Part 54, page 176

Transcript

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

And if he or any accomplices have survived, they are still wanted men. There is no statute of limitations for them -- ever, says Ralph Himmelsbach, veteran FBI agent who has lived with the Cooper case for the past five years, literally day and night.

"We are continuing our investiga- tion unabated," said Himmelsbach. "We don't intend to give up. I still give a substantial portion of my time to check- ing out leads. We still get several tips every week. We pledged at the outset to investigate any information we re- ceived from the public."

"We have checked more than 1,000, maybe several thousand, reports alto- gether. We have checked a long list of missing persons. And after five years we still don't know if there ever was a Dan Cooper. We have no more informa- tion on his identity today than we had five years ago."

The FBI bases its rejection of the statute of limitations on three major assumptions: There is no statute of limi- tations in capital crimes and air piracy, or aerial hijacking was a crime punish- able by death in November 1971 and still is.

There is no statute of limitations protecting fugitives from justice, ac- cording to a recent ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court in a similar case. Since Cooper has not turned himself in he is assumed to be a fugitive, if he is still alive. The same rule applies to his ac- complices, if any, Himmelsbach ex- plained.

Seizure of the aircraft with its 36 passengers and crew of six could be considered kidnaping, a crime also ex- empt from the statute of limitations where injury or death is involved.

"Personally, after five years of in- tensive investigation I lean to the con- clusion that Cooper was killed when he jumped from the plane or died soon af- ter landing. That makes it a capital crime. If he had any accomplices, which is not indicated by any evidence so far, they would be equally guilty."

To back up his conclusions, Him- melsbach for the first time, told the detailed story of the hijacking:

"Cooper was given four para- chutes," Himmelsbach said. "He cut the shroud lines on one of the best para- chutes and used them to tie the 10,000 $20 bills to his belt in a bag before he bailed out.

"He left behind the two best para- chutes — a sky diver parachute with a 32-foot canopy and a chest pack de- signed primarily for use as a second parachute.

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"He wore a pilot's seat pack para- chute with a 28-foot canopy. He also took with him a chest pack parachute used for training. It was unusable. The panels were sewn together. If it had been usable he could not have attached it to his parachute harness, which had no D-rings for use with a chest pack. No one who knew anything about para- chutes would have made this many mis- takes.

"He also either took with him or threw out the bag in which he claimed to be carrying a bomb."

Himmelsbach declined to describe the device in detail, for security rea- sons. But it was earlier described as a crude, unsophisticated device apparent- ly consisting of highway flares and a battery.

He left no fingerprints in the plane, but did leave a couple of items which the FBI is not revealing because they could help identify the hijacker or con- found any of the expected phony fame seekers who may claim to be Cooper when they think the statute of limita- tions has expired.

"Cooper could not have known where he was when he jumped," Him- melsbach said. "He did not know the exact route of flight or the altitude. The plane was on instruments in the higher of two layers of clouds all the way from Seattle to the vicinity of La Center.

"There was a radio marker beacon in the general area, but it was out of service. The hijacker could not have seen the ground and could not have de- termined his position by any kind of radio receiver, if he had one, which we don't know for sure. There was no way he could have known within miles of where he was.

"It was a stormy night, with freez- ing rain at his altitude and winds gust- ing from 25 to 45 knots at Portland International Airport, maybe stronger along the Lewis River where he bailed out. He was dressed in a business suit and Oxford type street shoes. He had no hat or goggles.

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DB Cooper-23105