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You two speechless heroes have just demonstrated perfectly that you have dedicated years to a snipe hunt with no hope of gaining anything from this line of inquiry. 

Still inviting answers.

Ok poster. Go back to 2005-08 and start reading every post at DZ; in other words read the thread. Or, go to Google and find a synopsis of the DB Cooper hijacking and read it. Like this:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

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I've stated that without knowing the correct flight path it is impossible to determine the correct landing zone. Furthermore, if we can determine the landing zone we are well positioned to answer some basic questions if not solve the entire mystery.

Why do I say this?

First, considering the basic questions, if we can accurately identify where DBC landed it can tell us how the money arrived at Tena Bar and by extension whether DBC survived.

Second, considering solving the entire mystery, it is very reasonable to assume that the two parachutes DBC jumped with--if not the attache' case and money--are still out there yet-to-be found. Finding any of these items may well help determine DBC's identity. For example, if we find the attache' case we could likely identify when and where it was purchased (within a certain range). Finding the parachutes may provide some additional clues too.

Also, finding the parachutes or attache' case--not to mention a body--would also enable us to measure the veracity of the FBI's assumptions in some areas. Specifically, if we find DBC's parachutes near the Western Flight Path that would put a fork in the FBI Flight Path--apparently finding the money on Tena Bar was not sufficient to do the same.

You've hit upon an important point, which is to say that one would think if anything was still out there that it would have been found. After all, the area has been lived in, hunted and clear cut for a mighty long time. Considering this, the mere fact that nothing has been found is a clue in-and-of-itself by my way of thinking. It leads me to conclude that the items were either stashed underwater or in a place like the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (not coincidentally along the Western Flight Path).

Beyond all of this, it's just cool. Indeed, the mystery is 50% figuring out what actually happened, and 50% figuring out who the guy was.

I agree that it's a cool story, hopefully without sounding like I'm glorifying a criminal. But beyond that...

If Cooper's parachutes are found minus Cooper, people will claim they are not Cooper's. Those who say they are Cooper's will be divided into camps of those who believe he landed at that spot and those who believe he landed somewhere else, and the parachutes were moved by some means. Some will say that Tina Mucklow planted them there because her conscience got to her after so many years of being a silent accomplice. Others will say Cooper came back and planted them there to toy with the FBI, anywhere from one to fifty years later.

If a body is found in a parachute harness with a briefcase and road flares with $190k on him, matching serial numbers, still wearing the loafers and even the damn sunglasses, people will say it's too good to be true so it's a setup.

There was a Cooper researcher named George Nuttall who, along with a partner, spent exorbitant amounts of their final years on this earth walking around islands in the Columbia River, convinced that Cooper had landed on one of them and that his remains had been scattered about by scavengers, thus explaining why nobody had found a corpse.  That's pretty specific and pretty sad that they reached that conclusion based on nothing at all, then committed to it with all their retired energy.

Now, with all of that in mind, from a practical standpoint, if we could magically determine and agree upon a landing zone, what then? Will the bickering stop? Will everyone agree on what that means for the other evidence? Will Flyjack say the landing zone proves Cooper must have survived while Shutter says Cooper definitely died, and Georger posts this icon    And calls them both stupid?  I think yes, yes and yes.  So again, what are our goals?

Let's say the landing zone puts Cooper further West than originally thought. The landing zone is still huge, part on land and part on water. Scenario 1: Cooper landed right in the fucking Columbia. POW. Unconscious. Drowned. Money floated up on Tena bar, yes? Or perhaps not. Secnario 2: Cooper impaled himself anus-first onto a conifer and was discovered by a gas station worker taking a leak in the woods. Dude took all of the money and over time lost or buried some of it, only after burying Cooper so nobody would know someone local took the money. Scenario 3: Coop got his Chute open and drifted gently toward a riverbank, landing on it, rolling up his chute and hoofing it off to safety, ditching his money after seeing cops. Scenario 4: he came back to twirl his moustache and plant the money on that beach. Scenario 5: Cooper's money defied all odds, and I mean all odds, deciding to hang back and let Coop rot and tumble downstream, all casual without his tie. The money grew hands and feet, walked up the riverbank, and after stacking itself nicely, buried itself in the sand.

It doesn't matter where the landing zone was. All of these are possibilities to the people obsessed with this case. Nuttall's partner had been a cop who had seen a body distributed by wildlife about the countryside. That is why he felt so strongly that THIS HAS TO BE what happened to Cooper. We all think we're special and we have the center-of-the-universe type answer that all others lack.

So again, what are the goals in establishing a landing zone?


For me, I'm gonna stick to the money and the math.  The tie could have been anybody's, and was exposed to decades of an FBI evidence room where it could have been contaminated countless times. The landing zone is entirely meaningless. The parachute chosen is meaningless with only four possibilities to choose from, the level of skill in jumping is virtually meaningless, and all investigation up to now has been completely and utterly worthless. The answer is someplace the public hasn't looked, and I don't mean some overlooked clump of trees near Ariel.

