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I was reading a recent article about Wolfgang Gossett as DBC and came away with the same thoughts that I always do upon reading such things.

That is, how can the following be reasonably explained:

1) What kind of work environment does your suspect work in whereby he's wearing a clip-on tie?

2) Given your suspect's work environment, how did he get titanium, aluminum, stainless steel and rare earth elements on his tie?

3) How is your suspect intimately familiar with the Boeing 727 (flap settings, refueling time, oxygen bottles, airstairs capabilities, pressurization)?

4) How is your suspect intimately familiar with the Seattle region (Tacoma from the air, distance from McChord to SeaTac)?

5) How is your suspect intimately familiar with skydiving (donning and use of parachutes, no instructions needed)?

6) Where was your suspect on Thanksgiving?

7) What is your suspect's motive?

If your suspect later confided in people that he was DB Cooper, why?

This is just a start. Nonetheless, if properly applied, these eight questions will eliminate 99.9% of suspects immediately.

It’s a great list to start with EU and just for fun I’ll put my top candidate James Klansnic up against your cooper questionnaire and see how he fares.

1) He was a Boeing engineer and wore a clip on tie to work every day. There is a picture of him standing under a 727 wearing one. The typical attire for Boeing engineers and managers during those days was black slacks white shirt and black tie.

2) Klansnic was a hydraulic and pneumatic engineer specifically and starting in 1967 he was apart of a program that was testing out titanium tubing for the SST hydraulics. CP TI and RMI ti were both experimented with for this program. The details of this program are detailed in a declassified government document which can be found online. On this doc Klansnic is credited with fusion welding of the titanium tubing. Turns out the rare earth elements found on the tie like the yytrium and cerium are found in electrode rods used for this very welding process. I also learned the the welding fumes from these processes contain some toxic and other misc particles which were all found on the tie like antimony, cadmium, vanadium, lead, cobalt, aluminum, molybdenum, chromium, nickel, tin, magnesium, cobalt, zinc, tungsten and titanium. 

3) Klansnic help build the 727 and has at least one 727 patent that I know of. As a hydraulic and pneumatic engineer    he played an integral part in the design of the aft stairs as they worked off of hydraulics and the 727 was one of the first commercial aircrafts to use hydraulics. In the June 1964 issue of hydraulics and pneumatics magazine he goes into grave detail on the technical workings of the 727 hydraulic systems. Safe to say he was at the top of the list of people as far as 727 knowledge is concerned. In fact flight 305 pilots called and spoke to another engineer in klansnics department (Boeing Commercial Airplanes) and asked him to calculate (using the then high tech tools of the day - a slide rule and paper performance charts) the flaps, minimum speed, airplane’s attitude, and lowest altitude which would allow the hijacker to parachute from the rear of the plane and still allow the plane to fly safely with its 42 passengers and crew.

4) Washington state native born in Enumclaw and was living in Bellevue at the time of the skyjacking which is a stones throw away from issaquah sky sports were some of coopers chute the reserves for sure came from. Avid mountaineer/outdoorsmen so he would of spent a lot of time out in the terrain cooper jumped into. Was army air corps ww2 which increases the probability he knew the SeaTac to McCord drive time.

5) The chute cooper used is believed to have been military. Klansnic was a fighter pilot in ww2 who would of been familiar with that type of chute and would have been able to put it on with the ease that Tina described. He was also shot down in the war and had to eject and pull his chute which he did successfully in a pressure situation similar if not even more difficult then coopers jump.

6) Klansnic had a big family (6 kids and 3 siblings all who lived in either WA or OR.) The DZ being in Klansnics backyard would of allowed him to get back by the following morning in time to put on the first football game and start the thanksgiving festivities with his family.

