SKYJACK: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper

by Geoffrey Gray

  The marriage was not stable. In town, it was an open secret that when Richard’s father, who went by the name Floyd, enlisted in the war, the boy’s mother, Myrtle, had an affair with her boss, Richard Edward Holland, who owned a local sawmill. When Richard’s father came home after two years in Belgium, Myrtle was pregnant. They eventually divorced, but there was tension in the house as they tried to raise two boys with different fathers.

  Floyd would spank the younger boy, Russell. Myrtle protested, thinking Floyd was punishing him for her affair.

  “That boy may not be your boy, Floyd McCoy, and you might not like him being around here! But he’s my boy, and from this day forward, you’ll never again lay a hand on my son,” Myrtle would say.

  Instead of beating Russell, Floyd beat Richard. He could beat his own son, couldn’t he?

  “During my formative years, it was still the in-thing to serve one’s country so at nineteen I followed my father’s footsteps and enlisted in the army,” Richard McCoy would later write. “After completing parachute school and volunteering for the Green Berets, then came two more years of advanced demolition and guerrilla warfare.”

  When McCoy first arrived in Vietnam, in 1963, the country was already chaotic. In the streets, Buddhist monks were lighting themselves on fire. The Green Berets conducted clandestine missions to stop the North Vietnamese and contain the spread of Communism throughout Indochina. President Kennedy deployed more troops and was assassinated later in the year. In the jungles, McCoy developed an ear fungus. Later, he was nearly killed in combat. Awarded the Purple Heart for his valor, McCoy was sent home to Cove City and spent a year recovering in a wheelchair. The fungus infection in his ear would not heal. Doctors could not figure out how to treat it.

  Richard wanted to work in law enforcement. His family was Mormon, so after his recovery he moved to Utah and enrolled in Brigham Young University, majoring in criminal studies. In school, he met Karen Burns, a pretty blonde who was taken with McCoy’s war hero image and his ruggedly handsome good looks. They married and had two children, Chante and Richard Jr.

  The marriage was tense. Money was tight. Richard was in school. He had National Guard duty. He was a Sunday school teacher on weekends. He didn’t have time for a job. Karen’s younger sister Denise was living with them, too. Richard was frustrated. He needed to escape. He decided to re-enlist on the condition that he be sent back to Vietnam. He missed the adrenaline of combat.

  His first training was in helicopter flight school in Texas. Later, he went through six months of advanced training in Alabama. When he arrived in Vietnam, McCoy was like an aerial Rambo. He earned combat medals for his missions. In the summer of 1967, an American observation helicopter had an engine malfunction and was forced to land in enemy territory. American soldiers were stranded, waiting for the rescue helicopters. From the Army report:

  Suddenly, the rescue aircraft lost power and crashed near the first aircraft, causing them both to erupt in flames. Due to the extreme danger caused by the burning aircraft plus the added danger of enemy intrusion, MCCOY placed his helicopter as near as possible to the downed aircraft. With complete disregard for his own safety, MCCOY leaped from the aircraft and worked his way through the dense jungle to his comrades. He immediately located the two survivors and led them to his waiting helicopter.

  In combat, there was a madness to Richard, who conducted his own bomb runs in his armored chopper. In November of 1967, an American compound had been overtaken by Vietcong. A thick layer of fog covered the ground, and low clouds covered the trees. Visibility was extremely poor, and there were no tactical maps of the area. From another Army report:

  Flying by instrumentation and radio alone, MCCOY located the compound and came under automatic weapons and small arms fire. With the position of the compound marked by a flare and the firefight marked by tracer rounds, MCCOY began a series of firing passes, launching rockets until his ammunition was expended. Due to his courageous flight and highly accurate fire, the enemy was completely routed, leaving twenty bodies behind.

  His head. Back home again at Brigham Young, Richard suffers from migraines. He can’t think. He blacks out. He undergoes a series of medical tests and X-rays. Richard has a possible tumor in his brain, doctors find.

