Discussion Re-Set
I agree with Shut that the discussion under "Suspects" was wandering afield, so I copied the most-pertinent post of the current thoughts expressed there and have re-posted them below:
I agree with Bruce Smith's comment on another thread: when Cooper is unmasked it will be someone we have never heard of. I think LD Cooper showed that if given a good suspect the FBI is still interested and will move fast.
Currently halfway through Skyjack! Read the publicly released FBI interviews. Interesting how they differ from all the interpretations out there.
A few things I noted about DB while reading:
1 - Didn't demonstrate any real knowledge about the 727 other than it could fly with the aft stairs down. Either he didn't know the stairs could be lowered in flight or he had another reason to want them down, like to ensure they stayed within 10,000 feet.
2 - Comfortable working with parachutes
3 - Not a drinker
4 - Didn't seem like a loner, was comfortable around people and in social situations. If was a career criminal then he must have been a confidence man and not the mafia or street thug type. Seemed to be somewhat educated
5 - What was in the paper bag he had with him? Goggles? Footwear?
6 - Why was he so insistent that the crew stay up front and not watch what he was doing? To conceal his actual jump time? To delay pursuit for as long as possible?
7 - Seemed like a well planned job. The only weakness was his choice of footwear and we don't know what else he had on the plane. The stewardess's only mentioned seeing the attache case and paper sack. Would we know if he had other luggage with him?
Here are some comments for the indicated number:
1. Cooper did have some unique information related to the 727. He specified the altitude, speed, landing gear position, and flap setting for the airliner during the flight south. Keeping the landing gear down was one means to limit the speed. Keeping the rear bulkhead door open, and the stairs unlocked, insured that the aircraft cabin could not be pressurized and this limited the altitude. After the argument with the copilot about taking off with the stairs down, he agreed to leave them up but reportedly told the stewardess that he knew the airliner could take off with them down. Cooper may have wanted to jump within a few minutes of the take off from Seattle.
2. Cooper may have had experience wearing emergency parachutes, but he did not appear to be knowledgeable about skydiving rigs.
3. Not a heavy drinker or smoker. Ckret wrote that Cooper had one drink and spilled most of it. And that he smoked less than 10 cigarettes in the 5+ hours that he was under observation.
5. Unknown contents of the small bag.
6. Law enforcement people sometimes became part of the flight crews of hijacked airliners. And some of those LE crew members were actually capable of flying the aircraft. If the possibility had presented itself, I'm sure that LE would have taken Cooper into custody one way or the other.
7. The hijacking was very poorly planned. Cooper wasn't specific enough about wanting skydiver parachute rigs, he didn't realize that one of the reserve chutes was a dummy for training only, he didn't know how to lower the rear stairs, and had difficulty doing so even after being instructed on the matter by the stewardess. He did not have any other luggage with him when he checked in and bought his ticket. He could not have smuggled anything else on board from Portland.
Finally, it was mostly luck that Cooper got the money in the first place. Cooper specified that the airliner was not to land in Seattle until the money was available and he wanted it by 5:00 PM. Sunset in Seattle that day was about 4:45 PM. He didn't get the money until about 7:15 PM and was fortunate that the banks hadn't already set their vaults on time locks so that they couldn't be opened until the day after Thanksgiving.
All of this meant that Cooper's jump was going to be at night over some lousy woods and mountains, unless he could jump very close to Seattle. Say in the area of McChord AFB and Fort Lewis.
good material ... and the particles on the tie?
<sorry if this discussion belongs somewhere else - you can move if you want?? I only caught your note after I posted.>
First, Welcome Mack.
I agree with much of your assessment of DB Cooper's skills, and would like to add that Cooper's knowledge of the 727 was actually quite advanced despite what Robert99 and others may assert. To wit: Cooper knew the 727 had a "predent" flap setting of 15 degrees, "the only Boeing product to have such a setting," Rataczak told me. Rataczak added that when Cooper demanded that the flaps be set at "15," he knew that the hijacker "knew something about airplanes." Rataczak spoke about the HJ's knowledge in a very respectful and warm manner, too.