7) Klansnic motive was two fold personal and financial. It was an opportunity to give a big f u to a  government which I’ve learned from family that he had a destain for. He was a prisoner of war and went through a lot for a country that he felt wasn’t doing much for him in return when he came back from the war. He had to pay his way through school doing odd carpentry/electrical jobs, it was a struggle for him when he came back not to mention what being locked up in a pow camp for 12 months did to his psyche. He was designing the break system for the Boeing SST which the government scrapped six months prior to norjack which put his industry and company Boeing in grave financial danger. Things were bad in the months leading up to norjack hundreds of thousands of layoffs and billboards in Seattle saying last night be out turn off the lights. The Boeing employees like Klansnic that still had a job were actually off from thanksgiving until New Years because of the dire financial situation. This is where I believe the financial comes into play. This was an inside job between Boeing and then pan American airline ceo and former head of the FAA najeeb halaby to creat a need for airport security regulation/equipment. Halaby was the lead proponent for the SST as well and was meeting with nixon just hours before the skyjacking. He then goes on to start a company that made hundreds of millions of not billions in airport security regulation contracts and equipment. Follow the money. This new revenue stream helped to keep Boeing afloat which in turn assured klansnics job security.

8 ) Never did. He was a POW for 12 months stalag luft I, the guy could keep his mouth shut.

I’ll add one more to your list 9) how does your candidate match up with the known key physical cooper characteristics. ie height between 5”10-6ft, slim/slender build better 170-170 pounds. Age mid forties to early fifties, Brown hair/eyes, Olive/darker complexion, higher hairline with an unusual slant on the forehead, turkey gobble and protruding lower lip. Klansnic matches every single one of these features unlike any other suspect, we have the majority who we would need to believe could of pulled of wearing make up because there too white except for hahneman and maybe KC/Braden. Then we got guys that were balding like KC/SP and we would need to believe that they were able to fool witnesses with a toupee or guys that just had to much hair and don’t match the higher hairline like RWR or WJS. I recently found a new pic of Klansnic from the sixties on ancestry which I’ll share below. Big take away a from this pic are the height, weight, and the high hairline.

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OK, so let's go through the checklist here and see what we come up with regarding Klansnic.

1) The guy worked at Boeing which is a great connection. I don't think you need to go overboard with "wore a clip on tie to work every day" or "standing under a 727 with one." Neither of the comments may be accurate and are not unnecessary.

2) We know that the SST utilized alloyed titanium and I have heard that some CP titanium was also used in some areas on the SST. Therefore, if JK was in and around the SST project he could have picked up some of these items. The stuff about welding seems like a stretch unless the guy is welding while wearing a tie or is in the immediate vicinity of someone who is welding while he's wearing a tie which strikes me as odd. Moreover, it's unnecessary because the SST utilized a glass cockpit and that theoretically provided some other opportunities to pick up the rare earth stuff.

3) If he worked on the 727 in the hydraulics area that could account for a fair degree of knowledge with respect to the 727.

4) Native of the area and lives there is a check.

5) What you've described is a WWII pilot who ejected with an emergency rig and apparently successfully deployed it. That's fine, however, I'm assuming he was not an experienced skydiver or someone who was used to jumping at night, under adverse conditions, and comfortable with perhaps landing in the woods with a fair amount of stuff strapped to his person. What I'm getting at here is that DBC's jump required some stones. And by all accounts he was as cool as a cucumber which suggests to me that skydiving under adverse conditions was in his wheelhouse. I don't see that with JK.

6) It's plausible. The question is: Was he at home for Thanksgiving and by what time? Did he help prepare for Thanksgiving the evening before or morning of? If so, this eliminates him as a suspect.

7) I think this explanation falls completely flat. Why the hell would a guy who has the ability to meet the President of the United States in person arrange some Mickey Mouse thing like this? For a government contract? That strikes me as "no way in hell" Additionally, JK didn't lose his job. He seemed like a descent family man, with a good job, and church-going. So he decides to pull this off? Why? He's not jammed up financially. He's pissed at the US military because he got shot down and was a POW? Makes no sense. Is he really the type? The crazy Rackstraw-type?

