachutes for insurance, he has the money safely strapped on his person.

He exits the aircraft, cooly calculates his free fall and pops the chute perfectly.

He makes a perfect land- ing — inside the walls of the Washington State Penitentiary.

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DB Cooper-33797