Part 9, page 77

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 11-11-75)

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reunions, turkey dinners, long relaxed conversations and perhaps a traditional game of bridge or Monopoly later. But one didn't. Dan Cooper paid cash for his ticket, then, clutching a paper sack, boarded the Boeing 727 for the 30-minute flight. A few minutes after the plane nosed into the storm, he made his move. He showed the stewardess what he said was a dynamite bomb, and demanded four parachutes, $200,000 in $20 bills, and "no funny stuff." All the passengers but Cooper got off at Seattle, unaware that anything was amiss.

The money and parachutes were put on board and the jet, with only the crew and Cooper aboard, headed for Reno on Cooper's orders. Then somewhere over southwest Washington, Cooper, with the 21 pounds of money strapped to him, bailed out. If he's [not] heard from since. If he's alive — and that's a big "if" — the five-year statute of limitations runs out this Thanksgiving eve, Nov. 24. Or does it? "We're going ahead on the assumption that the statute doesn't apply, because when he did what he did, capital punishment was a possibility. There's no statute on capital crimes," says FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach. Himmelsbach, who has worked on the case from the start, concedes that recent court decisions have muddled the question of whether capital punishment would, in fact, have been applicable. "We're continuing to process suspects," he said. "Of course, it has slowed down a great deal." He says chances are good that Cooper is dead. "Not one of the 10,000 bills has shown up, and we know the serial number of every one of them," he said. And Cooper apparently knew nothing about skydiving. In a business suit and street shoes, he jumped from the rear door of a jet going 197 m.p.h. at 10,000 feet. At that elevation it was seven below zero that night, with a wind-chill factor of 69 below zero.

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"On top of that, he probably lost his shoes (from wind shock) as he jumped," Himmelsbach said. The plane was in clouds. "Up, looked like down to him. He had no visual reference. He couldn't have possibly known where he was." Himmelsbach wonders if he cared... "In another 30 minutes he could have been over the Willamette Valley, and almost any place he jumped would have been safe to land," he said. Instead, Cooper picked some of [illegible]

the roughest country in the Pacific Northwest. He took two of the four parachutes

with him when he jumped: One was a small emergency chute of the type used by stunt flyers. Under ideal conditions, someone who knew what he was doing might break an ankle or leg with it. The other was a training chute used for demonstrations. The panels had been sewn shut. It wouldn't have opened.

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The next night the FBI re-enacted the skyjacking using the same plane, crew, fuel load, speed and altitude. The test helped flight engineers and meteorologists to compute the probable drop zone to be a trapezoidal area covering about 25 square miles. It has been searched and researched in vain. In April, 1972, 200 Army troops from Ft. Lewis, Wash., spent 18 days in the area. All they found was "the victim of a homicide," a case unrelated to Cooper's.

What would it take to find Cooper's remains, assuming they are there? "I'd say it might take 5,000 men five years. I mean, how do you search a blackberry thicket higher than your head?" The area contains part of a reservoir, steep hills and dense forest, much of it far from roads or trails. Experienced hunters can and do get lost up there every year.

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) [blank lines] Date: Edition: Author: Editor: Title: Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: [ ] Being Investigated

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DB Cooper-779