Well if he wasn't DBC he certainly wouldn't confide in anyone that he was. Not really applicable in this instance.

Concerning the physical characteristics, JK would have been 51.  The stews also had him at 6' and 6' 1"...how tall was JK? What about his weight? In good shape? In the pics I've seen, JK looked every bit his age. In other words, he does not appear to be a young for his age.

In summary, JK appears to have been in the right place at the right time, however, his physical attributes seem a little out of sorts and he just doesn't strike me as the type. I mean, he was one of the few who kept his good-paying professional Boeing job during the recession. He continued to work there for years after the skyjacking. He doesn't strike me as a guy who suddenly went sideways.

These are simply my thoughts and my opinions.

EU's assessment of #7 above, "no way in hell", is correct.  If JK had a problem with the government, it was 26 years earlier in 1945. 

Nixon and Halaby wouldn't have to hijack an airliner to beef up security.  All Nixon would have to do is call the FAA and tell them to do it.  I was riding the airlines quite a bit in the 1960s and 1970s and the airlines and the federal government were already increasing security in 1971.

I also knew quite a few Boeing personnel, primarily engineers, who were adversely impacted by the SST cancellation.  In my opinion, not a single one of them would be interested in hijacking an airliner much less parachuting from one in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere.

What took you to NAMUS, Chaucer?

DBC would most likely be 95 years old, or so, if still alive. I too, believe he made it. Some feel he is still alive, and tap Sheridan Peterson as the real DB. These pages are filled with our commentaries on ol' "Petey."

BTW: the alibi for Richard McCoy for Turkey Day, 1971 is not rock-solid by any means. SA Russ Calame and his team have gas receipts for McCoy in Las Vegas for the day before, and also phone company confirmation of a collect call from McCoy in Vegas to his home in Provo for 10 pm on Turkey Day. Again, I highly recommend Calame and Rhodes' book: DB Cooper - The Real McCoy.

Personally, when we discover who DB really is, we're gonna say, "Who's Dat?"

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I was reading a recent article about Wolfgang Gossett as DBC and came away with the same thoughts that I always do upon reading such things.

That is, how can the following be reasonably explained:

1) What kind of work environment does your suspect work in whereby he's wearing a clip-on tie?

2) Given your suspect's work environment, how did he get titanium, aluminum, stainless steel and rare earth elements on his tie?

3) How is your suspect intimately familiar with the Boeing 727 (flap settings, refueling time, oxygen bottles, airstairs capabilities, pressurization)?

4) How is your suspect intimately familiar with the Seattle region (Tacoma from the air, distance from McChord to SeaTac)?

5) How is your suspect intimately familiar with skydiving (donning and use of parachutes, no instructions needed)?

6) Where was your suspect on Thanksgiving?

7) What is your suspect's motive?

If your suspect later confided in people that he was DB Cooper, why?

This is just a start. Nonetheless, if properly applied, these eight questions will eliminate 99.9% of suspects immediately.

It’s a great list to start with EU and just for fun I’ll put my top candidate James Klansnic up against your cooper questionnaire and see how he fares.

1) He was a Boeing engineer and wore a clip on tie to work every day. There is a picture of him standing under a 727 wearing one. The typical attire for Boeing engineers and managers during those days was black slacks white shirt and black tie.

2) Klansnic was a hydraulic and pneumatic engineer specifically and starting in 1967 he was apart of a program that was testing out titanium tubing for the SST hydraulics. CP TI and RMI ti were both experimented with for this program. The details of this program are detailed in a declassified government document which can be found online. On this doc Klansnic is credited with fusion welding of the titanium tubing. Turns out the rare earth elements found on the tie like the yytrium and cerium are found in electrode rods used for this very welding process. I also learned the the welding fumes from these processes contain some toxic and other misc particles which were all found on the tie like antimony, cadmium, vanadium, lead, cobalt, aluminum, molybdenum, chromium, nickel, tin, magnesium, cobalt, zinc, tungsten and titanium. 

