WA WA - D.B. Cooper hijacking mystery, 24 Nov 1971 - #2

[georger]

Unless of course he had brought flares with him on the flight. It's possible given the near-absence of airport security at the time.[/quote]


.........................................................................................

He had cylindrical objects of some kind in his brief case when he opened the breifcase to show the stewardess - she interpreted this as a bomb with
sticks of dynamite.

Jerry

 

[HollywoodBound]

I was just looking for possible matches for Cooper on Doenetwork:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/454umoh.html
Here is an age progression for Cooper:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Dbc.jpg/180px-Dbc.jpg

 

[HollywoodBound]

Does anyone else see a resemblance of the age progression and the unidentified male? I was just thinking that perhaps the skyjacking was part of a more elaborate scheme and that Cooper had already left society so he could not be recognized by his family when the sketches circulated.

 

[georger]

To me this is quite simple unless Im missing something. Whatever the colour,
the chute either shows signs of having been sewed shut or not, with an X as
Cossey said it was marked.

Jerry

 

[georger]

Am I to understand LeftCoast is gone, deceased last Dec 07? If so how
unfortunate for the young man and his budding TV and literary career.
I would very much have liked to querry him in his statements. I am still
assimilating everything LC said here (a lot to digest). Hopfully Adnoid and
Snowmman and Richard are still here, for a technical discussion because I
think they have made some very good comments here worth exploring...
Thanks,
Jerry

 

[georger]

I thought it weird that they were talking to Cooper all the way up to around 8:12pm and then nothing in the transcripts. Like they stopped trying to contact him. Like they knew he had bailed. I mean they flew for hours after that and never talked about trying to contact him in the back. It's like they knew. So why didn't they say something. I'm wondering if there were other communications not in the transcripts.

Interestingly they were supposed to signal.

 

[georger]

I goofed here, learning how to do this! sorry
I dont know they ever signaled - they discuss it in the transcript but when they land in Reno they are still taking precautions on the assumption he might still be on board. (Near Red Bluff there is a brief exchange about what the status of "him" is. But and this is important: at Reno CT asks Scott directly about "him" and Scott replies... 'cant talk about it. Have been advised to say nothing'. CT says 'OK. Understand'. But just who and
and when during the flight Scott was advised to say nothing about Cooper
is NOT in the transcript to be found, or on what radio freq such a discussion ever occured. I still am not clear how many radios 305 had and
used. After the curtsey (8:13?) was there a discussion btwn Scott & CTL
to say nothing further that would have to be in a transcript, and on what radio and freq? The transcipts are NOT the total comms that occured. We
know that. <thanks, Jerry>

 

[Niner]

snip...
Thanks for your eply. I was hoping to snag Snowmman, guess he is the same
as LC or RC, one of the two. He seems very informed. I posted a number of
questions earlier and was hopng to get his input. Im not on the west coast
or nor-west but I have been following this for years.
Jerry

Hi Jerry! There is another D.B. Cooper thread here:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49742

there are some recent postings. Maybe I can get a Mod to merge these two threads together.... let me 'see' what I can do! That way everyone that is reading this doesn't have to switch back & forth to both these threads!

 

[Richard]

...But just who and
and when during the flight Scott was advised to say nothing about Cooper
is NOT in the transcript to be found, or on what radio freq such a discussion ever occured. I still am not clear how many radios 305 had and
used. After the curtsey (8:13?) was there a discussion btwn Scott & CTL
to say nothing further that would have to be in a transcript, and on what radio and freq? The transcipts are NOT the total comms that occured. We
know that. ...

Most of the communications between "Cooper" and the air crew were by note or simply spoken person to person. Most of the time to a stewardess, but at one point the pilot came back to Cooper and sat and spoke with him. This was prior to landing, exiting passengers, and taking on money and parachutes.

After take-off from Seattle Airport, he again spoke directly with the stewardess prior to ordering her into the cockpit. I do not believe that there was any intercom talking going on between Cooper and the cockpit - and Cooper never spoke on the radios. The transcripts were taken from the radio communications to and from the aircraft. One might infer where communications were taking place between the cockpit and Cooper based on questions, delays, and answers. Also by the pilots specifically stating what Cooper had said.

Cooper may well have had an altimeter, compass and watch with which he monitored progress of the flight out of Seattle. He specified an altitude and heading to the pilots. This would have given him a time and place to jump. Remember that he claimed to have a bomb that could blow up the plane and would have told the pilot that he could tell if his instructions were not followed.

