Part 54, page 167

Transcript

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

D. B. Cooper, dead or alive?

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(Continued from A-1)

and with renewed urgency are law enforcement officers who hope to find the answer before the five-year statute of limitations on the skyjacking expires on Nov. 24, 1976.

"He could be arrested after then for possessing stolen property, but unless we get a 'John Doe,' alias D. B. Cooper, warrant issued before the five years, the (skyjacking) statute of limitations will have expired," Special FBI Agent Thomas Manning said.

Speaking to the Grays Harbor Footprinters recently, Manning, the agent in charge of the Cooper investigation, detailed the sequence of events after Cooper received $200,000 in ransom and four parachutes at Sea-Tac airport and let the 36 passengers get off, the plane.

"Cooper told the stewardess to go up into the cabin with the pilot," Manning said.

Then, at 8:10 p.m., he opened the 727's rear door, which triggered an alarm light

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in the cabin.

WHEN HE SAW the light, the pilot asked Cooper if he was all right and heard the last known word from the skyjacker.

Cooper was wearing a light topcoat, brown loafers and a black suit when he leaped from the plane and into perhaps 20 below zero temperatures outside, Manning said.

The agent added that one expert told him the turbulence at that altitude and the speed of the plane may have torn the shoes from Cooper's feet and the cold may have rendered him at least temporarily unconscious.

But even those conditions may not have prevented him from pulling the ripcord on the parachute and floating to a safe landing.

SINCE IT WAS dark and the sky overcast, the two U.S. Air Force chase planes couldn't see when or where Cooper left the plane.

"When he left that plane, he was

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facing tremendous obstacles," the agent said.

Manning said he feels the answer to the D. B. Cooper case may be within the grasp of lawmen.

Somewhere, maybe in Aberdeen, Hoquiam or any other community in the country, there may be a missing persons report which matches D. B. Cooper's description, he said.

Such a report may be the missing link, he added.

"Or, as always in a case like this, spending the money is a problem," he said.

THE $200,000 in ransom Cooper collected is still missing and not one of the bills copied by the FBI to record the serial numbers has ever been reported found, he said.

But Manning supports his theory that Cooper drowned in Lake Merwin.

"Everybody has a theory," he said.

"Someday, someone is going to call me and say: 'Tom, there's a lot of money floating around on the surface of Lake Merwin,'" Manning said.

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DB Cooper-23096