DB Cooper

[FLYJACK 654]

Cooper's hair was described as wavy, marceled and curly.. = Hahneman

plus, slanted forehead hairline...

In one pic, Hahneman has his hair slicked back, he used some hair product.

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by FLYJACK

[FLYJACK 654]

40 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

All three stews gave varying descriptions of the hijacker. All three ended up with different results from the FBI's Facial Identification Catalog. With the passengers, it was even worse. Just saying. 

Yes, human nature of witnesses. Varying descriptions but some things are fairly consistent.

Matching the description alone doesn't make a suspect Cooper, not matching excludes.

It is one tick box... I have maybe a hundred.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

41 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

All three stews gave varying descriptions of the hijacker. All three ended up with different results from the FBI's Facial Identification Catalog. With the passengers, it was even worse. Just saying. 

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Taking the 'Cooper Drawings' as gospel is foolish. 

There are likely aspects of it (them) that are correct, but I'd bet that there are just as many that are not. Pretending that someone is a good suspect just because of resemblance to the sketches is foolish. 

I thought that there was a good indication that Cooper wanted the stairs down on takeoff. 
#1 - Is it possible that the FBI & airline thought that would be a good way for Tina to escape, and were going to try to have that happen, completely independent of what Cooper wanted?

#2 - Cooper didn't ask for that at first, but later during the negotiations. While knowing his true intentions is not possible, I can put myself in his position and try to imagine what kinds of 'head games' I would play. Was he really wanting to jump early, so he didn't ask for stairs down on takeoff until late in the game, to keep the FBI from trying to set up a 'dragnet' close to the airport? Was it just a feint, trying to make the FBI think he was going to jump early, making them scramble to set up assets on the ground close to the airport? 

 

A couple thoughts on the exit and how he secured stuff:

Mr Blevins, your 'wuffo-ness' is showing rather clearly. Not trying to be insulting, and you have admitted it too.
But the idea that Cooper deployed off the bottom of the stairs is pretty ridiculous. The idea that he did it to make sure the parachute wouldn't malfunction (or would have an option if it did) is also unrealistic. 

Deploying off the stairs would be vicious. The plane was above 200kts. Normal freefall deployment speed is 'belly speed', around 120 mph. There are jumpers who do what we call 'freeflying', going head down or head up. Those body orientations allow the jumper to reach much higher speeds, up in the 180 mph range. Gear for those jumps needs to be 'freefly friendly', which means 'secure enough' that they won't open prematurely at high speeds. Unintentional openings at those speeds can (and has) cause significant injury. 
There were 'jet jumps' out of 727s & DC-9s back in the days of the World Freefall Convention. I think 377 did a couple. I know there have been people who posted on this thread that did. The exit was...

Exciting. 
Going out the door into a 200+ relative wind is pretty extreme. Jumpers with a lot of experience were thrown wildly around. Goggles, helmets & gloves were blown off. And this is from people who were used to it. Just not the energy of a high speed exit.
Any jumper who has been through training should be able to deal with it. He would slow down fairly soon and recovering to a stable fall position after going unstable is part of every jumpers training.
For someone who hasn't jumped, the disorientation of the tumbling and wind could be severe enough that finding the ripcord and pulling might be impossible. It's happened more than once with first time students on 'normal' exits.

 

Most non-jumpers think of malfunctions as 'the parachute didn't open'. We call those a 'total malfunction'. While those do happen, its a lot, lot more common for the container to open, the canopy to come out  and then not open fully or properly. Line overs, inversions (for a round), streamers (again rounds) are examples of malfunctions that the 'deploy off the stairs in case it doesn't open' would not work for.

 

Securing stuff:
Mr Blevins posted a pic of a round jumper with a bag dangling below him (the new format took away the post numbering, so I can't say "in post #xxx), suggesting that Cooper may have done something like that.

The 'dangle bag' is a common practice for military jumpers. It reduces the weight on their body, making landing less of an impact. The bag hits the ground first, which 'unweights' the canopy, allowing it to slow a bit more before landing. The bag hits the ground at the end of a tether of known length, giving the jumper a warning that the ground is 'xx' feet below. This is handy for night jumps, where you can't see the ground.