 

[georger]

I'm here.

Good! Im glad you are here. I was hoping you were -
I have questions Im hoping we can discuss down the road, given your technical background. My time may be limited but Im going to do what I can here. I have read carefully, everything you and LC previously dicussed of a technical nature. Im pouring over the comms (transcript) and re-reading things you & LC posted. I dont expect to solve this! But I might be able to shed some light and/or attract others who can shed light. My current interest is the fluid dynamics of the whole matter in the 'box' SEA to PDX and a bit further south into Oregon. I have put out feelers
with people and institutions seeking raw data, with which to do a
dynamics analysis. I talked to one engineer today and he's thinking over
whether to get involved or not, but he thinks this is a 'very intersting
problem'. Give me some time to get my ducks in the pond and I will be
back. Dont go anywhere! Thanks...
Jerry

 

[georger]

Does anyone else see a resemblance of the age progression and the unidentified male? I was just thinking that perhaps the skyjacking was part of a more elaborate scheme and that Cooper had already left society so he could not be recognized by his family when the sketches circulated.

:clap: Good thoughts. Something accounts for his not being misssed or
reported to be connected. Either he was a hermit or a part of a community
which either did not know or chose not to betray him (ever!). His partial
dna and physical description (like skin colour) might offer up some
possible connexions but... the FBI has been all over this before. They arent
sharing what they know, probably for good reasons, but their good reasons
havent worked! There are ethnic & cultural groups in the No-West that might protect a member who 'pulled a stunt'? I have never belvd his
primary goal was money, but the stunt itself. There are a lot easier ways
to get money than hijacking a plane, even back in '71. Cooper was not a
genius and an alien? He obviously left footprints somewhere prior to Nov '71. His partial dna and olive skin mean something. Somebody knows
something. That is certain.
Jerry

 

[georger]

Hi Jerry! There is another D.B. Cooper thread here:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49742

there are some recent postings. Maybe I can get a Mod to merge these two threads together.... let me 'see' what I can do! That way everyone that is reading this doesn't have to switch back & forth to both these threads!

Hi! Yes I know, many threads. I tried to jump back and forth but -
well thats my problem. I getting my feet wet here so it may take a
few days but will do my best. Thanks to all of you - for keeping this
thread going. Im sorry I missed the LC period. That would hve been fun
and maybe a little contentious . Im still re-reading things and coming up
to speed. Hopfully we will match wits with Cooper - soon!

BTW I have family in the Vancouver area. The Cooper saga is old news
to me. I have a few relatives (aunts) who followed it religiously and would
send me clippings (we used to laugh) and my grandmother kept this up
until her 99th birthday, God bless her soul! She would write me her 'dreams
about Cooper'! (Im laughing). She was a very sane lady. Very! But Cooper
became one of her hobbies .... and now good grief I am here. Enuff.

Cheers -
Jerry

 

[georger]

Most of the communications between "Cooper" and the air crew were by note or simply spoken person to person. Most of the time to a stewardess, but at one point the pilot came back to Cooper and sat and spoke with him. This was prior to landing, exiting passengers, and taking on money and parachutes.

After take-off from Seattle Airport, he again spoke directly with the stewardess prior to ordering her into the cockpit. I do not believe that there was any intercom talking going on between Cooper and the cockpit - and Cooper never spoke on the radios. The transcripts were taken from the radio communications to and from the aircraft. One might infer where communications were taking place between the cockpit and Cooper based on questions, delays, and answers. Also by the pilots specifically stating what Cooper had said.

Cooper may well have had an altimeter, compass and watch with which he monitored progress of the flight out of Seattle. He specified an altitude and heading to the pilots. This would have given him a time and place to jump. Remember that he claimed to have a bomb that could blow up the plane and would have told the pilot that he could tell if his instructions were not followed.

Hi Richard. Thanks for responding. Im very glad to meet you. I hav read
everything you posted - good material and thoughtful especially your
exchanges with LC. I promise you I will get up to speed here. The comms
do suggest DB did request 15degree flaps - Scott relayed that to SEADD
and they discussed it. (only 3 flap postns possbl on that 727 so did DB
know them?) DB's note passed to Scott via Schaffner who relayed all the
notes asked for ~~ 10kFT, and that is what lead to v23 after a discussion
btwn Scott and SEADD ^ PDX. If he had anything beyond his watch nobody saw it - its nowhere in any transacript or record (maybe FBI knows)? He did however have a plan or he wudnt hv been been hijkg a
727 in the first place! His calm arrogance sipping away drinks w. Mucklow
suggests he had a plan, or was crazy! Some of what you and LC and Adnoid have discussed may be part of the key to this. Lets explore this
further hopfully. Im very glad you are still here. Thanks & sincerely:
Jerry

 

[Niner]

I'm not planning on it.