I would also say that the hijacking appeared to be well-planned and well-executed, and I am not alone in that. Himmelsbach speaks very respectfully about DBC's skills, calling the use of a bomb a "game-changer." Further, most of the Special Ops guys I have spoken with, such as MAC-V-SOG troopers, consider the skill level of the HJ to equal to their own. As a result, many SOG troopers feel DBC is one of them.
There are many in the Norjak Investigatory World who characterize DBC as a "lucky schlub," and Geoffrey Gray is certainly leading the charge on that front. Some accounts of DBC are shifting to amplify DBC's "schlub-ness," such as Bill Mitchell's insistence that Cooper was a messy geek with bad hair and a "turkey gobble." But Bill's assessment is an outlier, and no other passenger or crew is corroborating Bill's view. Further, Bill's continued insistence to not talk about these disparities adds a tad more concern, as well.
Hence, the 3rd Edition of DB Cooper and the FBI will feature a lot more interviews with passengers and crew.
As for Cooper's "luck" in getting his money before the bank vault locked for the night, I'd like to hear more about that, as R99's comments are the first time I've heard that perspective. It is my understanding that all the money caches stockpiled by the FBI around the country at that time were accessible to the Bureau 24/7 in order to avoid any delays during a hostage situation.
Along those lines, I haven't heard before that Cooper had difficulty lowering the stairs once Tina showed him how to do it. It is true, however, that the slipstream didn't allow the stairs to fully deploy and that seemed to surprise DBC, who then called the cockpit to have Rataczak slow the plane down so that the stairs would extend. To me, that scenario is not "having difficulty." Cooper resolved the issue successfully.
As for the second bag that Cooper allegedly had, the only account of it I am aware of is from the passenger Nancy House, who sat in Row 16. She says that she saw Cooper emerge from the rear lav with this 12x12x4 paper or burlap bag laying on top of the bomb/briefcase. I think Alice may have said something about it, too, in her debrief with the FBI in Seattle, but I have never heard any suggestions of where the burlap bag came from or how it entered the plane. Certainly, no one reported DB Cooper carrying it aboard in Portland. So, what might have been in it is speculation added on top of mystery.
Bruce, the matter of the pre-selected indent positions for the flaps was discussed at great length on DZ. Typically, an airliner being operated by a "line flight crew" has four or five flap settings that have been pre-set at specific flap deflection angles. And in the 1971 time frame, the flight crew would have had printed cards, which they could put on the center console and refer to, that gave the aircraft's performance at each of those settings and at various weights, etc.
During the discussions on DZ, we were never able to determine how the 727 flap indentations were set. But based on my personal experience of having flown as a passenger on any number of 727s from various airlines, my guess is that there was another flap indent at about 5 degrees (0 degrees would be flaps and all leading edge devices retraced).
This first setting at about 5 degrees would activate and move the leading edge slats (near the wing tips) to their forward position. The outboard ailerons were on the wing trailing edge directly behind the slats and my guess is that the slats were used to increase the lateral control from the ailerons. Typically on take off, the slats would remain deployed until the aircraft got above about 10,000 feet and was no longer subject to a speed limit.
My guess is that Rataczak was surprised when Cooper specified the 15 degree flap setting. And I also guess that this setting would also deploy the leading edge Krueger flaps. Remember that the flight crew reported that they had trouble maintaining altitude during turns (see the Oakland ATC radio transcripts). The Krueger flaps deployed and the landing gear down would result in a high drag condition for the aircraft and explain the turning problem.
Also, contrary to your claim, I stated in my paragraph 1 comments above that Cooper did have unique information on the 727.
What is the source for your statement that the FBI kept caches of money at various banks and had ready access to it. How much money was kept at a given location and how was it stored? It obviously was not in a time controlled vault. Was the money kept in the janitor's closet or the break room refrigerator?
