Part 63, page 186

Transcript

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FBI's Search for Parachuting Skyjacker No Picnic Around PP&L's Merwin Area

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PP&L's Merwin Park could have passed for a mini-military base last month when the FBI and the U.S. Army moved in to resume the search for the mysterious "D.B. Cooper" who hijacked a Northwest Airlines 727 last November, demanded $200,000 in ransom and parachuted with the money into the rainy night—most likely as the plane was over the Lake Merwin area.

The area was pinpointed by the FBI based on the position of the plane when the crew last spoke to the skyjacker over the plane's phone approximately two miles east of Woodland. Winds between 25 and 40 miles per hour were taken into account in determining that the hijacker could have drifted toward Lake Merwin.

A portion of the Company's property and surrounding area on the Lewis River in southwestern Washington was searched following the skyjacking but the November weather hindered the operation.

Then in March, four months after the

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event, the FBI contacted Pacific wanting to renew the search of the rugged, wooded terrain and use Merwin Park as its headquarters. Two weeks later 200 men, nine helicopters and the support facilities needed to maintain the men and machines of the squadron from Ft. Lewis moved into the Company's recreational facility to assist in the air and ground search.

The resumption of the search, although what prompted it was not made public, was coordinated with PP&L personnel. Tom Selliken, assistant vice president in charge of insurance and security, along with Larry Ouzts, loss prevention engineer; G. Eldon Drennan, vice president of engineering and power operations; Stan Piper, division power superintendent; and Joe Nichols, manager of public affairs, met with the FBI to help determine measures that would insure the security of PP&L's hydroelectric dam and property.

Normally open to the public, the park

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was closed during the search to guard against crowds of curious people on the grounds.

The command post for the operation where FBI agents coordinated men and helicopters was set up in one of the Company buildings at the site. The troops were bivouacked in the adjoining park area which also served as a helicopter pad.

The man who boarded the plane in Portland as "D.B. Cooper" literally vanished into the air that November night and as this issue went to press nothing new had been unearthed in the recent search.

This fact, coupled with a popular theory that the skyjacker ended up entangled in a tree in below-freezing weather and never made it any farther, may make looking for "D.B. Cooper" and the $200,000 ransom a recreational fad on the Lewis River this summer.

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DB Cooper-26605