But the bag has to be secured to the jumper on exit. It's then released to the end of the tether once under a good canopy.
If something was tied to a long tether and the jumper exited to freefall, the chances of the tethered bag entangling with the canopy on opening are pretty high.
There was a tandem pair that died because the instructor deployed the reserve without releasing or cutting away the drogue and main canopy. The drogue had gotten wrapped in the bridle and wasn't slowing the pair down. The instructor should have released the drogue, which would have opened the main canopy. He then could have chosen to keep or cut away the main. 
Instead, he just deployed the reserve, with the drogue and it's bridle streaming above him. The reserve tangled with the drogue bridle and never opened.

[FLYJACK 654]

4 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Taking the 'Cooper Drawings' as gospel is foolish. 

There are likely aspects of it (them) that are correct, but I'd bet that there are just as many that are not. Pretending that someone is a good suspect just because of resemblance to the sketches is foolish. 

I thought that there was a good indication that Cooper wanted the stairs down on takeoff. 
#1 - Is it possible that the FBI & airline thought that would be a good way for Tina to escape, and were going to try to have that happen, completely independent of what Cooper wanted?

#2 - Cooper didn't ask for that at first, but later during the negotiations. While knowing his true intentions is not possible, I can put myself in his position and try to imagine what kinds of 'head games' I would play. Was he really wanting to jump early, so he didn't ask for stairs down on takeoff until late in the game, to keep the FBI from trying to set up a 'dragnet' close to the airport? Was it just a feint, trying to make the FBI think he was going to jump early, making them scramble to set up assets on the ground close to the airport? 

 

A couple thoughts on the exit and how he secured stuff:

Mr Blevins, your 'wuffo-ness' is showing rather clearly. Not trying to be insulting, and you have admitted it too.
But the idea that Cooper deployed off the bottom of the stairs is pretty ridiculous. The idea that he did it to make sure the parachute wouldn't malfunction (or would have an option if it did) is also unrealistic. 

Deploying off the stairs would be vicious. The plane was above 200kts. Normal freefall deployment speed is 'belly speed', around 120 mph. There are jumpers who do what we call 'freeflying', going head down or head up. Those body orientations allow the jumper to reach much higher speeds, up in the 180 mph range. Gear for those jumps needs to be 'freefly friendly', which means 'secure enough' that they won't open prematurely at high speeds. Unintentional openings at those speeds can (and has) cause significant injury. 
There were 'jet jumps' out of 727s & DC-9s back in the days of the World Freefall Convention. I think 377 did a couple. I know there have been people who posted on this thread that did. The exit was...

Exciting. 
Going out the door into a 200+ relative wind is pretty extreme. Jumpers with a lot of experience were thrown wildly around. Goggles, helmets & gloves were blown off. And this is from people who were used to it. Just not the energy of a high speed exit.
Any jumper who has been through training should be able to deal with it. He would slow down fairly soon and recovering to a stable fall position after going unstable is part of every jumpers training.
For someone who hasn't jumped, the disorientation of the tumbling and wind could be severe enough that finding the ripcord and pulling might be impossible. It's happened more than once with first time students on 'normal' exits.

 

Most non-jumpers think of malfunctions as 'the parachute didn't open'. We call those a 'total malfunction'. While those do happen, its a lot, lot more common for the container to open, the canopy to come out  and then not open fully or properly. Line overs, inversions (for a round), streamers (again rounds) are examples of malfunctions that the 'deploy off the stairs in case it doesn't open' would not work for.

 

Securing stuff:
Mr Blevins posted a pic of a round jumper with a bag dangling below him (the new format took away the post numbering, so I can't say "in post #xxx), suggesting that Cooper may have done something like that.

The 'dangle bag' is a common practice for military jumpers. It reduces the weight on their body, making landing less of an impact. The bag hits the ground first, which 'unweights' the canopy, allowing it to slow a bit more before landing. The bag hits the ground at the end of a tether of known length, giving the jumper a warning that the ground is 'xx' feet below. This is handy for night jumps, where you can't see the ground.

But the bag has to be secured to the jumper on exit. It's then released to the end of the tether once under a good canopy.
If something was tied to a long tether and the jumper exited to freefall, the chances of the tethered bag entangling with the canopy on opening are pretty high.
There was a tandem pair that died because the instructor deployed the reserve without releasing or cutting away the drogue and main canopy. The drogue had gotten wrapped in the bridle and wasn't slowing the pair down. The instructor should have released the drogue, which would have opened the main canopy. He then could have chosen to keep or cut away the main. 
Instead, he just deployed the reserve, with the drogue and it's bridle streaming above him. The reserve tangled with the drogue bridle and never opened.

