agreed, but let me ask this..out of the 400,000 does anyone know if any of them committed any crimes like bank robberies. I guess it would be a rather large task to check though. today it would be simple...

People working for companies like Boeing and on government contracts would undergo some type of background check even if they didn't need a security clearance.  In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that Cooper had a criminal background.

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OK, why weren't tests of the tie ordered? Sure this was pre DNA forensics, but pollen, fibers and other telling particles might have been found. I'm baffled why they just tagged and bagged it.

You mean Tom's tests? Ask Tom.

I've seen discussion about the tie being connected to Boeing, industrial chemicals, Tektronix, a dentist's office, etc.  Check out the link below about the daily operation of a railroad.  Go to about 13:40 and watch to 14:15 or so, just 35 seconds. It shows a train going into the repair yard, and men working with lathes, drill presses, torches, and grinders.   If it was a Boeing or Tektronix employee, wouldn't they have been caught? I understand that many people want to focus solely on Boeing, but if we are talking about dentist's offices, couldn't the particles have come from somewhere besides Boeing?

Absolutely, IMO Boeing is a poor match..

The tie particles don't really fit a railyard shop and tie wearing,, lack of steel and asbestos and positive for Yttrium for example. Railyards lack the "rare earths" particle environment.

I think the rareness of Yttrium is the key..

I have never understood why so many seem to think Coop could have EASILY been a Boeing employee! Why ? The Portland Boeing plant is located less than 10 miles from Portland Airport ! Not much different distant of Boeing plant from SeaTac! Is anyone so naive to think Coop’s Coworkers wouldn’t recognize him? Tektronics isn’t that far away from Portland Airport either !

No one is claiming that Cooper called in sick from his Boeing job so that he could hijack the airliner.  But everything that Cooper said about the Boeing 727 was more or less public knowledge in early 1964.  Cooper could have been a contractor or such for Boeing working in a very small group of people who might not have recognized him if he had previously worn a mustache or beard.

So don't dismiss the Boeing connection unless you have real solid information on the matter.

No I’m not dismissing it and of course nobody has any solid information one way or the other. I’m simply saying I find it unlikely that anyone working at Nearby Boeing or Tektronic would not recognize Coop ! My older brother worked at Portland’s Boeing facilities until he retired. Trust me everyone in plant was very aware of the D B Cooper heist !

Hello.  I am hoping that someone can answer a question for me.  If Cooper wasn't overly concerned with his own safety, how small of a rig could he have packed and still had a reasonable chance at surviving a jump?  I'm assuming that a primary chute without a reserve, or vice versa, would be smaller than having both, and that a smaller canopy would pack into a smaller volume container.

The reason that I am asking is that I wonder whether the bag that Cooper was reportedly carrying when he boarded the plane might have contained a chute.  In McCoy's hijacking, he brought his own chute, and tossed the chutes that were provided to him to throw off search parties, because he believed they would contain tracking devices.  Isn't it reasonable to assume that Cooper would have had similar fears?  The fact that he asked for two of each kind of chute seems to generally be interpreted to mean that he wanted to give the impression that he was going to be jumping with a hostage to prevent the FBI from giving him a dummy chute.  If he was concerned about that, wouldn't it make more sense to try to sneak his own rig onto the plane?

IF you really wanted to go bare bones, you could just take a harness and a canopy, no container, no ripcord. Toss the canopy out while standing on the stairs and let it pull you off. The smallest (volume) 1971 era commonly available canopy that could do the job was probably a mil surplus 24 ft ripstop reserve canopy. I MIGHT be able to stuff all that into a large shopping bag if I compressed and secured the canopy with string or some other easily breakable material. Look at a chest reserve pic to generally see how much you can compress such a canopy. The container adds a bit of volume.

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Do I think Cooper did this? No, I don't. Why wasn't he concerned about radio locator beacons like McCoy was? Not sure. Maybe he didn't care. He knew that his exit would be detected even without a beacon and hoped to ditch the gear and escape the area fast before cops were led to the gear.

377

Thank you for the information, 377! 

