The Oregonian pages, 'NW hijacker, $200,000 vanishes' and related, Nov. 22, 1973

NW hijacker, $200,000 vanishes 'Dan Cooper's' fate still a mystery

By LEVERETT RICHARDS of The Oregonian staff

Dan Cooper, where are you?

Nobody knows. The fate of this first high-jumping hijacker remains one of the most baffling mysteries on the books. After two years of intensive searching, the FBI says it hasn't a single clue of any kind.

"We really know nothing more today than we did 11 p.m., Wednesday Nov. 24, 1971," Julius Mattson, FBI special agent in charge at Portland, said this week.

When the man called Cooper parachuted from the rear of a Boeing 727 somewhere south of Woodland, Wash., sometime after 8:10 p.m. that dark and stormy night he simply vanished. So did the $200,000 in $20 bills that he carried in a laundry bag.

The FBI doesn't even know if Dan Cooper ever existed. That's the name he gave when he bought a one-way ticket to Seattle at Northwest Airlines' ticket counter in Portland from Dennis Lysne about an hour before he boarded NWA's Flight 305. (The name D. B. Cooper was an error never corrected by most of the press.)

The rest is history, and mystery. At Seattle he took 10,000 $20 bills and two sets of parachutes. He opened the rear door of the Boeing 727 soon after takeoff, which caused a red light to come on in the cockpit.

Nothing was heard from him until 8:10 p.m. when the plane was just crossing the Lewis River near Woodland. William Scott thought the hijacker was having trouble with the stairs and asked him on the interphone, "Anything we can do for you?"

Then the light came on indicating the stairs were fully extended. A few seconds later the hijacker came on the interphone and said, "No."

That's the last the crew heard from him. Crewmen thought he was still aboard when they landed at Reno, Nev., with the stairs partly extended about 10:30 p.m. But he wasn't. Neither was the money nor one set of parachutes.

There was no transmitter on the parachute Cooper used. That device was invented later. Yet the FBI, using Northwest Airlines computers, concluded Cooper had jumped immediately after answering the interphone. They figured the heavy wind from a winter storm would have blown him to the vicinity of Ariel near Lake Merwin.

Late in March, 1972, 300 soldiers from Ft. Lewis combed the area on foot and with helicopters for 18 days, without finding a trace of Cooper, "although we did find a body and cleared up a local murder," Mattson said.

Air Force paramedics say Cooper had little chance of surviving. He was clad only in a business suit and street shoes, which probably would have been snapped off his feet by the opening shock of the parachute at 200 miles an hour.

He apparently didn't know his route of flight or elevation, and could have had no idea where he was.

He would have had to fall through two layers of storm clouds into a black night.

Cooper apparently did wear gloves. No fingerprints were found on the airplane and he carefully reclaimed his hijack note from the flight crew.

In fact, the FBI doesn't know to this day if there ever was a Dan Cooper. Hundreds of people reported they knew the man after seeing the posters put out by the FBI.

"We investigate every report and so far have proved that the various men reported to be Cooper could not have been the man who hijacked Flight 305," Mattson said.

"We have no physical evidence to go on except the $20 bills. We have circulated the numbers on all 10,000 of them far and wide, but no one has ever turned up," Mattson said.

But the Cooper case is not closed, "not by any means,"

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Reports are still being investigated, Mattson said.

Are you satisfied he is not hanging from a tree somewhere in the Ariel area?

"No," said Mattson, "the terrain is just too rugged in a couple of places to be thoroughly searched on the ground, although we have gone over it by helicopter.

"And there is still the possibility he may have landed in Lake Merwin, which is too deep to drag and too deep for skin divers to search. Besides its 30 miles long and nearly a mile wide."

FBI open-minded

What is the FBI's guess as to his fate?

"We are keeping an open mind, for lack of evidence either way -- that he is alive or dead," Mattson concluded.

The whole route of Flight 305 from Woodland south to Red Bluff and direct to Reno, Nev., has been "substantially searched" without finding a clue of any kind, Mattson said.

"But we are still working as hard on the case now as we were two years ago."

Northwest Airlines, which offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the solution of the mystery last fall has cancelled the reward, a spokesman in Minneapolis said.

Cooper's coup -- although it may have cost his life -- was followed by a rash of similar hijackings, until the rear door of the 727s were locked in flight. There hasn't been a domestic hijacking of any kind, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, in the past year.

