Part 1, page 26

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

20 16-1-2111-3[illegible] LA October 21, 1972

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THE TALE OF

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A LONER, D.B. COOPER TELLS HOW HE STOLE PLANE AND GOT AWAY

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By Karl Fleming

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D.B. COOPER AROSE AT 6 A.M. THAT day, leaving his wife of 25 years asleep in their ranch-style suburban Seattle home, dressed hurriedly in a dark business suit, and packed his briefcase with the tools he would need to carry him through this, the most important day of his life.

Cooper, age 49, a balding unpreposessing out-of-work Boeing engineer, had never been arrested for anything more serious than a traffic violation.

This day, Thanksgiving Eve of last year, he would hijack a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 between Portland and Seattle, would successfully bail out with $200,000 of the airline's money, and then would vanish as if it evaporated. He still hasn't been discovered by the law.

Cooper planned the hijacking for more than a year. Every detail had been carefully researched. Every step had been painstakingly rehearsed. Every possible foul-up had been anticipated—even marked money and bad weather. Every [minute hijacking had been patiently... text continues/cut off]

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the hijack note. Under his suit, he wore a heavy sweatshirt. It would be cold that night when he jumped. On his feet he wore high-topped Western style boots. They could pass as dress shoes, and at the same time could protect his ankles when he hit the ground after parachuting from the plane.

Making Plans As he drove, he listened idly to the radio and methodically reviewed his plan—the landing site, the weather, the timing, the getaway route, all the minute details he had brooded over with slide-rule precision for months. He originally had wanted to bring in a confederate. That would make the job easier [espe-... text cut off]

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in flight so that a jump could be accomplished without ripping a chute to pieces.

Also, this particular daily commuter flight was chosen because of the route it followed. Cooper chose it after patiently studying dozens of aerial maps. The route, over rural terrain where the land was hilly, but not too rough, was close enough to a freeway to make a getaway possible. It was sufficiently removed from water and high tension lines, which a parachutist always fears and was remote enough so he could land without detection.

The spot Cooper selected was just east of the tiny farming village of La Center, less than five miles from Inter[state 5—text cut off]

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or windy enough to make the jump overly hazardous.

The day he chose was perfect: rainy, overcast and gusty—which would discourage light planes and helicopters from following. And he had chosen this day for another reason: It was a holiday. He had wanted July 4, but hadn't been able to get his plan perfected in time. He wanted a holiday because people in airports would be in a festive mood, there would be huge crowds and a lot of confusion.

The Triangle Cooper turned off Interstate 5 at Woodland at about 9:45 a.m., drove along the macadam rural road to Main Street in La Center, and parked his car in the gravel lot beside the post office. He applied his make-up—stuff to alter his facial coloring and white paste to obscure his old-topped teeth—then he drove into the adjacent countryside to set his radio transmitters in place. There were three of them—pocket-sized [text cut off]