  The prognosis is devastating. After so many years in school, and with his skilled training as a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, Richard would have been highly employable in the FBI, or another law enforcement agency. Now Richard can never be hired. What if he suffers a blackout at the controls? His helicopter or plane could crash.

  He’s lost everything. His marriage is fragile. His career is ruined. What can he do?

  He considers suicide. Too cowardly, he thinks.

  He becomes absorbed in school work. Better at least get his degree. In one of his classes, Richard has to write a paper on how to deter the increased number of airplane hijackings.

  “In working on the project, it was necessary to play the roles of the people involved,” Richard will later say. “The person I identified most with was the skyjacker.”

  November 24, 1971

  Aboard Northwest Orient Flight 305

  In the air, the jet banks another turn. In the bulkhead row, prosecutor Finegold looks out the portal window for the roof of his house. In the rain, in the dark, he can’t find it. Behind him passengers shift uneasily in the powder blue fabric chairs and flip through Northwest Orient’s in-flight magazine.

  Sitting in his seat over the wing of the plane, passenger Patrick Minsch, a heavy-equipment operator from Alaska, worries about his connection. In Seattle he is changing planes to go to his grandmother’s house in the San Juan Islands. The plane has been circling for three hours. He’ll miss his flight. He’ll have to spend the night in SEA-TAC. He looks out the window and sees the lights on the wing illuminate the rain streaking by. He feels the plane move.

  Another loop. The jet banks again, over Everett, where Boeing’s 747 factory is located.

  The 747 was a gamble that nearly bankrupted the company. In the recession, Boeing has been forced to lay off more than half the workforce. A company town, Seattle has the highest unemployment rate of any American city since the Great Depression. It’s over 12 percent. Aeronautical engineers with advanced degrees are forced to mow lawns to feed their families. Foreclosure rates skyrocket. Homeless shelters are at full capacity. Across the board, local budgets are slashed. Police officers in Seattle are placed on unpaid leave. Dope is sold outside drive-in restaurants.

  Down near the piers off Puget Sound, the homeless sleep in wet bundles under the freeway as smack junkies warm their hands by oil-drum fires. An exodus is under way. A new billboard is up: “Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn off the lights?”

  Outside the city, in old logging towns, the government is collecting on back taxes. Auditors snake through the maze of country roads in rural Washington where many loggers and their families are living off the grid. The tax bills are higher than what many homes are worth. Laborers are forced to move, forced to sell. Locals vow to get back at the government for stealing their homes.

  The hijacker wants to know what time it is.

  After five, Tina tells him.

  Five was his deadline. What are the feds trying to do? Stall?

  For the first time, Tina sees panic on his face.

  “They’re not gonna take me alive,” he says.

  Tina calls the cockpit. The hijacker is starting to lose control. What’s the delay?

  The front chutes are not at the airport yet.

  “Ask him if he wants to start our descent without the chutes present.”

  She asks him.

  “Yes,” he says.

  She relays the message. The phone rings again. It’s Scotty.

  “The front chutes are now at the airport,” he says. “We’re going down.”

  At SEA-TAC, agents rush to the windows of the terminal to watch the jet come in. Along the wet runways and on the rooftops, Bureau sn
ipers get into position. In Washington, D.C., officials at the FAA and the FAA’s psychiatrist listen to the drama on the radio frequency. In Minnesota, Don Nyrop and other Northwest officials pray the feds in Seattle will let Scotty handle this and not storm the plane. At his lakefront home outside Minneapolis, Scotty’s wife is crying in the upstairs bathroom. Scotty’s young daughter, Catherine, has gone to the sock hop at her high school. Her friends and the music are a blur. Who is the man in the back of the jet? Why does he want to kill her father?

  “Seattle Approach, we’re ready to make our approach.”

  “Okay Northwest 305, would you have any objection to a right turn from your present position?”

  “That should not present any problem and we understand we’re landing at 1606. Is that correct?”

