Gardener1850
Timeline Guru (Still Remembering Cupcake)
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OK, thanks. But I have more faith in the truthfulness of what was reported at the time, rather then what is said in a made for TV re-creation decades later. With all due respect that scenario makes no sense. If they knew he jumped before Portland, then why did they continue flying to Reno with the stairway down, rather then just making an emergency landing in Portland? That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. It’s just not believable in my opinion.
Well part 2 had the actual interview with the pilot and I wrote his exact quote about radioing the tower. He also says immediately after that they thought he jumped but they were not sure he jumped. We're forgetting Cooper had threatened them with a bomb (they had no way of knowing if it was real or not). They were probably terrified to check in case he had not jumped. They did not want to do anything contrary to his instructions. If he was still on the plane and they sent Tina to check she would be in danger, IMO. Plus at that time the pilots thought the air pressure would pull someone out the back of the plane. In the interview the pilot relates telling Tina she needs to get some rope and tie herself to one of the seats before opening the rear door. DB Cooper heard them on the phone talking about sending rope from the cockpit and he said angrily "no one else is coming back here". Then the pilot told Tina to take cords from an extra parachute to tie around her waist with a pillow to keep her from being sucked out when she opened the rear door. In the end, DB did not let her tie herself to the plane--he sent her to the cockpit instead and he opened the stairs himself.
These details are why they think Cooper had to be someone who knew about the plane being able to open it's aft stairs in flight without endangering the cabin. Even the pilots of the plane did not know that was possible or safe. That model plane was being used in secret government missions overseas to drop supplies out the aft stairs. They think Cooper either knew about the missions or was an employee of the airplane manufacturer that did test runs of opening the aft doors in flight. He also knew things like what speed and ground height he needed them to fly at to make a jump. This was pre-internet and he couldn't just go to a library to learn those things.