I should start by apologizing for what is going to be a very long post.  I have been looking for people to discuss Cooper with for a long time.  So, I'm sorry if this is more than anyone wants to read, but here goes:

I'm very far from being the type of person who could pull off what Cooper tried.  So, my guesses about his plan should be taken very lightly, but I have a few theories.  They require a little bit of a leap (sorry for the pun).  The leap is that I assume that Cooper was the type of person who could have pulled off this job.  I'm not saying that he did pull it off.  I'm just saying that I think his background was the type of background one would need to have a chance at pulling off this skyjacking.  I base this primarily on the witness statements about how he acted, and also how he didn't act.  The main reasons that I think he was capable of this are how calm he supposedly was as he waited for the plane to take off, how unfazed he seems to have been when the money was brought to him in bags that would severely impact his plan, the fact that he was able to keep his calm sitting in an airplane on a runway surrounded by FBI agents, and the fact that he supposedly knew when they were trying to BS him about how long it would take to refuel the plane.  I get that it's possible for a guy to be delusional, and maybe be able to be able to sneak a fake bomb back in those days, but to be able to calmly negotiate with the FBI while doing all of this makes me think that he wasn't delusional.  If he wasn't delusional, that means that he was either suicidal, or he had a reasonable belief that he might be able to pull this job off.  Suicidal doesn't seem realistic on this one to me.  So, I'm making what I admit is a big assumption in believing that he had a background that made it reasonable to believe he might be able to succeed with this skyjacking.  Based on that big assumption, here are my thoughts:

1. He would have probably preferred to bring his own rig.  I know that I mentioned the possibility of tracking devices on the chutes from the FBI.
 There is also the possibility that they would give him non-functioning chutes (either on purpose, or by mistake).  That would seem to be the most logical explanation for why he would have asked for two of each type of chute.  Also, I'm not a skydiver, but I know that people generally tend to prefer their own gear in other types of activities.  If I come into work, and my computer is down, I hate working on a loaner.  Baseball players prefer to use their own bat, instead of a teammate's.  Chefs bring their own knives with them to cooking competitions.  I would think that, for a life or death thing like skydiving, the desire to bring gear that you can vouch for would be even greater.  I know that this last point could be wrong, since it seems like skydivers frequently have their chutes packed by someone else, but I would think that Cooper would have at least wanted some sort of familiarity with who was packing the chute.  I also would think that he would care which kind of chute it was.  The fact that he didn't specify makes me think that he didn't care, because he never intended to use the chute.

2.  If I was planning this sort of a heist, I would try to maximize every square inch of volume.  You obviously can't walk onto the plane with a giant camping backpack filled with a pair of parachutes and a week's worth of survival gear, but you can make sure that everything you carry onto that plane serves as many purposes as possible, before and after the jump.  With that idea in mind, I think that there must have been something necessary in the bag he brought on, and I think that the components of the bomb were probably devices that would be useful to him for this mission.  I'm thinking that the "red sticks" in the briefcase may have been flares.  (I believe that marine flares are red.)  I'm not sure what an Automatic Activation Device would have looked like in 71, but it seems like they would have been some sort of small object with things that looked like wires coming out of it.  So, that could easily be incorporated into the fake bomb that was described.

3.  Cooper had a general idea of how to figure out where he was, how to determine when to jump, and how to get to a meeting point after he landed.  If I'm wrong about Cooper bringing his own chute, it's possible that the mysterious bag had a blanket, or a raincoat, etc.  If I'm right about it containing a parachute though, Cooper would have had to realize that he needed a plan to get out of the elements within a reasonable amount of time.  This is where I feel like I picked up a great insight from the Walter Reca story.  I don't buy Reca's story, but I think that the railroad tidbit was a big deal.  Cooper supposedly asked the stewardess about a landmark he saw from the plane (Merwin Dam, or a military base?).  I can't imagine that he would have given away the fact that he was familiar with the area just to make idle conversation.  I think that the question must have served a purpose.  My guess is that he was trying to confirm whatever method he was using to estimate where he was, with the goal of landing close enough to get to a specific set of railroad tracks, path, or road.  The goal would then be to follow that railroad / path / road to a predetermined spot, where he would meet with an accomplice who had a vehicle.  I think it's also possible that he might have stashed a car, small boat, or even some sort of shelter with supplies.  My thought is that the flares would be a backup plan, if he wasn't able to time the jump to land where he expected.

