Part 65, page 162

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p.Cl Oregonian Portland, Wa. Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Final

Title:

Character: or Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle

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Bills 1st solid clue in hijack mystery

By LEVERETT RICHARDS of The Oregonian staff

The weathered bundles of $20 bills found on the Washington bank of the Columbia River nine miles northwest of Vancouver on Sunday were the first solid clues to the mystery of the "Dan Cooper" aircraft hijacking, FBI agents said Tuesday.

One of the more intensive searches in the FBI's history had failed to turn up any clue to the fate of the mysterious hijacker or his loot during the eight years since he bailed out of a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 flying at 7,000 feet over La Center, Wash., on Nov. 24, 1971, FBI spokesmen said.

Cooper's was the first hijacking of a commercial airliner for money, and started a chain of similar attempts, which was responsible in part for the rigid security system now enforced at all United States airports and most major airports abroad.

Because of an erroneous report of the name used by the hijacker, he became known nationally as D.B. Cooper, although the airline manifest showed he had used the name "Dan."

The man who called himself Cooper paid cash for a ticket and boarded Northwest's Flight 305 at Portland International Airport just before it departed. He sat in a rear seat in the cabin and waited until the plane was airborne. Then he handed stewardess Florence Schaffner a note saying he had a bomb in the satchel he was carrying and demanding $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills.

By the time the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at 5:45 p.m., airline officials were gathering the money and the four parachutes he had demanded. The hijacker released the 36 passengers on board, along with all crew members except one stewardess and two pilots. The plane then took off and headed south at 7,000 feet in stormy weather.

At 8:10 p.m. the pilots felt a fluctuation in cabin pressure which indicated the rear door had been opened. Later tests showed this was when the hijacker had bailed out, taking with him the money and the device that he claimed was a bomb.

Computer calculations and a later reconstruction of the flight persuaded the FBI that Cooper had bailed out near Woodland, Wash., and would have landed somewhere west of Lake Merwin.

William Rataczak, first officer (co-pilot) on the hijacked plane who flew the later reconstructions of the hijack flight, said the pilots received no answer when they called on the interphone to their passenger and were not certain he was gone until they landed in Reno, Nev., at 11 p.m.

The "target area" was searched repeatedly by the FBI, other law enforcement officers and soldiers from Fort Lewis, Wash., but no trace of man or money was found. Northwest Airlines offered a reward, since expired, and hunters and woodsmen continued the search for years without success.

Before Sunday, the only item that had been found from the hijacking was a placard believed to have blown off the bulkhead of the 727 when the door was opened in flight.

It was found 13 miles east of Castle Rock, Wash., in January 1979. The placard, if indeed it came from the hijacked plane, "helped to confirm that the plane was on course all the way, but didn't shed any light on what happened to Cooper," said FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who headed the investigation.

After eight years of investigation, Himmelsbach has said he still believes Cooper could not have survived the parachute jump at 7 degrees below zero, dressed as he was in a light business suit and street shoes.

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SEARCHED......|INDEXED...... SERIALIZED....|FILED........ FEB 25 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

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Subs: B, E1 4, M

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SUB G [illegible]-81-[illegible] DB Cooper-27420 FBI/DOJ