Part 51, page 211
Document date 4 November 1998
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 51 p. 211 (DB Cooper-21328), Letter, dated 4 Nov 1998 — cooper.theunsolved.net/parts/Cooper-Part-51/pages/211
Transcript
The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.
b6 b7C
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[REDACTED] Punta Gorda, FL [REDACTED]
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Re: News article from Associated Press dated 11/25/96
November 4, 1998
Federal Bureau of Investigation 915 Second Ave. Room 710 Seattle, WA 98174
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am doing a study of the D. B. Cooper hijacking that may or may not have been successful, and there are a number of questions that are quite puzzling to me, and probably many other folks also, and I'm hoping your office might be able to supply some insight.
My questions have to do with a few things that were not made clear in the news articles, and perhaps there are reasons for the omissions, or maybe no one thought they were important.
The first inquiry has to do with the type of conveyance used to carry the money. If it was some sort of a satchel with a handle or a heavier hand-bag or zippered bag, and he bailed out with two chutes on, he would be traveling at free-fall speed of about, what, sixty miles an hour or so? He would never be able to hold on to the bag when the chute popped open. If he were carrying the money in a package, he would have lost it.
The article also said that there were two pilots and a flight attendant aboard, when the plane took off from Seatac Airport. All of the passengers and two flight attendants deplaned there as part of the deal, and the money and four parachutes were put aboard. Now the Boeing 727 requires a three-man crew—what happened to the flight engineer? Did Cooper not know he was up there? Did he get off with the passengers? If not, there were five people aboard not four. In addition, the B-727 is a difficult aircraft to operate without a flight engineer that operates all of the systems.
Cooper had asked for four parachutes. Has anyone figured out why he wanted four chutes?
Another question that's troubling me; where did you get four parachutes late at night? That's a hard thing to find during daylight hours! I'm assuming they were military—almost had to be.
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1 DB Cooper-21328