He uses the knife to cut a cord. Then one more.
Tina watches him.
He takes the shroud lines and wraps them around the canvas money bag to secure it. Next: he wraps the shroud lines around the mouth of the bag and ties a nooselike knot into a makeshift handle.
“305, this is Al.”
“Go ahead, Al.”
“I just talked to the stews here [Flo and Alice] and if you’ll call back there and tell him everything is under control then he’ll let this other one [Tina] off.”
“Whose word is that? Whose idea is that?”
“This is the two stews that got off. They were saying the guy don’t really care if she stays on or not, but they suggested to call back and tell him everything is under control and that he’ll let that third stew off.”
“That’s contrary to what’s going on up here, Al. He’s not going to let her come off right now and we’re trying to work out a way that we can get her up here somehow before we go. Right now he wants her to sit back there with him during takeoff.”
“Okay, I was just wondering, you know. About the fuel, how much do you want on board or how much more can you take?”
“Well, we got a long way to go and he’s getting antsy and that’s our problem right now.”
“Have you been able to get in the back end of that cockpit or won’t he come out?”
“He doesn’t want any of us in the aisle. The only one he negotiates with is the stewardess and he doesn’t want anybody beyond that first curtain. We’ve never left the cockpit.”
“Did you get the maps I sent out there?”
“Yeah, we got all that stuff.”
“And you got that deal from Boeing on how to get out of there?”
Inside the cockpit is a rope ladder. To exit the plane and escape, the pilots and flight engineer can open the cockpit windshield and shimmy down the rope onto the tarmac.
“Yeah, we got that. If we could get the gal out, well, we could make tracks ourselves.”
“Is it possible to communicate with her to have her come forward to get food?”
“No, we tried that.… We don’t want to try that kind of stuff.”
“Seattle-Tacoma Tower now for one—stand by. Fuel truck just crossed in front of Northwest hangar.”
“Alpha Two, go on.”
“Stand by.”
“What did he say now?”
“He was giving instructions there.”
“We’re going to Mexico City,” the hijacker tells Tina. “Or anyplace in Mexico. Gear down, flaps down. You can trim the flaps to fifteen. You can stop anywhere in Mexico to refuel, but not here in the United States. Cabin lights out—no one behind the first-class curtain.”
The pilots must also keep an altitude of 10,000 feet. No higher.
There is more.
“The aft door must be open and the stairs must be down.”
Tina picks up the interphone and relays the instructions to the Northwest pilots: Mexico City, gear down, flaps at fifteen degrees, altitude of 10,000 feet, no higher.
In the cockpit, the pilots are talking to the feds. There’s an update.
“305, is the individual in the back? He can’t hear?”
“You can have all the conversations you want.”
“Okay. 305, did you hear the message from Washington, D.C., from the FAA’s chief psychiatrist? He believes the second parachute is for the stewardess to use with him to go out, and after he leaves the airplane will be blown up.”
On the tarmac, a bus approaches. The name on the bus is Western Tours. The passengers file in. The bus drives the passengers across the airfield to the SEA-TAC terminal. Here, two federal agents board. One says he’s going to take a roll call and if you hear your name on the list, say something or raise your hand.
Menendez. Minsch. Pollart.
The hands go up. Larry Finegold raises his hand. George Kurata raises his hand. Cliff McDonald, a real estate salesman, raises his hand. George Labissoniere raises his hand.
Cooper?
Dan Cooper?
The bus is dark. The agents look for a hand, a face. They wait for a sound.
Dan Cooper?
In Portland, reporters hear the news of the hijacking over police scanners. Clyde Jabin, a stringer for United Press International wire service, asks a Bureau agent in Portland if they have any suspects. As a matter fact, they do.
“D. Cooper,” the agent says.
Jabin does not hear what the agent says.
“ ‘D’ as in dog, ‘B’ as in boy?” Jabin says.
“Right,” the agent says.