I realize that everything that I said above is based on a total lack of knowledge about skydiving and surviving outdoors, and I realize that it is all based on a HUGE assumption, but I would really appreciate your feedback to help me refine my thoughts.

Thank you,
-sry828

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IF you really wanted to go bare bones, you could just take a harness and a canopy, no container, no ripcord. Toss the canopy out while standing on the stairs and let it pull you off. The smallest (volume) 1971 era commonly available canopy that could do the job was probably a mil surplus 24 ft ripstop reserve canopy. I MIGHT be able to stuff all that into a large shopping bag if I compressed and secured the canopy with string or some other easily breakable material. Look at a chest reserve pic to generally see how much you can compress such a canopy. The container adds a bit of volume.

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Do I think Cooper did this? No, I don't. Why wasn't he concerned about radio locator beacons like McCoy was? Not sure. Maybe he didn't care. He knew that his exit would be detected even without a beacon and hoped to ditch the gear and escape the area fast before cops were led to the gear.

377

Thank you for the information, 377! 

I should start by apologizing for what is going to be a very long post.  I have been looking for people to discuss Cooper with for a long time.  So, I'm sorry if this is more than anyone wants to read, but here goes:

I'm very far from being the type of person who could pull off what Cooper tried.  So, my guesses about his plan should be taken very lightly, but I have a few theories.  They require a little bit of a leap (sorry for the pun).  The leap is that I assume that Cooper was the type of person who could have pulled off this job.  I'm not saying that he did pull it off.  I'm just saying that I think his background was the type of background one would need to have a chance at pulling off this skyjacking.  I base this primarily on the witness statements about how he acted, and also how he didn't act.  The main reasons that I think he was capable of this are how calm he supposedly was as he waited for the plane to take off, how unfazed he seems to have been when the money was brought to him in bags that would severely impact his plan, the fact that he was able to keep his calm sitting in an airplane on a runway surrounded by FBI agents, and the fact that he supposedly knew when they were trying to BS him about how long it would take to refuel the plane.  I get that it's possible for a guy to be delusional, and maybe be able to be able to sneak a fake bomb back in those days, but to be able to calmly negotiate with the FBI while doing all of this makes me think that he wasn't delusional.  If he wasn't delusional, that means that he was either suicidal, or he had a reasonable belief that he might be able to pull this job off.  Suicidal doesn't seem realistic on this one to me.  So, I'm making what I admit is a big assumption in believing that he had a background that made it reasonable to believe he might be able to succeed with this skyjacking.  Based on that big assumption, here are my thoughts:

1. He would have probably preferred to bring his own rig.  I know that I mentioned the possibility of tracking devices on the chutes from the FBI.
 There is also the possibility that they would give him non-functioning chutes (either on purpose, or by mistake).  That would seem to be the most logical explanation for why he would have asked for two of each type of chute.  Also, I'm not a skydiver, but I know that people generally tend to prefer their own gear in other types of activities.  If I come into work, and my computer is down, I hate working on a loaner.  Baseball players prefer to use their own bat, instead of a teammate's.  Chefs bring their own knives with them to cooking competitions.  I would think that, for a life or death thing like skydiving, the desire to bring gear that you can vouch for would be even greater.  I know that this last point could be wrong, since it seems like skydivers frequently have their chutes packed by someone else, but I would think that Cooper would have at least wanted some sort of familiarity with who was packing the chute.  I also would think that he would care which kind of chute it was.  The fact that he didn't specify makes me think that he didn't care, because he never intended to use the chute.