  “Correct.… If you want some light we can turn the high-intensity runway lights up after you land, and they’re pretty bright.”

  The airport is closed. Planes are told to circle. Air traffic controllers in the towers monitor the loops at different altitudes, careful not to cause a collision. Other jets are rerouted.

  On the tarmac, on a domestic flight to Denver, pilots listen to the hijack unfold on the radio frequency. The conversation between the Northwest pilots and the FBI is so entertaining they play the radio over the cabin’s intercom speakers so their passengers can follow what is happening in real time.

  In his unmarked car, police detective McKenna and Northwest flight director Lee wait for Flight 305 to land. The high beams of the detective’s car carve tunnels of light in the falling rain. McKenna and Lee look into the dark sky for the plane. First they see the lights on the wing, then the landing gear; now the jet is landing. Its wheels deflate on impact against the slick runway. From the car, McKenna and Lee can see the caps of the Northwest pilots in the cockpit. Through the cabin windows, they can see the heads of passengers.

  Lee speaks into a hand radio. “305, this is Al. If you want to stay on the runway, that’s fine with us.”

  “We might pull off to the right side just a little bit off the runway … until we make contact with our friend in the back.”

  Down on the tarmac, McKenna wants to storm the plane, take this guy out. He is carrying his service weapon.

  “Okay, Al, can you hear me?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay, he at the present time is in the lavatory and apparently desires to stay there.”

  “I’ll go back and get the fuel truck started.”

  “Okay, fine. Okay, be sure to get the fuel out here right now.”

  The jet rolls to a stop. The passengers are anxious to get off. In row 15, passenger Nancy House looks toward the back of the jet. She sees the man in sunglasses coming out of the lavatory. She sees that he is holding an attaché case on its side with both arms, like a pizza box. On top of the attaché case is a bag. The bag is about four inches tall and about the same size of the attaché case. The bag is a light color, made from manila, or perhaps burlap. It is yellow, with a tinge of pink. What is in this bag?

  Passengers scramble to collect their luggage. They want off. In the front row, prosecutor Finegold can see flashing beacons of a fuel truck out the window.

  “They care more about the fucking gas than they do about the passengers!” he screams.

  A pickup truck appears. A set of airstairs is attached to the rig. The stairs connect to the jet’s front door. The pressure seal is cracked. It’s time. The man in the back wants Tina to get the money. Now.

  Tina moves up the crowded aisle, through the passengers, to the front exit door. On the tarmac, the SEA-TAC ground crew has set up klieg lights. The runway is illuminated like a movie set.

  Al Lee scurries out of the detective’s car and around to the trunk. He opens it. He grabs the canvas sack of money and waits for Tina in the rain.

  Tina peeks her head out of the airplane and slinks down the wet steps. In the rain, she is a smear of blond and red.

  She walks up to Lee. She is talking.

  Lee can’t understand a word. The stewardess must be in shock. He hands her the money bag.

  In the driver’s seat of the unmarked car, McKenna watches.

  Last chance to storm the plane. He can sneak under the pickup’s stairs, slip into the cabin on his belly, slither under the seats, and take out this motherfucker.

  Tina clutches the canvas bag in her arms, like a giant sack of mail. She clinks back to the jet in her heels and up the wet stairs into the maw of the cabin. She drops the money bag on the floor—it is heavy—and drags it down the aisle.

  The hijacker is waiting. The sack has no drawstring, no handle, no straps. The mouth is loose.

  This isn’t right. He asked for a knapsack—with straps. What are the feds trying to do?

  He peers inside.

  “Looks okay,” he says.

  He plunges his hands in the bag, and his fingers swim around the tightly wrapped twenties.

  “There’s a lot of cash in that bag,” Tina says. “Can I have some?” She is joking.

  The hijacker pulls out a stack of bills and hands it to her anyway. He wants her to have the money.

  “Sorry, sir,” she says. “No tips. Northwest Orient policy.”