I also combined the 2 threads that were going on this subject, so now we just have the one live thread.

Thanks so much Adnoid for merging these two threads - now it will be a bit easier to keep up! :clap:

 

[KarlK]

Unless of course he had brought flares with him on the flight. It's possible given the near-absence of airport security at the time.


.........................................................................................

He had cylindrical objects of some kind in his brief case when he opened the breifcase to show the stewardess - she interpreted this as a bomb with
sticks of dynamite.

Jerry

I think you were quoting a post of mine about the flares. In any case, good call about the "dynamite" sticks Cooper flashed to the flight attendant possibly being flares. This sort of double-purpose equipment would fit Cooper's seemingly hyper-efficient personality to a T. Another part of the "bomb" could have been a skydiving altimeter.

 

[georger]

I think you were quoting a post of mine about the flares. In any case, good call about the "dynamite" sticks Cooper flashed to the flight attendant possibly being flares. This sort of double-purpose equipment would fit Cooper's seemingly hyper-efficient personality to a T. Another part of the "bomb" could have been a skydiving altimeter.

Thanks to all -

Throughout this over the years, people have focused on the money, on Cooper, on parachutres, but what of the bomb? Somewhere out there is a
briefcase with eight stick of dynamite or 8 road flares, and what was the
lattern "lite" all about? Do you build a bomb with a lantern lite assuming you
will have time to check the status of the battery (with a lite!) before
pressing some button to ignite it? I am no bomb builder (thats for sure!)
but there is something suspicious about this bomb. I have this friend an
ex Marine, demolitions expert etc etc etc, and I asked him once: "what
would the flash lite bulb be all about " and he replied, "darned if I know,
unless he was using it as a resistor or something but if that's the case it's
no ordinary straightforward bomb but a firing circuit. My guess is it was a fake and built to make an impression and nothing more."

So, I will leave it to the group to ponder - hopfully there are experts out
here who can shed "lite" on this.

Jerry

 

[georger]

I'm not planning on it.

I also combined the 2 threads that were going on this subject, so now we just have the one live thread.

Hi Adnoid and Richard: Thanks for joining the threads - makes things
simpler. I have a question or two you if I may, for anyone to answer:

1. Who or what is "Al LEE" sometimes written as "ALL LEE" in the transcript? A security guy that was sent out to take charge of things
at the plane and coordinate fueling and anything that came up? I cant
find any record of such a person in Norwest Airline history etc? Who is
this guy and what was his exact role?

2. News: I talked to a guy this weekend who does flight simulations of 'static'
objects in fluid streams. He heads a research group. We discussed the
'fluid dynamics' of the Cooper situation & Flight 305. He knows exactly what
I am after and thinks its a valid approach and "very interesting" (his words). The problem is can his software be adapted to a 'multi variant fluid
field dynamics' problem vs a 'static' (load) problem. He's going to do some
playing around. He is also going to try and find me somebody who does
fluid dynamics simulations. We are trying to obtain wind records for SEA
to Vancouver for the date and times, from several sources.

3. In this regard above, I have a guy at NOAA who says he remembers a tornado! in the Vancouver area on Nov 24th 1971. Does anyone here know
anything about that?

4. Has anyone tried to get the FBI to release Cooper's dna partial they say
they have? I have many contacts in the field of genetics wh would do an
analysis if we had the file the FBi says it has??? Cooper's "olive skin" means
something.

Lastly, does anyone have the coordinates of where the placard was found
at Silverlake?

Thanks guys and ladies -
Jerry

 

[KarlK]

Thanks to all -

Throughout this over the years, people have focused on the money, on Cooper, on parachutres, but what of the bomb? Somewhere out there is a
briefcase with eight stick of dynamite or 8 road flares, and what was the
lattern "lite" all about? Do you build a bomb with a lantern lite assuming you
will have time to check the status of the battery (with a lite!) before
pressing some button to ignite it? I am no bomb builder (thats for sure!)
but there is something suspicious about this bomb. I have this friend an
ex Marine, demolitions expert etc etc etc, and I asked him once: "what
would the flash lite bulb be all about " and he replied, "darned if I know,
unless he was using it as a resistor or something but if that's the case it's
no ordinary straightforward bomb but a firing circuit. My guess is it was a fake and built to make an impression and nothing more."