The Cooper hijacking is the only one unsolved to this day, Benjamin Davis Jr., assistant secretary of Transportation, says.

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MYSTERY MAN -- FBI is still looking for man called Dan Cooper on second anniversary of hijacking of airliner. He was middle-aged, of middle height, with swarthy complexion, dressed in brown suit, white shirt, black tie and raincoat.

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42 THE OREGONIAN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1973

Air passenger carrying liquor gives Oregon right to seize jet

By HARRY BODINE of The Oregonian staff

If an Oregonian flies home from Reno with a case of beer, should the Oregon Liquor Control Commission seize the plane that hauled the contraband?

It may come as a shock to the airlines, but the OLCC believes that under Oregon law it has the clout to seize the "vehicle" whether it is a private auto or other transportation.

The liquor commission has no plans to seize an airplane, but its inspectors are looking over incoming luggage at Portland International Airport these days to determine how much illegal liquor and beer is coming into the state.

Oregon residents are allowed to bring up to one quart into the state.

The three-member commission revised priorities in liquor law enforcement at its monthly meeting this week in Milwaukie.

OLCC staff told the panel the problem of wholesalers giving financial assistance to retailers was "rampant" and getting worse. It is illegal, but hard to detect.

Financial assistance can be offered — as an inducement to carry or "push" a wholesaler's brands in several ways, the OLCC staff explained.

State law and regulations require complete records of all alcoholic beverages sold and distributed in Oregon.

The OLCC staff explained it is circumvented by a distributor selling 10 barrels of beer or 10 cases of a beverage and then delivering 11, recording the excess under "breakage."

A major item of discussion in the OLCC review was the licensing of "service permittees," the bartenders and waitresses working in licensed establishments serving the public.

Don Church, director of licensing for the commission, said the OLCC has a major administrative task keeping track of 38,000 persons in the field.

The commission now collects a $1 license fee from the service permittees "and that's about all," Church noted.

Administration of the service permittees has eroded, he said. Because of the economics involved, the system in Oregon "isn't the best."

"We are not assuring the tavern owner of good moral character in perspective employees," he added.

Anyone working in a tavern or bar needs the state permit in order to work.

Since the state does have the right to suspend a permit it possibly does serve as a deterrent against an employee violating OLCC regulations and state law, said Kenneth Underdahl, OLCC administrator.

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"I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT ANOTHER TURKEY RIGHT NOW. I MIGHT JUST GLANCE AT A PIECE OF THAT PUMPKIN PIE, THOUGH."

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Won't talk

Saudi prince lives in Portland

By WAYNE THOMPSON of The Oregonian staff

While Saudi Arabia has commanded attention by controlling the tap for an oil-thirsty world, an engaging 18-year-old student has been winding up his term at Lewis and Clark College without fanfare.

He is Prince Naif bin Abdal Aziz, the vice minister of interior in the country that dictates oil fuel destinies for the Western world.

Prince Saud has been in Portland since September, enrolled in Lewis and Clark's institute for the study of American language and culture.

He has taken three courses in the program and took his last final Tuesday morning prior to returning to Saudi Arabia for the holidays.

The young prince, a nephew of King Faisal, declined an interview with the Oregonian, making it clear to school officials he was in Portland as a student, not as a member of the 2,500-member Saud royal family.

"He is a personable young man who has adjusted well to the American culture," said a Lewis and Clark spokesman who concurred in Prince Saud's desire to avoid publicity.

The prince, one of seven Saudi students enrolled at L&C, rented an apartment near the campus during the term and, reportedly, was accompanied by a non-English speaking friend, a manservant.

Lewis and Clark's international program this fall drew 20 fulltime students and seven parttime students from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Japan, Cambodia and Taiwan.

Since the crisis erupted in the Middle East, followed by the oil boycott imposed by Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud and the Saudi government

have been concerned with security, as has been the school administration.

Lewis and Clark has what many feel is an excellent relationship with exchange students from Arab countries and Prince Saud has been an outstanding addition to the student body, officials said.

The prince, reportedly, achieved the anonymity he sought during his stay in Portland, motoring about town in American dress in a Datsun 240-Z sports car.

According to one source, he had to leave in London his Italian Maserati sports car.

Prince Saud is expected to return to Portland in six weeks for another term, resuming the role he prefers — the quiet, clandestine life of a serious student.

His is the story of the Student Prince, played to international music. He left Portland this week for his native land as quietly as he came.

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