Your post strikes me as something that a lawyer would argue in a courtroom setting and not something a person familiar with the physical sciences would argue in any setting.  Are you an attorney?

Nuttall was not immune from jumping to conclusions.  For instance, on one page he might make an argument (and did) that there is a POSSIBILITY that A + B = C.  Then on the very next page he might claim (and did) that having PROVEN that A + B = C we can conclude . . . . .

Did J. Edgar Hoover cover up the Cooper hijacking?  That is not very likely.  Reportedly, Hoover, who died in 1972 within a few months of the hijacking, was leaning on the FBI agents in Seattle and Portland to solve the case.  Regardless of Hoover's wardrobe preferences, there is nothing to support Nuttall's claims about a cover up.

If the Cooper hijacking is ever actually solved, it will be done in Mother Nature's courtroom and nowhere else.  In Her courtroom, facts are facts and nothing else matters.

In my personal opinion, there are probably less than five facts that are of any value in resolving the Cooper hijacking.  And determining the actual flight path of the airliner is mandatory if any progress at all is to be made.

I think your first paragraph gives evidence of considerable training in chemistry and plant biology.  However, I see only limited training in physics.  But what is your problem with Aristotle?  Are you claiming that the sum of the parts is less than the whole?

Full Disclosure:  My initial training and degree was in Aeronautical Engineering (aerodynamics, flight dynamics, physics, mathematics, etc.).  And I have two additional degrees (Economics and an MBA).  I have been a pilot since the age of 15 and did a wee bit of skydiving in the early 1960s.  One of the three Piper Cubs used in my pilot training now hangs over the right wing of the Boeing "Dash 80" (the Boeing 707 prototype) in the museum on the east side of Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.  So I didn't tear them all up!  In skydiving, my equipment was all WW2 surplus.  I have never jumped even a low porosity canopy much less a square one.

Why is determining the actual flight path so important?  If you want to find physical evidence related to the flight to Reno, including places where Cooper might have landed or impacted, then I strongly suggest that the flight path is where you should start.

Why is determining the actual flight path so important?  If you want to find physical evidence related to the flight to Reno, including places where Cooper might have landed or impacted, then I strongly suggest that the flight path is where you should start.

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I think your first paragraph gives evidence of considerable training in chemistry and plant biology.  However, I see only limited training in physics.  But what is your problem with Aristotle?  Are you claiming that the sum of the parts is less than the whole?

Full Disclosure:  My initial training and degree was in Aeronautical Engineering (aerodynamics, flight dynamics, physics, mathematics, etc.).  And I have two additional degrees (Economics and an MBA).  I have been a pilot since the age of 15 and did a wee bit of skydiving in the early 1960s.  One of the three Piper Cubs used in my pilot training now hangs over the right wing of the Boeing "Dash 80" (the Boeing 707 prototype) in the museum on the east side of Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.  So I didn't tear them all up!  In skydiving, my equipment was all WW2 surplus.  I have never jumped even a low porosity canopy much less a square one.

Why is determining the actual flight path so important?  If you want to find physical evidence related to the flight to Reno, including places where Cooper might have landed or impacted, then I strongly suggest that the flight path is where you should start.

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Why is determining the actual flight path so important?  If you want to find physical evidence related to the flight to Reno, including places where Cooper might have landed or impacted, then I strongly suggest that the flight path is where you should start.

Let's do this then: Let's not try to narrow down the search area, lets widen it. Let's add the original flight path with any and all proposed flight paths, adjust for the strongest and mildest winds and directions, and get the biggest patch of land possible for a dropzone from a 727 in flight on that rough trajectory.

It's been fifty years. They've looked. The cops. The feds. The Guard. The treasure hunters. The land developers. The hunters and campers and fishermen and joggers and hikers and little kids. The freaks with metal detectors and planes. They've covered all of it. Every plot of land is owned by someone, and has been surveyed and sold probably several times each since '71, and they didn't mention a body clutching a bomb. Perhaps nobody looked hard enough? Or perhaps they didn't know what to look for?

Actually, they did. With all of the trash to be found in the woods, someone found a placard from a 727 rear stairs and correctly identified it. They knew the story. Everybody knew. And all they found was that and the money. And the money was found by a guy from Oklahoma, who still tied it to Cooper, because everybody knew what to look for. And they did. And they found nothing.

The flight path is only relevant if it can establish a search area. Fifty years has expanded and exhausted that search area, rendering the flight path meaningless except in the event that Bill Rataczak came out and said, "yeah, I flew East to drown the bastard," which he hasn't. And I have no reason not to believe him.

So using the concept of a calculated search perimeter, if a subject is on the run on foot, you calculate the distance they are capable of traveling during the time it took you to mobilize, and you set up a radius around the spot they started from. In this case, all of that is blown, because nobody was able to properly react. Cooper could have been long gone before any of them got close to his landing zone.

Is it possible that Cooper's body is there somewhere? Only as possible as logic will allow for. On Thanksgiving 1971, it was extremely possible. After the cops searched it was less possible. After the FBI and Nat'l Guard searched, even less. After the public searched all year, it became improbable. After all of the above searched for 50 years, we have to admit that the dingo ate the baby. Rather Cooper got away. OR that someone got away with robbing his corpse and burying him wrapped in his chute. Because the only thing worth taking is the money, which was partially found. Nothing else he had was found.

