Part 54, page 44

Transcript

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

FD-350 (REV. 7-16-63)

---

Original Hijacker Just Fading Memory

---

By KEN JUMPER Journal Staff Writer

To many of the public, he is a modern-day Robin Hood or a swashbuckling daredev-il cast from the same mold as fiction's Capt. Blood.

To dismayed law enforcement officers, he is the evil genius who became the grandfather of a crime that still is being committed in the nation's airways with alarming frequency.

BUT HOWEVER his actions are assessed, "D. B. Cooper" already has become a legend, a year after he became the first man to hijack an airliner solely for profit and not political reasons.

The saga of "D. B. Cooper," if it can be called that, began at Portland International Airport the evening of Nov. 24, 1971, when he purchased a ticket and boarded Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, bound for Seattle.

Before that Thanksgiving Eve had ended, the man, known as D. B. Cooper had presented a note to a stewardess that said he was taking the command of the aircraft, a 727 jet, and he displayed what appeared to her to be several sticks of dynamite wired together as an explosive device.

IN THE NOTE, the hijacker demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes. After some palaver in the air and on the ground at Seattle, his demands were met and the aircraft took off again, bound for Reno at Cooper's instruction.

The plane reached Reno, but D. B. Cooper was not aboard.

A flight recorder indicated the hijacker had opened the rear door of the aircraft at 8:13 p.m., not too long after leaving Seattle. It was assumed that Cooper parachuted about that time.

THE SEARCH mounted by the FBI and Washington State officials centered in the rugged countryside near Woodland, Wash. Hundreds of men — eventually units of the First Squadron of the 3rd, Armored Cavalry at Ft. Lewis were pressed into duty — and aircraft concentrated on the area.

But it was to no avail and as the winter wore on the intensity of the search slackened. D. B. Cooper apparently had vanished from the face of the earth.

There was the usual spate of letters to newspapers and law enforcement agencies over the country, purported-ly authored by the nocturnal parachutist.

ONE SUCH letter, to the New York Times, had a mixture of bravado, remorse, and plaintiveness in it.

"I knew from the start that I wouldn't be caught," the letter said.

"I didn't rob Northwest Orient because I thought it would be romantic, heroic or any of the other euphemisms that seem to attach themselves to high risk.

"I'm no modern day Robin Hood. Unfortunately, I do have only 14 months to live."

---

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

/ THE OREGON JOURNAL Dec 1 PORTLAND, OREGON

Date: 11-24-72 Edition: Author: Editor: Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: ☐ Being Investigated

le 4- 41-Serb1 SEARCHED _______ H:CI XCD_______ SERIALIZED _[illegible]_

---

DB Cooper-22970