I posted a few comments back for Hahneman's hijacked 727 for ransom, he was observed walking backwards down the rear airstairs and jumped back first..

 

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

1 hour ago, FLYJACK said:

I posted a few comments back for Hahneman's hijacked 727 for ransom, he was observed walking backwards down the rear airstairs and jumped back first..

 

He may well have. Jumping off the stairs back first would face the jumper into the relative wind, which is where he would want to end up.

Student jumpers used to do their first jump from a Cessna 182 by hanging off of the strut under the wing. That put them into a 'belly to the wind" position that is more stable. They also do an exit where they are standing on the wheel step, facing forward and hop off. Not unlike hopping back off of the bottom step of the 727 stairs. 

Jumping off that way and deploying off the steps are two very different things. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, DerekGodsey12 said:

You don’t believe Panama Jack Hahneman to be DB Cooper? How is that lying? 

I never said he had an afro and there is no Panama Jack, that is you trolling.

If you were confident in your suspect you wouldn't need to lie to discredit others.

You don't contribute here to the topic so I'll put you on ignore.

[mrshutter45 21]

Only the front side stairs were used. those are the stairs they were trying to get everyone down. not the back one's. that's how everything arrived on the plane..the side stairs...

 

If they had the ladder ready in the cockpit to escape. they could of left while Tina was making the last run with the demands..Cooper would of been all by himself. Rat said he missed that opportunity..

Edited April 12, 2019 by mrshutter45

[mrshutter45 21]

you are NOT at the 8:09 location. it's above Lake Merwin. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by mrshutter45

[mrshutter45 21]

Derek, you obviously haven't a clue what you are talking about. it's impossible to be at that location. the plane would have to be going much faster then they claim on the transcripts. perhaps you are mixing this up with them believing he jumped further south. that doesn't mean you move a time on the map. 

What the problem appears to be is the oscillations were noted on the transcripts but not the pressure bump. a difference is known between the two. 

[mrshutter45 21]

I'm not going to continue to post here while things like this continue. I refuse to even debate this issue. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

8 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

 

Well, okay. It was just a thought. I'm no jumper, I think we all realize that. When I first proposed this idea years ago about possibly pulling right off the stairs, this was seconded by 377, who is probably as good a skydiver as anybody. I should just defer to the experts and let you guys discuss this. One thing about Cooper you can say is that if he was willing to take the Big Dive with a single bailout rig and no reserve, then he must have had a lot of guts. 

 

No worries on it. I don't mind ignorance (not knowing about something). As long as you don't venture into stubborn and stupid territory (I know I'm right and I don't care what anyone says).

There's also the 'secret squirrel' stupidity. The "I know something you don't know, but I'm not going to tell you" crap. 

I'm just a little (or maybe a lot) anal about getting details correct. 

I don't remember 377 agreeing that Cooper pulled directly off the bottom of the stairs, but he may have said it when I wasn't reading.

He's what is sometimes called a 'crusty old guy'. It's not a dig, it's an acknowledgment that he's been around for a long time...

And is still here. 
He's seen and done a lot. 

 

I'm not sure that I would say that Cooper had 'a lot of guts' to go with a single canopy bailout rig.

Despite what the wuffo world thinks, malfunctions are pretty rare, even for sport mains (which can be packed by any jumper). Reserve mals are even more rare. The rig is designed to be reliable, and packed by a rated rigger. 

I trust my reserve completely. I know full well there's a (very small) chance it won't open correctly, but if I have a main mal, then I will chop and deploy the reserve without hesitation. I am a rigger, and I pack my own reserve. I know how it's packed, how the container is set up and how it deploys. 

I've also flown jumpers in a Cessna 182. For those, the pilot wears a bailout rig. My sport rig was not a good fit with the seat, so I usually wore one of the 'pilot rigs'. Somewhat similar to the Pioneer, but more modern. Again, I packed them and I trusted them. The only time I'd ever jump it is if the plane is damaged and not landable. Which almost never happens. 