Jabin scribbles down the “D” and “B” and the name “Cooper.”
He calls in the story. The name of the hijacker—D.B. Cooper—hits the wires.
Mexico City?
In Portland, Special Agent Ralph Himmelsbach goes over the flight path in his mind. As a pilot, he knows the most sensible route south at the low altitude of 10,000 feet is Vector 23. The flight path would follow the Interstate 5 freeway and take the hijacked plane back to Portland.
“What do you think?” his boss, Mattson, asks. “Do you think he’s coming back to us?”
“I sure hope so,” Himmelsbach says. “I’d like to take him here.”
Himmelsbach calls around. He learns there is a Huey helicopter at the National Guard hangar at Portland International. His idea is to chase the hijacked plane in the helicopter. He races over to the hangar, where the on-duty Guard pilots are waiting.
Himmelsbach also considers another detail. The request to have the plane flown at the altitude of 10,000 feet was telling. At 10,000 feet, the cabin would not be pressurized. If Cooper cracked the rear door of the jet, he would not get sucked out. Clearly, the man the agents were after knew airplanes.
In the cockpit of Northwest 305, pilots consult with the company’s engineers. The hijacker wants to take off with the aftstairs in the down position. Is that even possible?
It isn’t, the engineers tell them.
And what about the aftstairs down? Can they fly that way?
Northwest calls Boeing. Engineers there inform them that the Boeing 727 was used by Air America, the CIA cutout, in Vietnam.
“The plane has been flown this way. There’s been large boxes of two to three thousand pounds dropped through the door in this configuration.”
Another concern is fuel. Under the configurations the hijacker wants—flaps at fifteen degrees, landing gear down—the jet will be moving extremely slowly. The fuel burn will be tremendous. The Northwest pilots will need to land several times to make it to the Mexican border.
“Reno makes a better choice for a wise hijacker.”
“Roger. Will plan Reno first stop.”
“Roger. A second stop would be Yuma, Arizona.”
“Roger. Fuel truck has left. Stairs removed. Forward door has been closed. He has agreed to let us take off with the stairs in the full upright position.”
“Okay, we’ll start you out here heading toward Portland and then we’ll get you clearance.”
“Okay, fine. And we’ve got the company working on the flight plan, so if we don’t answer you right away, we’re trying to work a couple of free frequencies.”
The interphone is ringing. The pilots pick up. It’s him.
“Let’s get the show on the road,” he hollers.
In the rear, Tina hands him a piece of paper: instructions on how to use a parachute.
“I don’t need that,” he says.
She wants to know why she is still with him. Why won’t he let her go to the cockpit?
He doesn’t know how to release the aftstairs. He needs her help.
She is scared. She imagines herself getting sucked out of the plane once the door is opened and the pressure seal is cracked. She asks him if she can secure herself to something in the cabin. Perhaps the pilots’ escape rope in the cockpit?
No. He doesn’t want her going to the cockpit.
She asks about the flight eng
ineer. He can bring it back.
“Nobody behind the curtain,” he says.
Tina looks at the cannibalized parachute. He cut shroud lines to tie up the money bag. Can he cut a shroud line for her?
“Never mind,” he says.
He’ll lower the aftstairs himself. He asks her to show him how to use them. Then she can leave.
She goes to the panel. Push the lever this way, the stairs go down. Easy. They have oxygen on board, too, she says.
“Yes, I know where it is. If I need it I will get it.”
He looks around the cabin. It’s too bright. He wants the lights off.
The switches are hit. The cabin turns as dark as the inside of a glove. He reaches for the reading light above his seat. He turns it on and the light spills onto his hands.
The plane is not moving. Why aren’t they moving?
Tina calls Scotty. The pilots are filing their flight plan.
“Never mind,” the hijacker says. “They can do that over the radio once we get up.”
Tina wants to know what he will do with the bomb.
“Take it with me, or disarm it,” he says.
