Part 47, page 271

Transcript

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FD-350 (Rev. 5-8-81)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) A-3 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER SEATTLE, WA. Date: 11/24/84 Edition:

Title:

Character: or SE 164-81 Classification: Submitting Office: SEATTLE

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Hijacker D.B. Cooper's anniversary revives the mystery and the cheers

By Ed Penthale P-I Reporter

Glasses will be raised today to toast the legend of D.B. Cooper, the parachute-packing skyjacker who jumped from an airliner with $200,000 in ransom 13 years ago and disappeared into stormy skies over the Columbia River.

At the Ariel Store and Tavern 10 miles east of Woodland, Wash., up to 1,200 people are expected to drop by. That's how many signed the guest book last year -- for the Ninth Annual D.B. Cooper Party.

Retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach of Portland, Ore., who spent thousands of hours trying to solve the nation's only unsolved skyjacking case, will travel to Seattle to commiserate at the annual D.B. Cooper "Debacle."

The "debacle" is a gathering of the 318th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, based at McChord Air Force Base, that scrambled a pair of F-106 fighter planes on Nov. 24, 1971, in a futile attempt to track the fabled skyjacker.

In California, another former FBI agent will be working on his scheme to find the skyjacker's remains, and the ransom money, on the bottom of the Columbia River.

Still some calls

It's still a pending investigation, but there's not much to do," Special Agent Dick Thurston of the FBI in Seattle said yesterday. "We handle leads that come up. Occasionally, we get some calls."

They're mostly from people who've seen someone resembling the FBI sketch of Cooper, who is in his [guess: mid]-to-late 50s if he's still alive.

FBI agents who investigated the case don't think Cooper survived.

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But hope springs eternal in the beer suds at the Ariel tavern on the anniversary date of Cooper's jump from Northwest Airlines Flight 305.

Ninety-five percent of the people at the party don't think he got killed, but that might be wishful thinking," said tavern owner Dave Fisher, president of the 400-member D.B. Cooper Fan Club.

Fisher has turned the anniversary party into a bash complete with rock bands, chili dinner, prizes and T-shirts emblazoned with a cartoon of the never-seen-again skyjacker dropping by parachute with $20 bills floating around him.

Every year there are people at the party who think Cooper's there, too," said Fisher. "Up until a couple of years ago, there were FBI agents coming to the party. They're easy to spot. They don't look like they fit in."

But Cooper, in investigator Himmelsbach's view, is long dead, his remains literally swallowed up by wildlife in the woods or crayfish in the river.

"As an investigator, you have to keep your mind open," said Himmelsbach, who now works for the Oregon State Department of Justice.

"But when that little boy found that money in the river bank, I figured he (Cooper) lost his life."

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D.B. Cooper, last "seen" in his 1973 FBI sketch, would be in his middle-to-late 50s.

164-81 - 8786

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FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-19673