  She asks about the passengers.

  “Why not let them go now? You’ve still got the crew and the plane.”

  He agrees. The passengers can go.

  Soon the announcement is made. The passengers flood the aisles, retrieve their bags, hats, coats. Flo Schaffner is out of the cockpit and stands near the front door with Alice Hancock. From the rear, Tina Mucklow joins them, helping the angry, hostile passengers off the jet and into the rain.

  “Happy Thanksgiving!” she says.

  The cabin is clear. The hijacker wants Tina to get the parachutes. She protests. She is not strong enough.

  “They aren’t that heavy. You shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  She turns for the front exit door again. That’s when she sees him.

  A passenger! He’s snuck back on board. What is he doing?

  “Forgot my briefcase,” he says.

  Tina follows him back to his seat, stuffs the briefcase in his arms, and escorts him out the door. The Northwest pilots are flustered.

  “Is this Al?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, please go stand by the bottom of the stairs and secure that area. We just had a passenger that came back up the steps because he forgot a bag. We just had to literally push him back off the steps.”

  Scotty checks the fuel gauge. It hasn’t moved. What’s going on?

  “We want as rapidly as possible another fuel truck and a third fuel truck to stand by. We’ve got some difficulty in pumping at the present time and we’re not able to take on fuel. Understand? … Two fuel trucks, and get them out there as fast as you can.”

  In the Northwest Orient operations office at SEA-TAC, agents ask the Northwest pilots about the bomb.

  “305, as long as you’re free to talk, can you give me any more information and type of device or anything about it that you can talk now?”

  “Ground stand by.”

  “This is Al again.”

  “Yes, Al.”

  “Yeah, the fuel truck should be on the way.”

  “Okay, is this the other fuel truck now with the flashing headlights?”

  “No, there’s a school bus running around there with flashing amber lights.”

  “You better alert him and get those things off.”

  “305, this is Al.… Are you going to let those girls out?”

  “Well, that’s what we’re working on now. What we’re trying to figure out is some way that we can get everybody up here and down those stairs, and we’re kept still on the backend.”

  “Well, how many girls you got trained?”

  “A good bunch.”

  “That one that came down here, she’s pretty sharp; get her and then make a mass exodus and leave this sonofabitch. Go!”

  “Right now
, that’s our contingency plan.…”

  “He’s just hanging out there on the edge.”

  In the empty cabin, Alice Hancock inches toward the hijacker. She wants her purse.

  “Sure,” he says. “I’m not going to bite you.”

  Flo Schaffner wants her purse, too. As she walks down the aisle toward him, she notices the hijacker’s mood has changed. He is giddy, almost boyish, clutching the money bag.

  He asks Flo to hold it. Feel how heavy the money is?

  She puts her arms around the bag. She lifts.

  “It is heavy.”

  She heaves the sack back to him.

  He fishes around the pockets of his pants for the $19 he received from Flo nearly four hours ago, on the tarmac in Portland, for the bourbon and Seven he ordered and spilled. He offers the change.

  Flo and Alice shake their heads.

  “Sorry.”

  “No tips.”

  The stews turn and scurry off the plane.

  Tina does not leave. She stands with him in the rear. He is angry. The fuel has not been pumped. What is taking the feds so long?

  “Close the shades,” he says.

  She shutters each window, closing them like heavy eyelids.

  When she returns, he is grumbling about the knapsack he asked for. The canvas money bag is useless. What will he stuff the ransom in now?

  Think.

  The front reserve chutes. He grabs one. He pulls the ripcord. The pink canopy of the chute bursts open and covers the seats like popped bubblegum.

  The hijacker reaches into his pocket and retrieves a pocket knife.

  He cuts the knots that tie the canopy to the chute. Finally, the chute is free and the container is empty. Maybe he can stuff the ransom bills in here.

  No. It won’t work. The container is too small. What else?

  Think.

  The parachute canopy. The shroud lines.