 

There's also the simple reality that Cooper had the choice to jump or go to prison for a long, long time. It's entirely possible he did the good old "I'd rather die than go to prison, so here we go" sort of thing.

 

[JJG78 0]

21 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Taking the 'Cooper Drawings' as gospel is foolish. 

There are likely aspects of it (them) that are correct, but I'd bet that there are just as many that are not. Pretending that someone is a good suspect just because of resemblance to the sketches is foolish. 

I thought that there was a good indication that Cooper wanted the stairs down on takeoff. 
#1 - Is it possible that the FBI & airline thought that would be a good way for Tina to escape, and were going to try to have that happen, completely independent of what Cooper wanted?

#2 - Cooper didn't ask for that at first, but later during the negotiations. While knowing his true intentions is not possible, I can put myself in his position and try to imagine what kinds of 'head games' I would play. Was he really wanting to jump early, so he didn't ask for stairs down on takeoff until late in the game, to keep the FBI from trying to set up a 'dragnet' close to the airport? Was it just a feint, trying to make the FBI think he was going to jump early, making them scramble to set up assets on the ground close to the airport? 

 

A couple thoughts on the exit and how he secured stuff:

Mr Blevins, your 'wuffo-ness' is showing rather clearly. Not trying to be insulting, and you have admitted it too.
But the idea that Cooper deployed off the bottom of the stairs is pretty ridiculous. The idea that he did it to make sure the parachute wouldn't malfunction (or would have an option if it did) is also unrealistic. 

Deploying off the stairs would be vicious. The plane was above 200kts. Normal freefall deployment speed is 'belly speed', around 120 mph. There are jumpers who do what we call 'freeflying', going head down or head up. Those body orientations allow the jumper to reach much higher speeds, up in the 180 mph range. Gear for those jumps needs to be 'freefly friendly', which means 'secure enough' that they won't open prematurely at high speeds. Unintentional openings at those speeds can (and has) cause significant injury. 
There were 'jet jumps' out of 727s & DC-9s back in the days of the World Freefall Convention. I think 377 did a couple. I know there have been people who posted on this thread that did. The exit was...

Exciting. 
Going out the door into a 200+ relative wind is pretty extreme. Jumpers with a lot of experience were thrown wildly around. Goggles, helmets & gloves were blown off. And this is from people who were used to it. Just not the energy of a high speed exit.
Any jumper who has been through training should be able to deal with it. He would slow down fairly soon and recovering to a stable fall position after going unstable is part of every jumpers training.
For someone who hasn't jumped, the disorientation of the tumbling and wind could be severe enough that finding the ripcord and pulling might be impossible. It's happened more than once with first time students on 'normal' exits.

 

Most non-jumpers think of malfunctions as 'the parachute didn't open'. We call those a 'total malfunction'. While those do happen, its a lot, lot more common for the container to open, the canopy to come out  and then not open fully or properly. Line overs, inversions (for a round), streamers (again rounds) are examples of malfunctions that the 'deploy off the stairs in case it doesn't open' would not work for.

 

Securing stuff:
Mr Blevins posted a pic of a round jumper with a bag dangling below him (the new format took away the post numbering, so I can't say "in post #xxx), suggesting that Cooper may have done something like that.

The 'dangle bag' is a common practice for military jumpers. It reduces the weight on their body, making landing less of an impact. The bag hits the ground first, which 'unweights' the canopy, allowing it to slow a bit more before landing. The bag hits the ground at the end of a tether of known length, giving the jumper a warning that the ground is 'xx' feet below. This is handy for night jumps, where you can't see the ground.

But the bag has to be secured to the jumper on exit. It's then released to the end of the tether once under a good canopy.
If something was tied to a long tether and the jumper exited to freefall, the chances of the tethered bag entangling with the canopy on opening are pretty high.
There was a tandem pair that died because the instructor deployed the reserve without releasing or cutting away the drogue and main canopy. The drogue had gotten wrapped in the bridle and wasn't slowing the pair down. The instructor should have released the drogue, which would have opened the main canopy. He then could have chosen to keep or cut away the main. 
Instead, he just deployed the reserve, with the drogue and it's bridle streaming above him. The reserve tangled with the drogue bridle and never opened.

Eyewitness testimony is questionable, especially if it is under stress or in passing like in a bank robbery.  But there were postings on here from a FBI agent who said that one of the stewardesses spent hours with DB Cooper, and up close.  He seems to believe the witness descriptions.

