Part 53, page 126

Transcript

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tampered-with chutes. The hijacker knew enough to order the plane down with lowered flaps and land- ing gear with the rear door open. The effect of this was to hold the plane to its low- est possible cruising speed —about 200 m.p.h. The hi- jacker also ordered the pilot to remain below 10,000 feet, a height at which a man is still able to breath fairly easily. Seattle-parachutists, dis- cussing the hijacker's feat,

are agreed that it is entire- ly feasible. Cossey, who made the chute upon which the hi- jacker's life would depend, expressed in fact, some ad- miration for the skydiving robber. But he and other chutists expressed doubts that the hijacker could have held anything in his hands dur- ing the jump. "He would have had to tuck the money someplace or he would lose it," Cossey said. The chutist also said the hijacker could "free-fall" for as long as 40 seconds if he had jumped from an alti- tude of 10,000 feet. "But it's awfully hard to judge altitude at night," he said, adding, "I would think he would want to open the chute soon after he jumps." FBI agents last night still were unable to identify the hijacker. An agent in Port- land said "D. B. Cooper" was the name the man used when he bought his ticket, "but he's probably no more D. B. Cooper than I am." (A Michael Cooper from Missoula was one of the 36 passengers interviewed briefly by the FBI at Seat- tle-Tacoma Airport after the plane landed.) Several Portland area persons active in parachut- ing activities there were questioned by FBI agents but were unable to offer clues to the hijacker's iden- tity. The area of Clark County now being searched by the FBI with the aid of deputies from Clark and Cowlitz counties is the area where the pilot last talked with the hijacker. "If he's in the area, we'll dig him out of the wood- work somehow," an FBI spokesman said. Or, as Undersheriff Mc- Dowell put it: "We're either looking for a parachute or a hole in the ground."

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