Part 50, page 171

Transcript

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

(above) The beautiful area around Mt. Hood, Oregon, showing the awesome forests where Coffelt dropped the bag of money. (opposite page) "Don't go to Vegas. You never win. Once when I was there I put a nickel in a parking meter and lost my car." —Bryant "Jack" Coffelt. Las Vegas reporter Byron Brown holds a picture of Coffelt, who has been identified as D.B. Cooper.

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"So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all." —Kahlil Gibran The Prophet

America, and especially Las Vegas, is rife with legends of desperate characters who have suddenly struck it rich by forcing the odds, through skill or bluff, to turn in their favor — but few have been as enduringly popular as the lone bandit who heroically jumped from a lumbering jetliner into universal fame and also complete oblivion in the same moment.

He was erroneously called "D.B. Cooper" by a thrilled news media, which saw in his act the fulfillment of every man's secret hopes — even though he spelt his first name as "Dan" on his flight ticket. "D.B. Cooper,Where Are You?" became a kind of call-to-arms for the rebellious young generation during the early 1970's, when "dropping out" was the current fad. Cooper bravely symbolized the new mentality and daringly captured the public fancy with his crime. In an era when traditional heroes were fast dying, Americans had finally found one in a new breed of bandit.

Cooper's was the first and only successful skyjacking for ransom in American history, and largely because of the crime — which occurred on Thanksgiving Eve, November 24, 1971 — and a rash of other skyjackings which followed in its wake, a new era of electronic passenger screening was inaugurated at the nation's airports within a year. Commandeering a plane and threatening to blow innocent people

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out of the sky was not an exploit taken lightly by the authorities.

Clearly the crime could have resulted in tragedy, but since the daring skyjacker had not hurt anyone the public preferred to forget its more horrible aspects and instead remembered Cooper fondly as the man who had beat the system while thumbing his nose at authority. The skyjacking took on the aura of myth, Cooper's down-home, simple nom de guerre was honored everywhere, and it was hoped by many that he was happily enjoying his $200,000 in some secret paradisiacal haven.

The most erroneous part of the myth which prevailed, it is now apparent, was that Cooper was probably a small-time businessman, or even a timid corporate ladder-climber in the mold of Walter Mitty, who grew disgruntled at the pressures of modern life and decided one day to give it all up, perform a dramatic fool- proof heist, and sail off to Tahiti to spend the rest of his days in peace. Of course he had no real plan: the crime was a lark, a spur-of-the- moment decision to enact a smoldering dream —and if he failed? Then so what? It was worth the risk.

But to many familiar with the case this popular myth seemed entirely unfeasible. There were too many indications that Cooper had planned the job with cool foresight and calculated reason. He knew to the minutest detail technical aspects of the Boeing 727 air-

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craft which only a pilot or engineer could possibly know — such as the 15-degree wing- flaps configuration he ordered which restricted the plane's speed to barely 200 miles per hour, and how to put into effect the complicated maneuver of lowering the 727's rear stairway compartment. Also, another aspect which revealed the skyjacker's shrewd planning became clear only after the episode was over. On that Thanksgiving Eve — the day before a major holiday and one on which Northwest Airlines expected capacity loads of vacation travellers — Flight 305, upon departing Port- land, was barely one-third full. D.B. Cooper had called in a barrage of phony reservations — fictitious people who never showed — which left virtually the entire back half of the plane all to himself. No one could overpower him and wrest the bomb away. He was in complete control. At the time, some authorities called him a "cool master criminal" and speculated that he must have been an experienced para- chutist, possibly even a Green Beret.

The leads were so threadbare — a few cigarette butts were the only personal effects the skyjacker left behind — that the authorities were completely baffled. There was not even a solid clue as to where Cooper bailed out of the plane. The crew recalled feeling a strong "pressure bump" over the Woodland, Wash- ington area twenty miles north of Portland — but even so they never bothered to peer out the cockpit door to see if the skyjacker was gone.

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LAS VEGAN MAGAZINE DB Cooper-20776