I'm impressed with all these FBI files and pictures.  Keep those coming.  Do we really need a picture of James Klansic every 2 hours though? He resembles the sketches, point taken.  The picture from Derek G of the map showing how far away the money was found from the flight path is eye opening.  12 miles is a long way.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

I agree that Tina's descriptions of Cooper are probably the most reliable. 

And Carr had a lot of experience with that sort of thing, so I'd take his word on it.

The problem is that those sketches are always fairly 'generic'. And even when the 'describer' has spend considerable time with the suspect, the sketches can be 'off'. 

Not that they are wrong, but that they 'aren't right'. As in not specific enough to eliminate anyone who isn't the suspect, or clearly identify someone who is (as a certain poster seems to be trying to do).

And how the money ended up on Tena Bar is a real problem. There was a ton of work done 'back in the day' on it. How the water flowed, how the money could have drifted, all of that. 
The only conclusion I can draw (and I could certainly be wrong) is that the money was not 'lost' during the exit. Maybe during the hike out, maybe dumped at a later date after it was retrieved from some sort of 'cache'. Paper currency is pretty fragile. Storing it long term (years) without it deteriorating is not a trivial task.

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I agree that Tina's descriptions of Cooper are probably the most reliable. 

And Carr had a lot of experience with that sort of thing, so I'd take his word on it.

The problem is that those sketches are always fairly 'generic'. And even when the 'describer' has spend considerable time with the suspect, the sketches can be 'off'. 

Not that they are wrong, but that they 'aren't right'. As in not specific enough to eliminate anyone who isn't the suspect, or clearly identify someone who is (as a certain poster seems to be trying to do).

And how the money ended up on Tena Bar is a real problem. There was a ton of work done 'back in the day' on it. How the water flowed, how the money could have drifted, all of that. 
The only conclusion I can draw (and I could certainly be wrong) is that the money was not 'lost' during the exit. Maybe during the hike out, maybe dumped at a later date after it was retrieved from some sort of 'cache'. Paper currency is pretty fragile. Storing it long term (years) without it deteriorating is not a trivial task.

The witness suspect descriptions vary and the sketch is a "composite".. so it isn't precise but it was used to include or eliminate suspects.

 

I have several theories about TBAR I am working..

The top two are,,

The money was discarded, not planted within a few years of being found.

and

There was a massive 200,000 cu/yd dredge operation in 1976/77 on Sauvie Island right across and slightly upstream of TBAR..  The material was clamshell dredged and barged upstream from the Columbia. It was dumped on Sauvie as a soil erosion remediation project. Theory,, Cooper lost some/all money into the Lewis R/Merwyn (within FBI LZ) and it flowed down to the Columbia, clamshell dredged in 1976/77, barged to Sauvie, dumped, constant erosion loosened it, washed across to land on TBAR.
 

That Sauvie dredge operation timeline would put the TBAR money above the TBAR 1974 dredge spoil layer.

Edited April 13, 2019 by FLYJACK

[FLYJACK 654]

15 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I know this has been brought up before, but one BiG problem with any theory that includes the money washing up on Tina Bar from elsewhere is the amount of money found. MORE than one bundle of the money, in fact, an amount totaling roughly THREE bundles was found. 

In the same exact spot. How could three bundles of this cash wash down from elsewhere and stay together for a trip that would last for miles? Seems improbable at best. 

It wasn't three bundles, it was three packets (x100 bills). The packets were given to Cooper in random sized rubber banded bundles (x packets).. There is zero evidence that the TBAR packets landed separated from their bundle, the rubber band frags may have held together a bundle which separated as they deteriorated leaving 3 packets close and touching. 

If they did land independently, then the packets must have been separated after being given to Cooper by somebody. That is why Tosaw theorized TBAR was from his coat pocket. 

 

 

 

 

[JJG78 0]

40 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

The witness suspect descriptions vary and the sketch is a "composite".. so it isn't precise but it was used to include or eliminate suspects.

 

I have several theories about TBAR I am working..

