Part 54, page 174

Transcript

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

and perhaps a traditional game of bridge or Monopoly later. But one didn't. Dan Cooper paid cash for his ticket, then, clutching a paper sack, boarded the Boeing 727 for the 30-minute flight. A few minutes after the plane nosed into the storm, he made his move. He showed the stewardess what he said was a dynamite bomb and de- manded four parachutes, $200,000 in $20 bills, and "no funny stuff." All the passengers but Cooper got off at Seattle, una- ware that anything was amiss. The money and parachutes were put on board and the jet, with only the crew and Cooper aboard, headed for Reno on Cooper's orders. Then somewhere over south- west Washington Cooper, with the 21 pounds of money strap- ped to him, bailed out. He hasn't been heard from since. If he's alive, and that's a big "if," the five-year statute of limitations runs out this Thanksgiving eve, Nov. 24. Or does it? "We're going ahead on the assumption that the statute doesn't apply, because when he did what he did, capital punishment was a possibility. There's no statute on capital

---

that Cooper is dead. "Not one of the 10,000 bills has shown up, and we know the serial number of every one of them," he said. And Cooper apparently knew no- thing about skydiving. In a business suit and street shoes, he jumped from the rear door of a jet going 197 m.p.h. at 10,000 feet. At that elevation it was seven below zero that night, with a wind- chill factor of 69 below zero. "On top of that, he probably lost his shoes (from wind shock) as he jumped," Him- melsbach said. The plane was in clouds. "Up looked like down to him. He had no visual reference. He couldn't have possibly known where he was. Himmelsbach wonders if he cared. "In another 30 minutes he could have been over the Wil- lamette Valley, and almost anyplace he jumped would have been safe to land," he said. Instead, Cooper picked some of the roughest country in the Pacific Northwest. He took two of the four parachutes with him when he jumped. One was a small emergency chute of the type used by stunt flyers. Under ideal conditions, someone who knew what he was doing might break an ankle or leg with it.

---

(AP Newsfeatures Photo) COMPOSITE DRAWING OF HIJACKER DAN COOPER Parachuted Into Washington With $200,000

---

DB Cooper-23103

---

PEOPLE [REALLY] SELECT[ED] LOVE IT[...]