what was the reason for the agent to come aboard?

My current take-away from these interviews is that NWO sanitized the crew reports, and that the inconsistencies lay more with the official reports from the airlines and the FBI than with the passengers.

First, the official reports claim the crew moved the passengers much earlier than the passengers say they moved.

Almstad and the others may be correct - maybe they did move about the plane and use the rear lav. FBI report from Alice that no one was closer than Row 14 is false.

The mechanical ruse was not as effective as the official reports indicate.

Many passengers were beginning to suspect that something was fishy before they left the plane.

Odd tid-bit. An FBI agent boarded the plane while DB Cooper was still on board - AND with the passengers still in their seats?  Yikes! That sounds like real FBI Cowboy thinking! Has this piece been scrubbed??? It's hard to imagine that the US ADA would be mistaken, especially since he knew the guy. Larry says the agents name was John Somebody; maybe Weiler, but not Sales or Detlor, whom he knew well.

Passengers - Michael Cooper Update

A neighbor of Michael's sent me several large graphic files of the Missoulian newspaper from the Thanksgiving weekend in 1971. Remember, Michael says he was teaching school at the Sentential HS in Missoula, Montana. Here are the highlights from this newspaper:

1. Michael says he was sitting ahead of the skyjacker. Michael indicates that he was in Row 17 or possibly 16, port side, on the window, which would place him in seat 17A.

2. The Missoulian says that DB Cooper was in 18C, which is what Himms claims.

3. Michael didn't buy the cockpit canard that the plane had a landing gear problem, and he thought it might be the engines. Also, the Missoulian says that the passengers didn't move forward until they touched down on the Sea-Tac runway. So, Michael "ran" forward when they landed because he thought the plane was going to burst into flames due to an engine fire.

Ironically, he sat next to the assistant US District attorney. (Larry Finegold). Oddly, Larry says he doesn't remember Michael.

4. Michael says that the hijacker looked like the FBI sketch in the papers: 5-10-6-foot, athletic build, olive complexion, late 40s, short-cropped hair, pearl tie tack, dressed in dark suit, black tie, raincoat.

5. Michael touts his geographical skills and says the plane flew a box: north to Bellingham, west to  the San Juan Islands, and south over the Hood Canal. "Flew this box several times."

6. Michael remembered the FBI roll-call on the bus and remembers them calling "D. Cooper." No one answered. Then Michael volunteered his name.

7. Michael says in several passages that he met with three FBI agents upon entering the terminal. However, by late Wednesday night, the FBI, or personages within the FBI, were convinced that Michael was the hijacker. One agent, who called Michael's employer in Missoula after 11 pm was "adamant" that Michael was the hijacker.

8. Michael had been a social studies teacher at Sentential High School in Missoula. He had left school early - and didn't ask permission or tell anyone - so when the feds called the school to verify his story, no one knew that Michael had left early or had gone to Seattle. The year prior, Michael had taught school in Europe and was flying to Seattle in part to retrieve his car from US Customs on the docks. He took Flight 305 so that he could get to Seattle before the Customs House closed for the weekend. He didn't make it in time!

9. Michael was shocked to learn that he was a suspect in the hijacking, and didn't know he was under suspicion until the 10pm news, even though he had spoken with three FBI agents at Sea-Tac. After returning home to Missoula, Michael was endlessly ribbed as "DB Cooper." He gave many public talks about his experiences, including his admonitions to others to always ask for permission to leave early and to tell others where you are going.

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Passengers - Michael Cooper Update

A neighbor of Michael's sent me several large graphic files of the Missoulian newspaper from the Thanksgiving weekend in 1971. Remember, Michael says he was teaching school at the Sentential HS in Missoula, Montana. Here are the highlights from this newspaper:

1. Michael says he was sitting ahead of the skyjacker. Michael indicates that he was in Row 17 or possibly 16, port side, on the window, which would place him in seat 17A.