Tina worries about the aftstairs. If he doesn’t put them up before they land, they could get damaged.
“Go to the cockpit,” he says. “Close the first-class curtains. Make sure nobody comes out.”
She leaves. In first class, she looks back. She can see he is standing up. He has a shroud line in his hand. He is tying the money bag to himself, running the rope around his waist. She closes the curtain.
The rain is light. The wind speed is ten knots, from the southeast. Clouds are scattered at 2,500 feet. Visibility is seven miles. The night is black.
From the cockpit, the pilots can see the high beams of the detective’s unmarked car.
“Yeah, say, this is Al again. I’m down here in a car.”
“Yeah, Al. We’re all set. We’re going to crank the engines. You’ve probably heard me say he’s indicated that he wants the show on the road, so we’re going to get her cranked up here and pick our clearance in the air.”
“Or maybe you can get him downtown toward Portland. He might get homesick and want to land there again, I don’t know.”
“Well, we’ll hope for something to happen here, that’s all. You go ahead and pull out. We’re going to get cranked up here now. So we’ll see you later.”
“Yes sir.”
“Ground, no force on 305. Be advised that I will be trying to make her up to altitude any way we can. Any other restrictions that may be imposed upon us?”
“No restrictions at all. You fly in the best way you can do her.”
“And, 305, there’ll be people with you all the way down.”
The company is a pair of F-106’s, interceptor turbojets designed to shoot down bombers with air-to-air missiles. If the Northwest pilots lose control of the jet and Flight 305 is headed into a populated or residential area, the F-106 pilots could be ordered to unlock their weapons systems and take the jet out.
At SEA-TAC, agents are busy debriefing passengers and Flo and Alice about the hijacker. What color was his hair? Did he speak with an accent? Was he wearing a wedding ring?
On the runway, Flight 305 picks up speed. Soon the nose is up and the wheels are off the ground.
In Portland, outside the Guard hangar, the giant blades of the Huey are spinning. Himmelsbach and a partner hop in the cockpit. As they rise, winds from the storm bully the chopper around the airfield. Himmelsbach can see the lights of the Portland suburbs. He thinks he sees his house. His wife and daughters are probably inside preparing a turkey. He was supposed to have been home hours ago.
Happy Thanksgiving, he thinks.
The chopper picks up speed. They try the radio, but the frequencies are different. There is no way to communicate with the Northwest pilots. Himmelsbach looks out into the night. He can see nothing. They are moving 120 knots into the storm. They are moving too slowly to catch Flight 305. Above the chopper, somewhere, the F-106 fighter jets are moving too fast. To maintain any radar reading on the passenger jet, the fighter pilots are forced to carve wide turns, snaking through the night sky. As they make these S-turns, Northwest 305 comes in and out of their radar screens. They are losing him.
Other jets join the aerial posse. In Boise, Idaho, a pair of F-102 interceptor jets is dispatched. The F-102’s cannot make contact with Flight 305, either.
To the west, Norman Battaglia, a National Guard flight instructor, is on a night training mission in a T-33 reconaissance fighter plane. The training mission is canceled.
“We want you to tail an aircraft,” an air traffic controller says.
“The one that’s hijacked?”
“That’s the one.”
In the sky, Battaglia positions the T-33 about three quarters of a mile behind Flight 305. It’s hard to keep up. The Northwest jet is moving so slowly. And, every forty-five seconds or so, the plane changes courses. Battaglia tries his radio to contact the Northwest pilots. It doesn’t work. The frequencies are also different.
In the cockpit of Northwest 305, the phone is ringing. It’s him again.
He needs help with the aftstairs.
The pilots relay the message over the radio.
“Fourteen miles on Vector 23 out of Seattle. He is trying to get the door down. The stew is with us. He cannot get the stairs down.”
“After a while, someone will have to take a look back there and see if he is out of the aircraft.”
“Miss Mucklow said he apparently has the knapsack around him and thinks he will attempt a jump.”
