Part 53, page 208

Transcript

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

Skyjacker Cooper: still a folk hero, still a mystery

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two years after parachuting from a Northwest Airlines jet with $200,000 in ransom money, the skyjacker known as Dan Cooper remains a folk hero and a mystery. He is, according to the U.S. Department of Trans- portation, the only person ever to hijack a domestic airliner who has not been killed or brought to justice. "We really knew nothing more about him today than we did at 11 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1971," says Julius Mattsen, special agent in charge of the Portland FBI of- fice. Authorities said this is what happened on that Thanksgiv- ing Eve: A man who gave his name as Dan Cooper bought a one- way ticket at Portland Inter- national Airport to Seattle aboard Northwest Airlines' Flight 305 which originated in Washington, D.C. No antihijacking measures were in operation as the 35 passengers boarded the Boeing 727 for the 25-minute flight. Once in the air, Cooper handed stewardess Tina Mucklow a note saying he had a bomb. Following Cooper's orders, Miss Mucklow sat be- side the skyjacker and wrote down instructions to the pilot.

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HE WANTED 10,000 $20 bills to be delivered to him at Seattle in a laundry sack, along with two sets of para- chutes. Otherwise he threat- ened to blow up the plane. Airline officials and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents complied with his requests and Cooper allowed the pas- sengers and two of the three stewardesses to disembark at Seattle. Then he ordered the plane to fly south to Reno, Nev., at 200 miles per hour, at 10,000 feet, flaps down. The crew was to stay in the cockpit. After takeoff from Seattle, a red light flashed in the cockpit indicating the plane's rear boarding ramp had been un- latched. Nothing was heard from Cooper for about 20 minutes. At 8:10 p.m., as the plane

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crossed the Lewis River in southwestern Washington. Capt. William Scott thought the hijacker was having trouble with the ramp and called back over the plane's interphone: "Anything we can do for you?" There was no answer.

ANOTHER LIGHT flashed showing the ramp was fully extended. A few seconds later the hijacker came back on the interphone: "No." That was the last ever heard of him.

When the plane landed in Reno, the rear ramp was down and Cooper was gone. The 21- pound sack of money was gone. One set of parachutes was gone. The skyjacker, who had carefully reclaimed his note to the stewardess, had left no fingerprints. Authorities believed Cooper jumped from the plane near Woodland, Wash. The town was transformed into a bus- tling command post for a small army of newsmen and dozens of FBI agents, police and soldiers from Ft. Lewis. With planes, helicopters, Jeeps and track dogs, they combed the vast, densely wooded region northeast of Woodland. Much of it was rug- ged terrain, thick with freshly

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1, 4-81- Sub B

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SEARCHED _____ INDEXED _____ SERIALIZED ___ FILED ___ JAN 7 1973 FBI—SEATTLE

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DB Cooper-22546