Part 46, page 150

Transcript

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

the weather could only be described as vicious. Despite many hours of ground search and additional hundreds of hours of investigation, the man has neither been found nor identified.

Dan Cooper, whose origin was never established, became D. B. Cooper when members of the news media overheard law enforcement officers discussing a possible suspect with that name. The name was published and has become a part of the legend.

The area into which Cooper fell is approximately 25 miles north of Portland, Oregon. Part of the estimated 150 square miles of drop zone is now included in the red zone, or dangerous area, surrounding the country's newest volcano, Mt. St. Helens. The entire crime took place within the jurisdiction of the Seattle FBI Office, but because of its proximity to Portland, the media and the public frequently associate the Portland Office with the investigation. A closely coordinated investigative effort has been maintained between the two offices throughout the years with an occasional sprinkling of rivalry thrown in when it appeared a significant lead might be developing.

There has been only one real lead; that surfaced in 1980 when an eight-year-old boy found almost $6,000 of the ransom money on the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington. The only result of the find was a rein- forcement of the belief that Cooper probably died the night of the jump.

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The legend now makes Cooper a folk hero in the mountains of southern Washington, but in considering the matter, one should remember that Cooper's apparent success laid the foundation for the several hundred hijackings which have occurred in the past nine years.

Although Cooper has never been identi- fied, he is never far from the minds of all modern air travelers. In most of the airports in the world, boarding passen- gers must pass through some type of security system. Usually this is little more than an inconvenience, but for anyone who has been aboard a hijacked flight, or participated in efforts to free those aboard such a flight, the exper- ience has included varying degrees of frustration and terror.

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The FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world have lived with Cooper's legend on a daily basis since 1971. New techniques to enter planes and make rescues have been developed, profiles of potential hi- jackers formulated, communication networks strengthened, and hostage negotiators trained in an effort to insure the safety of the air traveler. Every operation has its share of problems, but when the call goes out in an FBI office that a hijacking is in progress, you will soon see the very best effort each and every employee can put forth. The satis- faction derived from participating in a successful recovery of hostages and apprehension of their tormentor is one that is seldom equaled.

For the personnel of the Seattle and Portland Offices, the legend lives on in the form of one of the longest, continuous criminal investigations in the history of the FBI.

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5 DB Cooper-1894