The pilots notice a change in their instruments.
“We now have an aftstair light on.”
Copilot Rataczak picks up the receiver to use the jet’s intercom. The air swirling around the cabin must be fierce, a tornado of wind twisting up and down the aisles. Rataczak calls back into the cabin as if trying to reach a man trapped in the belly of a mine.
“Can you hear me? Is there anything we can do for you?”
The hijacker picks up the cabin phone.
“No,” he says.
With the aftstairs released, the temperature in the cabin must be far below freezing. In the cockpit window, pilots look at their thermometer. The reading in the sky is minus seven.
It’s also loud. The jet’s engines are blasting away.
Rataczak calls back into the cabin again.
“Everything okay back there?”
“Everything is okay.”
The jet is moving south. The flight crew notices another change in reading.
“We’re getting some oscillations in the cabin. He must be doing something with the air stairs.”
Harold Anderson, flight engineer, checks his instrument panel. The cabin pressure gauge is spiraling out of control.
Rataczak calls back again on the interphone.
“Sir?”
There is no response. Tina picks up the plastic receiver.
“Sir?”
Underneath the jet, the lights of the cities in Oregon pass: Portland, Salem, Eugene. The configurations of the plane keep the jet moving slow and strain the engines. In Northern California, an HC-130 rescue plane is dispatched from Hamilton Air Force Base, as well as another pair of F-106 interceptor jets. At Red Bluff, California, the pilots and the jets following them turn east, approaching Reno on the Nevada border.
Time to descend. Time to refuel. Tina calls back into the cabin.
“Sir, we are going to land now. Please put up the stairs. We are going to land anyway, but the aircraft may be structurally damaged. We may not be able to take off after we’ve landed.”
Northwest officials in Minneapolis and air-traffic controllers in Reno want to know if the hijacker has jumped from the plane.
Tina uses the intercom phone again.
“Sir?”
The screech of the dangling aftstairs against the runway in Reno sounds like a car crash. Police cars trail the jet to ensure the hijacker
does not roll out onto the tarmac. The Northwest pilots are talking with Reno Approach.
“See any sparks coming off the tail at any time on touchdown?”
“Negative. None at all. The only thing that’s visible on the tail is lights on your ramp.”
“Roger.”
“I do see some sparks now, just a few, trailing you as you’re taxiing in.”
The plane rolls to a stop.
Scotty turns and unlocks the cockpit door. He calls out into the cabin.
“Sir?”
Tina is behind him. She calls out over his shoulder.
“Sir?” she says. “Do you want us to refuel?”
Scotty inches into first class. The seats are empty. He creeps forward into the cabin. He is facing the first-class curtain. He unhinges the clasp. He pulls the curtain back.
“Sir?”
The so-called Bing Crosby sketch was the first composed by the FBI.
The Bing Crosby sketch with sunglasses.
Another FBI sketch. Notice the differences?
What an aged Cooper would look like now, according to the FBI.
Private eye Skipp Porteous and Cooper suspect Kenneth Christiansen. Notice Christiansen’s smirky grin.
Northwest Orient Flight 305, hijacked shortly after leaving Portland en route to Seattle. The model was equipped with aftstairs for loading passengers. The CIA also used the aftstairs of the 727 to drop cargo and parachutists during Vietnam.
Stewardess Tina Mucklow. She spent nearly five hours with Cooper. “He was never cruel or nasty in any way,” she said after the hijacking. She later became a nun. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Row 18. The hijacker sat in the middle seat.
The aftstairs of Northwest 305, which Cooper leaped from at 10,000 feet.
Suspect Bobby Dayton. COURTESY OF RON AND PAT FORMAN
Suspect Barbara Dayton, post-surgery. COURTESY OF RON AND PAT FORMAN
Army soldiers search for Cooper near Lake Merwin in the spring of 1972.
SKYJACK: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper Page 8