2.  If I was planning this sort of a heist, I would try to maximize every square inch of volume.  You obviously can't walk onto the plane with a giant camping backpack filled with a pair of parachutes and a week's worth of survival gear, but you can make sure that everything you carry onto that plane serves as many purposes as possible, before and after the jump.  With that idea in mind, I think that there must have been something necessary in the bag he brought on, and I think that the components of the bomb were probably devices that would be useful to him for this mission.  I'm thinking that the "red sticks" in the briefcase may have been flares.  (I believe that marine flares are red.)  I'm not sure what an Automatic Activation Device would have looked like in 71, but it seems like they would have been some sort of small object with things that looked like wires coming out of it.  So, that could easily be incorporated into the fake bomb that was described.

3.  Cooper had a general idea of how to figure out where he was, how to determine when to jump, and how to get to a meeting point after he landed.  If I'm wrong about Cooper bringing his own chute, it's possible that the mysterious bag had a blanket, or a raincoat, etc.  If I'm right about it containing a parachute though, Cooper would have had to realize that he needed a plan to get out of the elements within a reasonable amount of time.  This is where I feel like I picked up a great insight from the Walter Reca story.  I don't buy Reca's story, but I think that the railroad tidbit was a big deal.  Cooper supposedly asked the stewardess about a landmark he saw from the plane (Merwin Dam, or a military base?).  I can't imagine that he would have given away the fact that he was familiar with the area just to make idle conversation.  I think that the question must have served a purpose.  My guess is that he was trying to confirm whatever method he was using to estimate where he was, with the goal of landing close enough to get to a specific set of railroad tracks, path, or road.  The goal would then be to follow that railroad / path / road to a predetermined spot, where he would meet with an accomplice who had a vehicle.  I think it's also possible that he might have stashed a car, small boat, or even some sort of shelter with supplies.  My thought is that the flares would be a backup plan, if he wasn't able to time the jump to land where he expected.

I realize that everything that I said above is based on a total lack of knowledge about skydiving and surviving outdoors, and I realize that it is all based on a HUGE assumption, but I would really appreciate your feedback to help me refine my thoughts.

Thank you,
-sry828

Sry828, welcome to Cooper World.  I would like to make some comments about your third paragraph above.  And trust me that this is not a personal attack.

On the flight south from Seattle, the airliner was flying at 10,000 feet above sea level.  It was above a complete overcast which was at 5000 feet with about three more cloud layers below the overcast.  So Cooper did not have a view of the ground.

Cooper also did not know which airway the airliner was using for the flight south.  He did not ask a single question about the route south or the airliner's location.  He did not have any equipment with him to determine his position.

Cooper jumped about 35 minutes after the airliner took off from Seattle. Within about 5 to 10 minutes after take off, Cooper sent Tina to the cockpit and she did not have any further contact with him.  Consequently, due to the overcast and time factor, it is not possible for Cooper to have seen Merwin Dam and/or have had a conversation about it with Tina.  And when Cooper did jump, he probably could not have known his location to within 30 or more miles.

So I think you have some problems with your ideas.  Nevertheless, good luck. 

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IF you really wanted to go bare bones, you could just take a harness and a canopy, no container, no ripcord. Toss the canopy out while standing on the stairs and let it pull you off. The smallest (volume) 1971 era commonly available canopy that could do the job was probably a mil surplus 24 ft ripstop reserve canopy. I MIGHT be able to stuff all that into a large shopping bag if I compressed and secured the canopy with string or some other easily breakable material. Look at a chest reserve pic to generally see how much you can compress such a canopy. The container adds a bit of volume.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Do I think Cooper did this? No, I don't. Why wasn't he concerned about radio locator beacons like McCoy was? Not sure. Maybe he didn't care. He knew that his exit would be detected even without a beacon and hoped to ditch the gear and escape the area fast before cops were led to the gear.

377

Thank you for the information, 377! 