3) Klansnic help build the 727 and has at least one 727 patent that I know of. As a hydraulic and pneumatic engineer    he played an integral part in the design of the aft stairs as they worked off of hydraulics and the 727 was one of the first commercial aircrafts to use hydraulics. In the June 1964 issue of hydraulics and pneumatics magazine he goes into grave detail on the technical workings of the 727 hydraulic systems. Safe to say he was at the top of the list of people as far as 727 knowledge is concerned. In fact flight 305 pilots called and spoke to another engineer in klansnics department (Boeing Commercial Airplanes) and asked him to calculate (using the then high tech tools of the day - a slide rule and paper performance charts) the flaps, minimum speed, airplane’s attitude, and lowest altitude which would allow the hijacker to parachute from the rear of the plane and still allow the plane to fly safely with its 42 passengers and crew.

4) Washington state native born in Enumclaw and was living in Bellevue at the time of the skyjacking which is a stones throw away from issaquah sky sports were some of coopers chute the reserves for sure came from. Avid mountaineer/outdoorsmen so he would of spent a lot of time out in the terrain cooper jumped into. Was army air corps ww2 which increases the probability he knew the SeaTac to McCord drive time.

5) The chute cooper used is believed to have been military. Klansnic was a fighter pilot in ww2 who would of been familiar with that type of chute and would have been able to put it on with the ease that Tina described. He was also shot down in the war and had to eject and pull his chute which he did successfully in a pressure situation similar if not even more difficult then coopers jump.

6) Klansnic had a big family (6 kids and 3 siblings all who lived in either WA or OR.) The DZ being in Klansnics backyard would of allowed him to get back by the following morning in time to put on the first football game and start the thanksgiving festivities with his family.

7) Klansnic motive was two fold personal and financial. It was an opportunity to give a big f u to a  government which I’ve learned from family that he had a destain for. He was a prisoner of war and went through a lot for a country that he felt wasn’t doing much for him in return when he came back from the war. He had to pay his way through school doing odd carpentry/electrical jobs, it was a struggle for him when he came back not to mention what being locked up in a pow camp for 12 months did to his psyche. He was designing the break system for the Boeing SST which the government scrapped six months prior to norjack which put his industry and company Boeing in grave financial danger. Things were bad in the months leading up to norjack hundreds of thousands of layoffs and billboards in Seattle saying last night be out turn off the lights. The Boeing employees like Klansnic that still had a job were actually off from thanksgiving until New Years because of the dire financial situation. This is where I believe the financial comes into play. This was an inside job between Boeing and then pan American airline ceo and former head of the FAA najeeb halaby to creat a need for airport security regulation/equipment. Halaby was the lead proponent for the SST as well and was meeting with nixon just hours before the skyjacking. He then goes on to start a company that made hundreds of millions of not billions in airport security regulation contracts and equipment. Follow the money. This new revenue stream helped to keep Boeing afloat which in turn assured klansnics job security.

8 ) Never did. He was a POW for 12 months stalag luft I, the guy could keep his mouth shut.

I’ll add one more to your list 9) how does your candidate match up with the known key physical cooper characteristics. ie height between 5”10-6ft, slim/slender build better 170-170 pounds. Age mid forties to early fifties, Brown hair/eyes, Olive/darker complexion, higher hairline with an unusual slant on the forehead, turkey gobble and protruding lower lip. Klansnic matches every single one of these features unlike any other suspect, we have the majority who we would need to believe could of pulled of wearing make up because there too white except for hahneman and maybe KC/Braden. Then we got guys that were balding like KC/SP and we would need to believe that they were able to fool witnesses with a toupee or guys that just had to much hair and don’t match the higher hairline like RWR or WJS. I recently found a new pic of Klansnic from the sixties on ancestry which I’ll share below. Big take away a from this pic are the height, weight, and the high hairline.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

OK, so let's go through the checklist here and see what we come up with regarding Klansnic.