The top two are,,

The money was discarded, not planted within a few years of being found.

and

There was a massive 200,000 cu/yd dredge operation in 1976/77 on Sauvie Island right across and slightly upstream of TBAR..  The material was clamshell dredged and barged upstream from the Columbia. It was dumped on Sauvie as a soil erosion remediation project. Theory,, Cooper lost some/all money into the Lewis R/Merwyn (within FBI LZ) and it flowed down to the Columbia, clamshell dredged in 1976/77, barged to Sauvie, dumped, constant erosion loosened it, washed across to land on TBAR.
 

That Sauvie dredge operation timeline would put the TBAR money above the TBAR 1974 dredge spoil layer.

Do you know where the dredge began? Location? Good map. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 minute ago, JJG78 said:

Do you know where the dredge began? Location? Good map. 

The brown area I marked with the blue line is where the dredge spoils were dumped in 76/77, the material was barged upstream from dredging locations including the Lewis entering the Columbia. I'd have to go back to check my notes on it, but I determined that while it is plausible, there is no way to confirm or reject this theory. I could not advance it any further but it is a good one that I have never seen before.

Sauvie Island undergoes constant erosion right where the Columbia hits and turns right. Loosened debri would head straight at TBAR.

[FLYJACK 654]

31 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I don't think it matters if you call them bundles or packets. Same thing. Approximately 100 twenty-dollar bills each (packet/bundle) and approximately $5,800 found plus some shards. That adds up to three packets/bundles no matter how you describe them. All had rubber bands around them. How would three just miraculously stay together for any kind of river trip? Nothing else found...no body, no briefcase, no dummy reserve, no money bag, no NOTHIN. 

It does matter,,, there is a difference. A packet is 100 bills, it is not a bundle of 5 x 100 bills. A bundle is a general term for a group, but banks use these terms specifically. 

 

Conflating these terms leads to confusion, bad logic and erroneous conclusions. Example:

Carr claimed the bank employee told him they randomized and rubber banded the bundles. Carr assumed the packets of 100 were randomized (thinking they are bundles), they were not. He was wrong. The packets were not randomized.

 

The rubber band frags: I have searched and found many vague and various descriptions of those rubber band frags and none actually state where EXACTLY they were attached to the money. They could have held together a bundle. Given the evidence, It is more likely that the money landed as one bundle of multiple packets than landing independently. Moreover, if independent then those specific packets had to have been separated by somebody after Cooper was given the ransom money. Possible, but by no means a fact. The ransom money went into the bag in random sized rubber banded bundles of multiple packets. 

 

Edited April 13, 2019 by FLYJACK

[FLYJACK 654]

25 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Okay...now this is getting confusing. We know rubber bands were involved somehow. I think it's time for Tom K to step in and say a few things. Or maybe Brian Ingram. He saw the bills before anyone tried to wash them up, or whatever the heck they did with those bills before calling the cops. 

I think walking around with a metal detector this summer sounds easier, and less of a headache than trying to figure all this out. 

Apparently it is very confusing,,,

Tom Kaye researched it and found the same thing. There is no evidence for the specific location of the rubber band frags found on the money, just vagueness, around, attached, intact? crumbling to touch?

Remember, the edges of the packets were completely eroded, so the rubber band frags were only stuck on the tops and bottoms. Can an eight year old boy determine whether those band frags were holding each packet only or as a group.

The bank claimed the packets were in bank bands.. Himms claimed they were strapped..

If the packets were bank strapped then the rubber bands would have held together groups of packets in a bundle.

It is possible they landed separately but we need to explain how those 3 packets separated from the bundle they were in when handed to Cooper plus there had to be rubber bands used for the packets. Evidence suggests bank bands but it could have been both.

 

The take away is this... finding those 3 packets slightly separated with deteriorated rubber band frags attached (tops and bottoms) doesn't mean they landed independent of a bundle. Those rubber band frags may have held them in a single bundle. By rejecting the "single bundle" idea the means by which the money could have arrived at TBAR is "erroneously" restricted. 

 

 

 

Edited April 13, 2019 by FLYJACK

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

This is why terminology is important.

Packs are 100 bills, with a paper 'band' (not a rubber band) or strap. 

Wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_strap

 

Larry Carr said that the bank already had "ransom money", with the serial numbers recorded, put together. It was bundled (using rubber bands) in an apparently random manner, so that any extortionist would think that it had been put together hastily and on demand. 