I should start by apologizing for what is going to be a very long post.  I have been looking for people to discuss Cooper with for a long time.  So, I'm sorry if this is more than anyone wants to read, but here goes:

I'm very far from being the type of person who could pull off what Cooper tried.  So, my guesses about his plan should be taken very lightly, but I have a few theories.  They require a little bit of a leap (sorry for the pun).  The leap is that I assume that Cooper was the type of person who could have pulled off this job.  I'm not saying that he did pull it off.  I'm just saying that I think his background was the type of background one would need to have a chance at pulling off this skyjacking.  I base this primarily on the witness statements about how he acted, and also how he didn't act.  The main reasons that I think he was capable of this are how calm he supposedly was as he waited for the plane to take off, how unfazed he seems to have been when the money was brought to him in bags that would severely impact his plan, the fact that he was able to keep his calm sitting in an airplane on a runway surrounded by FBI agents, and the fact that he supposedly knew when they were trying to BS him about how long it would take to refuel the plane.  I get that it's possible for a guy to be delusional, and maybe be able to be able to sneak a fake bomb back in those days, but to be able to calmly negotiate with the FBI while doing all of this makes me think that he wasn't delusional.  If he wasn't delusional, that means that he was either suicidal, or he had a reasonable belief that he might be able to pull this job off.  Suicidal doesn't seem realistic on this one to me.  So, I'm making what I admit is a big assumption in believing that he had a background that made it reasonable to believe he might be able to succeed with this skyjacking.  Based on that big assumption, here are my thoughts:

1. He would have probably preferred to bring his own rig.  I know that I mentioned the possibility of tracking devices on the chutes from the FBI.
 There is also the possibility that they would give him non-functioning chutes (either on purpose, or by mistake).  That would seem to be the most logical explanation for why he would have asked for two of each type of chute.  Also, I'm not a skydiver, but I know that people generally tend to prefer their own gear in other types of activities.  If I come into work, and my computer is down, I hate working on a loaner.  Baseball players prefer to use their own bat, instead of a teammate's.  Chefs bring their own knives with them to cooking competitions.  I would think that, for a life or death thing like skydiving, the desire to bring gear that you can vouch for would be even greater.  I know that this last point could be wrong, since it seems like skydivers frequently have their chutes packed by someone else, but I would think that Cooper would have at least wanted some sort of familiarity with who was packing the chute.  I also would think that he would care which kind of chute it was.  The fact that he didn't specify makes me think that he didn't care, because he never intended to use the chute.

2.  If I was planning this sort of a heist, I would try to maximize every square inch of volume.  You obviously can't walk onto the plane with a giant camping backpack filled with a pair of parachutes and a week's worth of survival gear, but you can make sure that everything you carry onto that plane serves as many purposes as possible, before and after the jump.  With that idea in mind, I think that there must have been something necessary in the bag he brought on, and I think that the components of the bomb were probably devices that would be useful to him for this mission.  I'm thinking that the "red sticks" in the briefcase may have been flares.  (I believe that marine flares are red.)  I'm not sure what an Automatic Activation Device would have looked like in 71, but it seems like they would have been some sort of small object with things that looked like wires coming out of it.  So, that could easily be incorporated into the fake bomb that was described.

3.  Cooper had a general idea of how to figure out where he was, how to determine when to jump, and how to get to a meeting point after he landed.  If I'm wrong about Cooper bringing his own chute, it's possible that the mysterious bag had a blanket, or a raincoat, etc.  If I'm right about it containing a parachute though, Cooper would have had to realize that he needed a plan to get out of the elements within a reasonable amount of time.  This is where I feel like I picked up a great insight from the Walter Reca story.  I don't buy Reca's story, but I think that the railroad tidbit was a big deal.  Cooper supposedly asked the stewardess about a landmark he saw from the plane (Merwin Dam, or a military base?).  I can't imagine that he would have given away the fact that he was familiar with the area just to make idle conversation.  I think that the question must have served a purpose.  My guess is that he was trying to confirm whatever method he was using to estimate where he was, with the goal of landing close enough to get to a specific set of railroad tracks, path, or road.  The goal would then be to follow that railroad / path / road to a predetermined spot, where he would meet with an accomplice who had a vehicle.  I think it's also possible that he might have stashed a car, small boat, or even some sort of shelter with supplies.  My thought is that the flares would be a backup plan, if he wasn't able to time the jump to land where he expected.

