Part 53, page 114

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

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Rain, Snow Hamper FBI in Hijacker Search

WOODLAND, Cowlitz County — Teams of FBI agents, hampered by rain and snow, searched through muddy foothills without success yesterday for clues to a middle-aged hijacker who vanished after parachuting from an airliner with $200,000 ransom.

With planes grounded by the cloudy weather, the so-far fruitless four-day search was left up to crews on the ground. With darkness closing in and no break in the weather in sight, they gave up the search for the night.

"The whole area has been socked in consistently," said FBI special agent Julius Mattson. "It is a little

worrisome, but we are stuck with it."

The only tidbit of new information — a motorist's sighting of a possible parachute hanging from a tree 60 miles north of here — proved to be false when authorities checked it out.

Acting on computerized data from the hijacked plane's in-flight recorder

and the "hunch" of the agent in charge of the search, the FBI has concentrated its hunt for four days in a 15 square-mile patch of heavily wooded country. They've found nothing.

Tom Manning, FBI agent in charge of the search, has insisted that the skyjacker parachuted Wednesday night from a Northwest Air-

lines 727 into a three-by-five-mile strip of timbered Cascade Mountain foothills about 35 miles north of Portland, Ore. He said the jumper, who was wearing street shoes, could have suffered a broken leg.

Using a "bomb," the hijacker forced the plane from Portland to land at Seattle, where he was given the ransom in $20 bills in a white canvas bag and four sporting parachutes. He ordered the plane to fly to Mexico but was not aboard when it landed at Reno, Nev., for refueling.

"We've taken radar reports, it's all been computerized and we feel he's in this area," Manning said from his Woodland headquarters. The estimate was based on the plane's in-flight recorder, which showed when the hijacker lowered the 727's rear steps and a "slight change in attitude" three minutes later, indicating he had jumped.

The FBI issued a composite drawing of the hijacker Saturday, describing him as a-"soft speaker, polite, with a conventional business style hairdo."

The skyjacker, who

boarded the plane under the name D. B. Cooper, was described as a "white with an olive complexion," 6-foot-1, 170-175 pounds, in his mid-40s, with black hair, and brown eyes. He wore brown

tint glasses in black plastic frames, a dark suit or sports coat and slacks, white shirt with narrow black tie, black trench-coat and black oxford shoes.

The FBI announced plans

to search the airliner's entire route from Seattle to Reno as soon as the weather clears. But rain and snow yesterday covered the route over Portland and Medford, Ore., and Red Bluff, Calif.

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

p. A12 Seattle Post- Intelligencer Seattle, Wash.

Date: 11/29/71 Edition: Final Author: Editor: Dick Lyall Title:UNSUB; aka Dan Cooper; Northwest Air- lines Fl.305, PD to Character: SE, 11/24/71 or CAA-HIJACKING;EXT Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

☐ Being Investigated

COPY SENT TO BUREAU

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DB Cooper-22452