Part 41, page 279

Transcript

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America's parachute skyjacker

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By BARRIE WATTS

AN FBI man has sworn he will never stop trying to solve one of America's most baffling mysteries—where is sky pirate D.B. Cooper?

Cooper, whose real identity has never been discovered, is believed to have parachuted from a hijacked Northwest Airlines Boeing 727, $200,000 in ransom strapped to his body, as it flew over rugged terrain in Washington State on Nov. 24, 1971.

But military jets tailing the plane did not see him bail out. He and the money vanished without trace despite a massive, computer-coordinated manhunt.

Even so, Ralph Himmelsbach, an FBI special agent who has worked doggedly on the case since the beginning, told THE STAR he will never give up the search.

"I dearly want to get him," he said. "Someone, somewhere, must know who Cooper really is. Sooner or later a clue must come to the surface."

To Himmelsbach, the Cooper affair is the greatest unsolved puzzle in modern-day piracy. But he has no respect or admiration for the man who hijacked the Northwest flight between Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., on that fateful day.

The flight began like any other for stewardess Florence Shaffner. She was checking that passengers had fastened their seatbelts when a tall, dark-complexioned man with black hair and sunglasses and wearing a dark suit handed her a note.

Thinking he was just looking for a date, she stuck the note in her pocket. Then he ordered: "Look at it—now!"

As she read the note her eyes widened in horror. It said simply: "I have a bomb in my briefcase."

Seeing the shock on her face, another stewardess, Tina Mucklow, hurried over. Cooper showed her what was in the briefcase — two red cylinders wrapped in wiring. She obeyed immediately when he ordered her to sit beside him.

As the jetliner roared into the sky, Cooper calmly explained what he wanted, so calmly that none of the other passengers even knew they were being hijacked.

Cooper said he wanted $200,000 in cash and two parachutes waiting for him when the plane reached Seattle. If the airline balked or the crew refused to cooperate, he would blow up the plane with everyone in it.

Sketches of D.B. Cooper made after the hijack show him as ordinary-looking. At left, he is pictured in sunglasses he wore during hijack.

their own initiative airline officials decided to amass the ransom in $20 bills. There would be 10,000 of them, and their serial numbers would be recorded.

As the plane finally circled over Seattle, pilot William Scott played middleman in the negotiations. None of the flight crew ever saw Cooper. His orders were relayed by stewardess Mucklow. Meanwhile the bored passengers yawned at the delay.

After 90 minutes of circling, anxious officials on the ground reported that the money and the parachutes were ready. Ground controllers watched nervously as the jet's navigation lights traced endless circles in the sky. No one knew what D.B. Cooper was really up to, or even if there actually was a bomb.

At 5:45 PM the jet landed and a car rushed out to planeside carrying the ransom and the parachutes. As a stewardess carried the loot to Cooper in the back of the plane, the passengers began to sense that something was wrong.

But the stewardesses quickly disembarked the 42 puzzled passengers. Now, only the flight crew and stewardess Mucklow remained aboard with the hijacker.

As Cooper had ordered, the plane was refueled for a flight to Mexico, with one stop in Reno. Then a technical problem developed in the refueling truck. As time dragged by pilot Scott radioed ground control in a trembling voice. The man in back, he said, was getting "awful nasty."

Finally, when the jet was ready to go, a Federal Aviation Administration official chose that moment to go aboard and call on the skyjacker to surrender.

Cooper looked at him bleakly and growled: "Let's get this show on the road." The FAA man left fast.

When the jet was back in the air, Cooper told Tina Mucklow to "go forward, pull the curtain and don't come back."

It was the last anyone ever saw of Cooper. From that moment until he vanished into limbo, he communicated with the crew by phone.

Three Air Force jet fighters lurked above and behind the plane, anticipating that Cooper might jump. Radar followed the plane from the ground.

The jet lumbered at low speed as Cooper called the flight deck. He told Scott to open the jet's rear door. Scott did as he was told. From the rear exit, which extended beneath the tail, debarkation stairs led below and away from the fuselage. Cooper was going to walk into space.

Intensely cold air rushed into the cabin as the rear door was lowered. The plane was becoming harder to handle. Ice was building up on the windshield and the wings.

For 20 minutes there wasn't a word from the back of the plane. Only the scream of the wind. Scott called Cooper on the phone: "Anything we can do for you?"

Silence for a few seconds. "No," Cooper finally replied calmly. At 8:00 PM the crew felt a slight shift in the plane's balance. Cooper was gone.

For 18 days a small army of soldiers, police, FBI men and dogs searched the rugged countryside where Cooper was believed to have landed. They found nothing. To this day, no one knows who D.B. Cooper really was, or if he is still alive.

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