So, I will leave it to the group to ponder - hopfully there are experts out
here who can shed "lite" on this.

Jerry

I'm no bomb expert (lol) but it only requires common sense to figure that Cooper's plan did not require a real bomb, only something that could convince a casual observer that it might be one. Building the device using stuff that he would actually need during and after the jump (flares, altimeter, compass, flashlight, etc.) was what distinguished him from other fake bomb hijackers of the day who usually had political motives and little practical sense.

However in those days there also had been a few hijackings with real terrorists carrying real bombs (PLO, IRA among others) mostly in Europe but because of this airlines all over the world took all such threats very seriously, and I think Cooper wanted the authorities to think or at least suspect he was part of a terrorist group. Terrorists don't always have political demands, sometimes they just want cash so for Cooper to to ask for money and nothing else didn't indicate to authorities he wasn't part of a terrorist organization. His level of efficiency and request for parachutes could certainly have lead the FBI to believe he may have been part of of a highly organized paramilitary group such as the IRA (absence of foreign accent made him more likely to be Irish or Irish-American than Palestinian).

That was the context at the time and it's very likely that Cooper exploited it. Being considered a potential terrorist rather than a common criminal meant the FBI would not really know how to react as there was no agency trained to deal with bona fide military-trained terrorists in the US at the time, it was not supposed to happen here. In such a situation a real bomb was not required to get things moving quickly, the slightest chance that someone who could be a terrorist had a bomb effectively paralyzed authorities. In hostage-taking situations the FBI usually tries to stall things forever but this time it looked as if they just didn't know what to do other than follow the hijacker's instructions, which was highly unusual. Cooper created a situation where flares were much more useful than sticks of dynamite.

 

[Niner]

Hi! Yes I know, many threads. I tried to jump back and forth but -
well thats my problem. I getting my feet wet here so it may take a
few days but will do my best. Thanks to all of you - for keeping this
thread going. Im sorry I missed the LC period. That would hve been fun
and maybe a little contentious . Im still re-reading things and coming up
to speed. Hopfully we will match wits with Cooper - soon!

Hey Jwarner! Welcome to Websleuths, by the way!! Yes, unfortunately LC is no longer with us - but I was hoping RightCoast would join us in here! I see Adnoid and Richard are - so carry on... !!

BTW I have family in the Vancouver area. The Cooper saga is old news
to me. I have a few relatives (aunts) who followed it religiously and would
send me clippings (we used to laugh) and my grandmother kept this up
until her 99th birthday, God bless her soul! She would write me her 'dreams
about Cooper'! (Im laughing). She was a very sane lady. Very! But Cooper
became one of her hobbies .... and now good grief I am here. Enuff.

Cheers -
Jerry

How cool jwarner - so what were some of her dreams?? and did she have a "suspect"?? Just curious!!

 

[georger]

Hey Jwarner! Welcome to Websleuths, by the way!! Yes, unfortunately LC is no longer with us - but I was hoping RightCoast would join us in here! I see Adnoid and Richard are - so carry on... !!
How cool jwarner - so what were some of her dreams?? and did she have a "suspect"?? Just curious!!

10-4 Niner. Tnx and glad to meet U. My grandmother's dream was of some
guy landing in a grassy area and then wandering into a swamp and not getting out. Then she woke up (and the funny part) she spends the rest of her life convinced he's still alive and escaped and wondering who he might be. You can imagine these older women in their church circles discussing this for the next 20+ years. She called him "Pooper", thought he was a misguided idiot, but somebody in her circle actually knew people at Seattle who worked at the airport. She wrote me once: "they dont have the faintest idea who he is but they think its somebody local" based on "Poopers" apparent knowledge of the plane and the area (by air?) from
Seattle to Vancouver. Grandma and my grandfather had owned a large farm and raised horses and ran a dude ranch during summers, right on the
edge of a wilderness. She had known hermits who lived up in the woods
and from this she thought "Pooper" was essentially a very "lonley" person
who was looking for fame and a little money, if he could get away with this.
She never did reconcile her dream. She was a woman who didnt like unresolved anything! I suppose that has rubbed off on me or I wouldnt
even be here looking into this -
Regards,
Jerry