2. The Missoulian says that DB Cooper was in 18C, which is what Himms claims.

3. Michael didn't buy the cockpit canard that the plane had a landing gear problem, and he thought it might be the engines. Also, the Missoulian says that the passengers didn't move forward until they touched down on the Sea-Tac runway. So, Michael "ran" forward when they landed because he thought the plane was going to burst into flames due to an engine fire.

Ironically, he sat next to the assistant US District attorney. (Larry Finegold). Oddly, Larry says he doesn't remember Michael.

4. Michael says that the hijacker looked like the FBI sketch in the papers: 5-10-6-foot, athletic build, olive complexion, late 40s, short-cropped hair, pearl tie tack, dressed in dark suit, black tie, raincoat.

5. Michael touts his geographical skills and says the plane flew a box: north to Bellingham, west to  the San Juan Islands, and south over the Hood Canal. "Flew this box several times."

6. Michael remembered the FBI roll-call on the bus and remembers them calling "D. Cooper." No one answered. Then Michael volunteered his name.

7. Michael says in several passages that he met with three FBI agents upon entering the terminal. However, by late Wednesday night, the FBI, or personages within the FBI, were convinced that Michael was the hijacker. One agent, who called Michael's employer in Missoula after 11 pm was "adamant" that Michael was the hijacker.

8. Michael had been a social studies teacher at Sentential High School in Missoula. He had left school early - and didn't ask permission or tell anyone - so when the feds called the school to verify his story, no one knew that Michael had left early or had gone to Seattle. The year prior, Michael had taught school in Europe and was flying to Seattle in part to retrieve his car from US Customs on the docks. He took Flight 305 so that he could get to Seattle before the Customs House closed for the weekend. He didn't make it in time!

9. Michael was shocked to learn that he was a suspect in the hijacking, and didn't know he was under suspicion until the 10pm news, even though he had spoken with three FBI agents at Sea-Tac. After returning home to Missoula, Michael was endlessly ribbed as "DB Cooper." He gave many public talks about his experiences, including his admonitions to others to always ask for permission to leave early and to tell others where you are going.

I did a quick search and found this article in the Deseret news from November 1996 here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Bruce....I found his contact info during a Google search. You spoke with him. Do you think he would mind if I contacted him?

Here's the AP story on Mike Cooper:
(Imagine, a HS teacher cutting classes, and then getting hijacked!)


TEACHER NAMED COOPER PICKED THE WRONG DAY TO RIDE AIRPLANE
Associated Press
Published: Saturday, Nov. 30 1996 12:00 a.m. MST


Thanksgiving Eve, 1971. The day Northwest Airlines Flight 305 was hijacked by the notorious Michael Cooper.
Well . . . D.B. Cooper. Michael Cooper was the guy sitting a row ahead. And the similarity in names for a brief time made the Montana high school social-studies teacher the most wanted man in America.

Thanksgiving Eve, 1971. The day Northwest Airlines Flight 305 was hijacked by the notorious Michael Cooper.
Well . . . D.B. Cooper. Michael Cooper was the guy sitting a row ahead. And the similarity in names for a brief time made the Montana high school social-studies teacher the most wanted man in America."

Afterwards, it scared the devil out of me," he says now. It was a lesson, Michael Cooper tells students, in how extraordinary things sometimes happen to ordinary people.

Northwest Flight 305 left Missoula at 1:13 p.m. on Nov. 24, 1971. Cooper, a 31-year-old teacher at Missoula Sentinel High School, ducked out of school early for the trip to his hometown of Sequim, Wash., where he now lives and teaches, for a family Thanks-giving.

The Boeing 727 stopped en route in Spokane, then Portland. There, the man known as D.B. Cooper boarded and took a seat in the last row of the aircraft, just behind Michael Cooper.

"At the time, I thought the guy in the back row was making a pass at the stewardess," he said. "All the way from Portland to Seattle, she sat next to him and they seemed to be in deep con-ver-sa-tion."

To Mike Cooper's consternation, the plane overflew Seattle and began circling. After a maddening 21/2 hours, the plane landed, taxied to the end of the runway and parked.