Try this: Go to Zillow.com and search for homes in that area to see how well-developed the land is now. Backhoes and diggers putting in sewers and foundations for half a century. No skyjackers found.

So what physical evidence would you look for, and where would you look?

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I see that you are not familiar with the Tina Bar area.  It is not actually developed even today.  The search area is relevant only if the flight path is known.

What should any searcher be looking for today?  The parachute container and and equipment have a long life expectancy even in salt water.  And the two to three pounds of metal in that equipment would survive.  Also, Cooper had on a rain coat and the parachute equipment was over it.  So it is possible that portions of the rain coat are still contained within the parachute equipment and some of Cooper's bones may well be within that rain coat.  If anything from Cooper remains in the Tina Bar area, it is probably buried under sand and probably would have been buried during the 1972 spring flooding.

But don't expect to find any more money.  The three packets of money found at Tina Bar were probably still in the damaged money bag when they arrived there.  But if the money bag was still attached to Cooper at that point, it has long gone on down stream and so has Cooper.

Where to look?  Tina Bar and I have recently explained and posted why here.

Tena Bar is undeveloped? Would that include the very large sand company that completely surrounds it on all sides but for the river? The inner-roads and driveways on their land? How about the massive agricultural plots surrounding that business, or the roads built and telephone wires installed to service that area? I'm looking at Tena Bar right now on Google Maps' satellite view. All those perfect rectangles and parallelograms surrounding it, the road a couple of hundred feet from it, the corn stalks visible on street view, everything looks pretty well-developed and well-traveled to me. Perhaps I lack the ability to adequately interpret what it means when ransom money is found while digging in sand...belonging to the only people on that river for miles who make their living digging in sand.

Tena Bar and its surrounding area have been under close scrutiny since Jimmy Carter was president.  There's nothing there. You'll likely find more by digging under the corn field across the street in my opinion.

I'm not unfamiliar with the area surrounding Tena Bar. I was through that area in 2006, the Gorge, all up around Mount St. Helens, all of that sightseeing crap. One of the most desolate drives of my life, that volcano - nothing but trees. Had the worst hot dog and relish of my life on a picnic bench in that area.  But what I'm talking about is the potential "reasonable doubt" landing zone. Meaning let's take all reasonable proposals and use them to expand the landing zone, then whittle down a search zone from it.

Now let's talk math. Take the percentage of that enlarged landing zone which is developed. What are the odds that Cooper would splat on developed land and go unnoticed all this time? Let's call it 0% while reserving the right to be off by a rounding error. So subtract all developed land (developed in 1971 or 2020, doesn't matter) from the whole and you have a narrower search area. Also subtract any private property. Nobody is leaving their property untouched for 50 years, and the words, "Fido, what's that you found?" spring to mind.

Next, take all of the places we can say for certain were searched and nothing was found. What are the odds that the authorities and treasure hunters were standing on Coop's shattered, purple torso and didn't smell him? Let's also call it 0% if there was a parachute deployed, 1-5% if not. [Side note: There was a dead deer in the woods along my drive to work last fall. Even with the windows rolled up the smell was overpowering. It lasted a month until I switched routes.] Got a better guess? I'm all ears. Subtract that land area from the remainder above.

What's left over now is a combination of water and land. A lot of what has been written about is Lake Merwin, which cannot feed a spoonful to Tena Bar, so eliminate it, and all of the trickles around it, in the search for a corpse or physical evidence. If Cooper landed in or around Merwin, either he survived and left, or someone took his loot and "disappeared" him, because that money didn't find its way to Tena Bar naturally. So either way, we can cross that area off of the list, too, when searching.

How about the Washougal? Anybody talk to Jerry Thomas lately? Is he still searching out there? If so, he can probably tell us what to eliminate from that area. Also, let's cross off the islands in the river where Nuttall and his buddy searched their hearts out. Plus all of the river area that Tosaw knocked out, et cetera.

What's left is a patchwork of neglected spots in the forest that we can assume - though not safely - have been at least passed through at some point in a half-century, and admittedly pine needles can cover up a lot.  Those spots, plus the places on bank of the Columbia that have not significantly been covered, make up our our search zone, which I will bet anything is smaller and with significantly less controversy than any new landing zone created by an alternate flight path. So what percentage of the enlarged landing zone can be eliminated? Probably most of it - by far. Different take on the above? I'm all ears.

I saw you and a team of people on the beach at Tena Bar with metal detectors. I'm not currently convinced of any future significance of Tena Bar to the Cooper investigation, barring the unlikely scenario that the Fazios ended up with the cash. And if that is the only purpose of investigating the flight path further, I would pack it in and say job well done. You've highlighted a very plausible scenario that others had not given much thought to prior. Bravo.

Having said that, anybody have details on what other stretches of the Columbia have been searched/dredged/developed and can be eliminated? Maybe I'll save that for the Tena Bar thread.