Part 54, page 177

Transcript

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

"Parachute experts tell us he [guess: most likely] would have been snapped off his [guess: feet] when he stepped out into a 196-mile-an- hour slipstream; his eyes would have been blacked by the force of the wind and he probably would have tumbled out of control. He would have landed in his stocking feet, blinded by the slip- stream, and the raging storm.

"With that 28-foot canopy he would have descended 26 miles an hour verti- cally. Add a 30 to 55 mile- an-hour wind and he would have hit at a speed of 50 to 70 miles an hour. The experts say it is inconceivable that he could have es- caped serious injury or instant death -- even assuming his parachute opened."

How does the FBI know Cooper bailed out near La Center and landed somewhere along the Lewis River? The two Air Defense Command F106 jet in- terceptors which followed the 727 through the overcast that dark, stormy night, saw nothing. There was no radio transmitter on the parachutes delivered to the hijacker, which would have per- mitted pursuers to follow his trajectory as he bailed out.

But the FBI, with the aid of North- west Airlines reconstructed the whole hijacking six weeks after the crime.

"The first week in January, 1972, we flew a Northwest 727 exactly like flight 305 over the same route with the same load, the same power settings, the same flap settings, same use of landing gear, from Seattle south. We had Will- iam Rataczak, first officer on the hi- jacked plane, at the controls," Himmels- bach said.

"Over the Lewis River, 35 miles north of Portland, the rear stairway was lowered and a 235-pound sled dropped off while a chase plane photo- graphed its trajectory as it parachuted to the ground.

"As the load left the stairway it re- tracted to within eight inches of clos- ing, then dropped back down. The re- sult was a marked fluctuation in the cabin air pressure which caused the crews' ears to pop and registered a rap- id change in the rate of pressurization on instruments in the cockpit.

"Rataczak said: 'That's just the way it was at 8:10 p.m. Nov. 24.' Only the crew didn't know what it meant then. They didn't know he had bailed out until they landed at Reno and found the plane empty."

The same rapid fluctuations in air pressure were noted in three bailouts from 727 airliners in the next few months, before the FAA ordered all rear doors rigged so they could not be opened in flight.

"There has not been a successful hijacking in the U.S since," Himmelsbach emphasized. "And none of the hi- jackers who succeeded in bailing out got away with the money. All were quickly caught and the money recov- ered."

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The re-enactment of the hijacking was conducted in fair weather. But en- gineers fed into their computers es- timated delays in opening the para- chute, known speed of descent, wind velocity and direction and came up with an area 6 ½ miles long and 4 miles wide. The FBI assumes Cooper landed somewhere within this "target area," which barely includes Lake Merwin in its northeast corner.

Cooper couldn't have chosen a [illegible]

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DB Cooper-23106