 

It's entirely possible that the 3 packs (and just those 3) were all originally in a single bundle. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Well, yes that is possible. I didn't know the bills were pre-recorded before being stored away by SeaFirst, though. I always thought they ran them through the Recordak on the day of the hijacking. Here is a Kodak brochure about them. Just hit your Page Up or Down to see the whole brochure. (The ones made for just READING microfilm are also called by the name Recordak, which can be confusing.) Link leads to the one that puts documents onto microfilm. 

The bills were Micro'd on a Recordak machine well before Norjak. The Bank had an emergency stash of circulated bills, total $250,000 with $20,000 in $10's and $230,000 in $20's. The entire stash was recorded in order. The FBI had nothing to do with recording the serial numbers. The Bank was responsible for maintaining the integrity of the Micro matching the money. 

They grabbed $200,000 for Cooper and left the rest but this is where it gets screwy, typical NORJAK. The bank took the remaining $30,000 of $20 bills which was 15 packets of 100. They wrote down only the top and bottom bill serial number for each packet and sent the 15 pairs of numbers to the FBI as well as the Micro list of all the bills. The FBI was instructed to use the paired numbers as start and stop points, remove them from the list and all bills in between which they didn't actually have numbers for. They ignored the 10's. 

The 15 packets of $20's that didn't go to Cooper but were on the list were immediately incorporated into a new Bank ransom stash which was also run through a Recordak...  everybody following so far..  The FBI was having trouble deducting the bills and creating the list so they asked the Bank for a list of all the remaining bill serial numbers from those 15 packets. The Bank supplied the FBI with the Recordak Micro for the new ransom stash noting the ranges for the 15 packets. Now the FBI had to deduct each bill found from the original list. However, the range for the list was slightly different, the packets didn't quite match, that may be where the 9998 bills comes from, two bills short. There is an error.

There were two Bank ransom stashes, two  sets  of Recordak Micro's and entire thing was under the control of the Bank. If the Bank didn't maintain the integrity of the ransom stash then the FBI bill list would be wrong.

 

Consider the ramifications if money was used/replaced from the ransom stash and the Micro wasn't updated. It is very unlikely but theoretically possible that the TBAR money didn't go to Cooper but was used in another ransom payout if the Bank didn't maintain the Recordak Micro. I did find an earlier Portland ransom payout that was never recovered. A little OT but interesting, a guy phoned in a bomb on a plane that would go off if it descended to a specific altitude. He would let them know how to disarm if paid, he effectively hijacked a plane without being on it. He was caught in Portland but the ransom money was never recovered.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by FLYJACK

[DerekGodsey12 1]

Didn’t Tina go to Carmelite right after the money was found? 

[DerekGodsey12 1]

3 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

The infamous Tina Bar money. More facts that get in the way of previous 'facts'. Geez Louise. Where's the Excedrin. 

You are right. It is screwy trying to figure all this stuff out. No wonder Cooper was never caught. 

Not trying to say KC was Cooper, but consider what Himmelsbach told Geoff Gray in an interview. Gray asked him if the FBI ever checked out employees of the airline for possible suspects. (There is a story out there that the DC office wanted this done, at least to a degree.) Himmelsbach said they never did, and not only that, it would never occur to him to go in such a direction. He explains:

"We had an awful lot of suggestions by people who said, "I think it's an inside job."

Gray presses him a bit. 

"It is inconceivable for several reasons. The main one is character. If you were acquainted as I was with many of the people in the airline industry, they are exceptional people. They are head and shoulders above the standards and values and the character of normal, average, Americans."

Gray's response was basically that he thought there were criminals in the airline business, just like any other business. 

My response is who the hell knows what is true and what is not sometimes in the Cooper investigation. 
 

Me be is knowing the truths 

[FLYJACK 654]

Ralph Himmelsbach “There were 10,000 twenty dollar bills assembled in straps of 100 bills to a strap and individual straps held together with rubber bands.”

"straps" are currency straps or bank bands in counts of 100 bills (packets) for denominations over $1

 

at 6:35 of video…

 

 

Tina Mucklow saw  "bank-type bands around each package"

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by FLYJACK

[mrshutter45 21]

"My response is who the hell knows what is true and what is not sometimes in the Cooper investigation."

If you took the time to read the 302's you would find that they did check on NWO employee's. I found several pages speaking about background checks. it's common practice.