1) The guy worked at Boeing which is a great connection. I don't think you need to go overboard with "wore a clip on tie to work every day" or "standing under a 727 with one." Neither of the comments may be accurate and are not unnecessary.

2) We know that the SST utilized alloyed titanium and I have heard that some CP titanium was also used in some areas on the SST. Therefore, if JK was in and around the SST project he could have picked up some of these items. The stuff about welding seems like a stretch unless the guy is welding while wearing a tie or is in the immediate vicinity of someone who is welding while he's wearing a tie which strikes me as odd. Moreover, it's unnecessary because the SST utilized a glass cockpit and that theoretically provided some other opportunities to pick up the rare earth stuff.

3) If he worked on the 727 in the hydraulics area that could account for a fair degree of knowledge with respect to the 727.

4) Native of the area and lives there is a check.

5) What you've described is a WWII pilot who ejected with an emergency rig and apparently successfully deployed it. That's fine, however, I'm assuming he was not an experienced skydiver or someone who was used to jumping at night, under adverse conditions, and comfortable with perhaps landing in the woods with a fair amount of stuff strapped to his person. What I'm getting at here is that DBC's jump required some stones. And by all accounts he was as cool as a cucumber which suggests to me that skydiving under adverse conditions was in his wheelhouse. I don't see that with JK.

6) It's plausible. The question is: Was he at home for Thanksgiving and by what time? Did he help prepare for Thanksgiving the evening before or morning of? If so, this eliminates him as a suspect.

7) I think this explanation falls completely flat. Why the hell would a guy who has the ability to meet the President of the United States in person arrange some Mickey Mouse thing like this? For a government contract? That strikes me as "no way in hell" Additionally, JK didn't lose his job. He seemed like a descent family man, with a good job, and church-going. So he decides to pull this off? Why? He's not jammed up financially. He's pissed at the US military because he got shot down and was a POW? Makes no sense. Is he really the type? The crazy Rackstraw-type?

Well if he wasn't DBC he certainly wouldn't confide in anyone that he was. Not really applicable in this instance.

Concerning the physical characteristics, JK would have been 51.  The stews also had him at 6' and 6' 1"...how tall was JK? What about his weight? In good shape? In the pics I've seen, JK looked every bit his age. In other words, he does not appear to be a young for his age.

In summary, JK appears to have been in the right place at the right time, however, his physical attributes seem a little out of sorts and he just doesn't strike me as the type. I mean, he was one of the few who kept his good-paying professional Boeing job during the recession. He continued to work there for years after the skyjacking. He doesn't strike me as a guy who suddenly went sideways.

These are simply my thoughts and my opinions.

EU's assessment of #7 above, "no way in hell", is correct.  If JK had a problem with the government, it was 26 years earlier in 1945. 

Nixon and Halaby wouldn't have to hijack an airliner to beef up security.  All Nixon would have to do is call the FAA and tell them to do it.  I was riding the airlines quite a bit in the 1960s and 1970s and the airlines and the federal government were already increasing security in 1971.

I also knew quite a few Boeing personnel, primarily engineers, who were adversely impacted by the SST cancellation.  In my opinion, not a single one of them would be interested in hijacking an airliner much less parachuting from one in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere.

Not sure how much this applies, but Bill Mitchell (who eventually worked for Boeing) said there was a great amount of discussion regarding the case among his colleagues. It makes sense that if Cooper worked at Boeing he would have been called out at some point. Out of thousands of employees, someone would have tried to cash in on a potential suspect.

Perhaps someone did. We've eliminated Linn Emrich as the person who called out SP to the FBI within days of the investigation - with an article from a Boeing newsletter. Perhaps the "snitch" was someone at Boeing. And Robert99's memory serves him correctly: by 1971 Nixon had started adding more Air Marshals, though security checks of the kind we see now came in around 1974, when pilots rose up and demanded better security.