A fuel truck drove to the right side of the airplane. The first-class stewardess came down the aisle with a cream-colored, cotton sack so heavy that it tipped her backward. It was, Cooper said, very clearly a sack of money: $200,000. Next came parachutes, which the hijacker intended to use - and apparently did use - to jump out of the airplane after it flew off again.

Neither the hijacker nor the sack of money has been found in the 25 years since.

On the runway at Seattle, however, the passengers knew nothing of the hijacker's plan. They left the plane through the front door and crossed the runway to an airport bus.

That's when Michael Cooper became entangled with D.B. Cooper.

"FBI agents were waiting for us in the bus and began to take roll of the passengers," Michael Cooper remembered. "The agent called D. Cooper and nobody answered. He called again and again nobody answered.
"Finally, I spoke up and said, `I am M. Cooper, Michael.' And the agent proceeded down the list alphabetically."
Later, Cooper realized that the agent had counted D. Cooper as among the passengers on board the bus, but not M. Cooper. When the roll call ended, only M. Cooper remained unaccounted for - the presumed hijacker.

The busload of passengers went next to a waiting room where each was interviewed by FBI agents. Michael Cooper spoke with three agents, providing them with his Montana driver's license, telling what he had seen of the man in the last row and was then excused.

"My sister was at the airport waiting for me," Cooper said. "We were supposed to go downtown and pick up my car, which had been shipped from Germany where I had been a Fulbright Exchange teacher the year before. But by then, the garage had closed, so my sister dropped me off at her house and went to a party."

Alone in his sister's house, Cooper could scarcely believe the events of the afternoon just past. Or what he saw when he switched on the television for the 10 o'clock news.

"The top news story, of course, was the hijacking," he said. "I was watching the footage, when one of those messages appeared along the bottom of the screen saying that the FBI was seeking Michael Cooper, a high school teacher from Missoula, Mont., in connection with the hijacking."

"This can't be true," Cooper said to himself. "And I just got up and went to bed. It was just too much for me to deal with."

Which was, of course, a mistake.

Back home in Missoula, telephones were ringing and speculation was rising. Newspaper and radio reporters were on the phone to Cooper's wife. Other callers questioned his parents in Sequim. No one had heard from Cooper after the plane landed, as his sister had no telephone.

No, they had to say, they did not know Cooper's whereabouts.

The FBI called school administrators, including Don Harbaugh, then assistant principal at Sentinel. But Cooper had not told Harbaugh or principal Joe Roberts that he was leaving school early. Instead, he had asked another teacher to cover his last class.

Harbaugh remembers the late-night telephone call: "The FBI agent was most emphatic. He said they had positive identification that Mike Cooper had hijacked an airplane between Seattle and Port-land."

"My brain was reeling," Harbaugh said. "I remember thinking, `You mean Mike Cooper checked out of school early to hijack an airplane? Say what?' "

By then, the account was being broadcast over Missoula radio stations, and there was considerable speculation.
"People were talking about how Mike's car was over in Seattle and how someone saw him making a withdrawal at the bank and how he hadn't told us about leaving school early," Harbaugh said.

Within a day, the news reports changed the identity of the hijacker to D.B. Cooper. But there was never a follow-up call or apology, either to school administrators or to Michael Cooper.

"I expected at least a comment about why the error was made," Cooper said. "But I never heard anything."
There was, however, "endless harassing" when Cooper returned to Sentinel the following Monday morning, Harbaugh said. "We had no mercy. For months, we called him `D.B.' "

Cooper began telling the story of Flight 305 while he was still at Sentinel and continued when he moved home to Sequim. In his 20 years at Sequim High School, the storytelling has been an annual event, shared now by two generations of students, parents and children alike.

The tale is also, Cooper said, a cautionary one. "You can't predetermine the things that happen. Every time I get on an airplane, I wonder if something unusual is going to happen."

"Sometimes, kids think that big things happen only to famous people," he said. "But I'm just an ordinary schoolteacher."

With an extraordinary story.