Part 62, page 202

Transcript

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

A container or some other wrapper must have held the money together or the bills would not have been found side by side after eight years, he said. But agents have no trace of such a container, or even the parachute bag Cooper was believed to have used.

Williams said the FBI has not determined whether the money could have survived the force of the dredging equip- ment if it had been sucked from the bed of the river.

He also said hydrolo- gists were being con- sulted about how the money might have reached the site, about 20 miles south of where Cooper was believed to have jumped. Williams said the FBI was consider- ing the possibility that the money may even have drifted upstream, guided by the force of ocean tides during periods of low water in the Colum- bia River.

"It does probably raise as many questions as an- swers — perhaps more," said agent Paul Hudson, coordinator of the dig- ging efforts. "In my own mind, I can rule out the possibility that it was bur- ied here."

The site, about five miles northwest of Van- couver, Wash., is several miles downstream from the flight path of the airliner on its way to Reno from Seattle.

Using cabin-pressure data from the 727's flight recorder, the FBI plotted a trapezoid-shaped area in which Cooper was likely to have landed.

"This, of course, is out- side of that trapezoid," agent Tom Nicodemus said.

Hudson said the money and the hijacker could have come down in a number of drainages, all of which end up in the half-mile-wide Columbia. He said the round shape of the crumbling wads of money indicated that the cash could have tumbled along a stream bed.

The search was broken off at nightfall yesterday, and the excavation site was kept under guard. [guess: The search] is to continue today.

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DB Cooper-25909