I realize that everything that I said above is based on a total lack of knowledge about skydiving and surviving outdoors, and I realize that it is all based on a HUGE assumption, but I would really appreciate your feedback to help me refine my thoughts.

Thank you,
-sry828

Sry828, welcome to Cooper World.  I would like to make some comments about your third paragraph above.  And trust me that this is not a personal attack.

On the flight south from Seattle, the airliner was flying at 10,000 feet above sea level.  It was above a complete overcast which was at 5000 feet with about three more cloud layers below the overcast.  So Cooper did not have a view of the ground.

Cooper also did not know which airway the airliner was using for the flight south.  He did not ask a single question about the route south or the airliner's location.  He did not have any equipment with him to determine his position.

Cooper jumped about 35 minutes after the airliner took off from Seattle. Within about 5 to 10 minutes after take off, Cooper sent Tina to the cockpit and she did not have any further contact with him.  Consequently, due to the overcast and time factor, it is not possible for Cooper to have seen Merwin Dam and/or have had a conversation about it with Tina.  And when Cooper did jump, he probably could not have known his location to within 30 or more miles.

So I think you have some problems with your ideas.  Nevertheless, good luck.

Once again Robert, I take issue with your opinion of the weather conditions on Nov 24, 1971 and this also is NOT a personal attack ! Weather reports read .19 inch of precipitation, 14 miles visibility which is exactly average day in Portland Seattle area for that time of year. Also I note that Ratazak, Scott and Flight Engineer noted seeing the light of Portland/Vancouver out of his right window ! Also,Cooper himself identified McCord AFB to Tina ! How is that possible with 3 layers of Clouds ? I have lived in Portland area for over 55 years and flown in and out of Portland and Seattle many times and .19 inches of precipitation is not unusual. I often experience scattered clouds which must have been the actual case and there are usually glimpses of lights below. I am aware that the FBI wants the weather conditions to seem terrible but they weren’t ! I know I lived there that evening ! Just a typical day in Portland and the weather reports back up my assessment!

Sry828, welcome to Cooper World.  I would like to make some comments about your third paragraph above.  And trust me that this is not a personal attack.

On the flight south from Seattle, the airliner was flying at 10,000 feet above sea level.  It was above a complete overcast which was at 5000 feet with about three more cloud layers below the overcast.  So Cooper did not have a view of the ground.

Cooper also did not know which airway the airliner was using for the flight south.  He did not ask a single question about the route south or the airliner's location.  He did not have any equipment with him to determine his position.

Cooper jumped about 35 minutes after the airliner took off from Seattle. Within about 5 to 10 minutes after take off, Cooper sent Tina to the cockpit and she did not have any further contact with him.  Consequently, due to the overcast and time factor, it is not possible for Cooper to have seen Merwin Dam and/or have had a conversation about it with Tina.  And when Cooper did jump, he probably could not have known his location to within 30 or more miles.

So I think you have some problems with your ideas.  Nevertheless, good luck.
[/quote]

Thank you, Robert99.  I definitely didn't take your reply as a personal attack.  The reason I finally ended up registering for this site is because I wanted to hear constructive criticism of my theories, and I appreciate yours.

As for your issue with Cooper being able to determine where he was located, or see landmarks on the ground, etc.; I can't say that you're wrong.  I'm a Northeast transplant to Iowa, and the only flights I have ever been on west of Iowa would have been to LAX and McCarran.  So, I can't speak to what the conditions would have been like.  I also hadn't considered how the timing of the jump could call into question the narrative about Cooper recognizing points on the ground.

Relative to your point about him not knowing the flight path though, my understanding has always been that the altitude restriction and flap settings that Cooper demanded would have eliminated all but two flight paths, and that pilots generally agree that Victor 23 would have been the more logical choice of the two.  If Cooper had worked for an airline, or talked to people who did, he could have anticipated Victor 23 as the most likely flight path, and made some sort of contingency plan in case the pilots took the other flight path.  I'm going off of memory on the two flight paths thing, but I'll definitely look back into it when time permits.  If that point seems wrong to you, please let me know.

Thank you,
-sry828