Part 53, page 171

Transcript

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

the pilot five minutes be- fore he landed. The plane coasted to a stop at 5:45 p.m. in front of the airport's main adminis- tration building about one- half mile from the passen- ger terminal. The hijacker at first in- sisted that the plane be stopped in a brightly lit por- tion of the airport, but he settled for the isolated area rather than park in front of the passenger complex. The hijacker messaged through the pilot that he wanted fuel "out here right now." Northwest Orient head- quarters in Minneapolis asked the FBI not to take any action to board the plane or to capture the hi- jacker, and Milnes said agents complied "in every way" with the hijacker's orders. The pilot told the tower that he wanted no vehicles or people approaching the plane until "we get coordi- nated with our friend in the back." The passengers and two stewardesses were allowed off the plane and were taken by bus to the terminal. The two stewardesses were identified as Alice Hancock and Florence Schaffner. Only one vehicle was al- lowed to approach the plane at a time and delays in re- fueling created an extreme- ly tense situation during which the pilot expressed some irritation over the hour and a half it took to load 4,960 pounds of fuel. The hijacker, Scott told the tower, was very antsy." Twenty minutes after the plane landed however, the money, the parachutes, and meals for the hijacker and the crew were on board. The hijacker and FAA of- ficials negotiated for about two hours before he told the pilot, "Let's get the show on the road." The plane took off at 7:41 p.m, after the pilot told the FAA control tower, "sorry for all the trouble." A controller replied, "that's all right, no prob- lem." The hijacker was de-

---

scribed by the passengers as dark co[guess: complexioned] and "very relaxed." "We had no idea there was a hijacker involved un- til we got off the plane," said Arnold Andvik, a pas- senger from Seattle. The hijacker set a course for Reno, about 500 miles from Sea-Tac. The plane had enough fuel to travel about 2,000 miles under normal conditions, but of- ficials said with the flaps and wheels down the plane would burn an enormous amount of fuel. The 727 was tailed by

---

three military planes on its flight to Reno. A public information offi- cer at Hamilton Air Force Base 30 miles north of San Francisco reported that an Air Force F106 jet fighter and a T33 jet trainer had followed the hijacked airlin- er out of Seattle. The Hamilton AFB spokesman said an HC130 rescue plane was launched from Hamilton "as a pre- cautionary measure." The spokesman said the HC130 had rescue equip- ment and parachute rescue jumpers on board.

---

An FBI spokesman in Se- attle said a man identified as Michael Cooper was being investigated in con- nection with the hijack. The Associated Press re- ported from Missoula, Mont., that Leonard Kraut of the U.S. Forest Service smokejumper training cen- ter said he had been con- tacted by the FBI. Kraut said he told the FBI that no man by that name had "jumped from this base." Police in Missoula said a Michael Cooper grew up there, but they had no

---

record on him. A Boeing Co., spokesman said it would "be a very safe drop" to bail out of the 727, which is one of the few commercial aircraft from which a person could bail out. An FAA supervisor who monitored the plane's radio said the hijacker was in the back of the airplane and "everyone else is in the front. "I guess he doesn't want them to know what he's doing," the supervisor said.

---

DB Cooper-22509