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DB Cooper

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34 minutes ago, Coopy said:

I do not know why a suicidal man would be careful.

He demanded the notes and matchbook back so many infer he was meticulous about prints and argue he would never leave the tie evidence and therefore it was a plant..  

The fact that he handed out money and left cigarette butts refutes that level of meticulousness..  and the main argument for the plant theory.

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I know Eric claims the placard came from next to the bulkhead door but that is impossible, there is not enough room between the access panel and the door on the 727-100,, maybe there is more room on the 727-200, I am not sure.. further the emergency release is too far from that location and behind its own panel. So, the claim that it was attached next to the bulkhead door is false for NORJAK's 727-100.

It is not a fact that the placard came from NORJAK.. 

I think it is very unlikely based on many factors but it is possible.. even the FBI walked it back.

Edited by FLYJACK

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1 hour ago, Coopy said:

I do not know why a suicidal man would be careful.

Suicidal? The odds are greatly in favor of Cooper surviving the jump. If he's got the nerve to do the hijacking, I'm guessing he has the presence of mind to pull the ripcord, whether he's experienced or not. If he pulls, he's all but assured of getting an open canopy. There's a chance of him being injured on landing, but not fatally so, unless he's unable to hike out and succumbs to the elements.

A few days ago I saw the old Cooper TV documentary that showed Cossey making the statement that the ripcord position would make it difficult for Cooper to pull. I think Cossey was BSing the reporters. That rig was made for an emergency bailout by aircrew or aerobatic pilots, most of whom are presumably not experienced jumpers. Is he saying that most of them would likely go in for inability to pull? He packs those rigs and hands them to his clients. Does he expect them all to bounce if they bail? I think not. Even if he did change the ripcord location (as has been reported) it would still be in an easily accessible spot. Cossey was a jumper and a rigger. I don't think he was earnestly saying that and was wrong, I think he was purposefully feeding them a line.

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Shutter responded...

"It was Cooper's money? of course his prints would be found on any of it he touched prior to or after exiting the plane..plus dozens of other prints would be found on the money since it was in circulation prior to being stored at the bank..does't mean any good prints would be found or even able to link to him.."

This is why I lose patience with that forum, Shutter completely missed the point.

The point isn't whether prints could be found or not on money, the point is Cooper took the risk... and because he took that risk with the money it contradicts the argument that he was meticulous about evidence (clearly he wasn't) and could have only left the tie as a plant. It tells us that the tie plant theory based on Cooper's thoroughness with evidence is bogus. That is all.

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Here is a similar bogus argument..

 

Everyone, including myself believed Cooper wanted to jump ASAP because he demanded airstairs down on takeoff..

But, as clearly laid out in the FBI files his initial demand was airstairs lowered inflight, he changed it during negotiations with the crew..

Since his plan A was airstairs lowered inflight that indicates he did NOT want to jump ASAP or near Seattle.

The conclusion that he wanted to jump ASAP at least initially is busted. Once the plane was going to land in Reno he wanted out ASAP.. Authorities would have mobilized on Reno.

That tells us he jumped into an area he had not planned.

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3 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

'Wanted stairs lowered in-flight' covers a lot of ground. When in flight? Right after the wheels left the ground? Two minutes after takeoff, when the jet would have been just a few miles out of SeaTac Airport? 

Geoff Gray says that the pilots used the radio while on the ground in Seattle (page 76 Skyjack) to call the NWA engineers about Cooper's demand to take off with the airstairs down. This was alleged between pilots and NWA, not the FBI. According to Gray, this is how the whole thing started with the airstairs. It is also common for pilots to consult with the ground crew on anything like this, or if they have a mechanical problem in-flight, so it sounds reasonable to me. 

Allegedly, NWA engineers told the 305 crew that it was NOT possible to take off with the airstairs in the down position, but flying it that way once they were airborne was quite possible. If you are asking me what Cooper's original jump plan was...I created a map about that long ago, which is shown below:

jumpmap1.jpg.77265468a34a285e7f35acfaea9552ce.jpg

If NWA engineers told the crew they must refuse to open the airstairs prior to takeoff, then it would take more time for Cooper to prepare for the jump. He had to secure the money bag, deal with Tina Mucklow, get his own chute on and secured, and then...get the airstairs released. The whole scenario sounds like the old Murphy's Law of Planning:

Cooper's original plan was probably to jump somewhere inside the area shown by the larger blue circle. But with the jet traveling along at three miles a minute, by the time Cooper was ready to go, the jet was probably far south of that point and he simply jumped when he was ready...but BEFORE they reached the Columbia River. Jumping after that point would mean coming down in a major metro area at night...or ker plonking into the Columbia River. 

FBI files state his initial demand was changed and the radio transcript confirms it..

Cooper's initial demand was airstairs to be lowered in flight.. it was changed when they were negotiating to land in Reno.

The argument that Cooper wanted to jump ASAP is based on his demanding the airstairs down on take off.. << this premise is often repeated and it is false with respect to his initial plan.

There is no evidence to indicate his initial plan was to jump ASAP..

When Reno was in play he wanted out ASAP..

If Cooper's initial plan was to jump ASAP he could have initially demanded airstairs down on take off.

Edited by FLYJACK

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6 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

Shutter responded...

"It was Cooper's money? of course his prints would be found on any of it he touched prior to or after exiting the plane..plus dozens of other prints would be found on the money since it was in circulation prior to being stored at the bank..does't mean any good prints would be found or even able to link to him.."

This is why I lose patience with that forum, Shutter completely missed the point.

The point isn't whether prints could be found or not on money, the point is Cooper took the risk... and because he took that risk with the money it contradicts the argument that he was meticulous about evidence (clearly he wasn't) and could have only left the tie as a plant. It tells us that the tie plant theory based on Cooper's thoroughness with evidence is bogus. That is all.

No, Shutter you still don't get the point..

It only addresses the "tie was a plant" argument. 

The standard argument claims Cooper was so careful about all the evidence he must have planted the tie. He wouldn't have been so sloppy to leave it.. Well, handing cash to the stews which could have his fingerprints isn't careful and meticulous. If he was sloppy with the money he could have been sloppy with the tie.

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7 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

We only know (according to Geoff Gray anyway) that Cooper OFFERED money to at least one of the stews. We do NOT know whether any of them accepted it. 

Since accepting any of that money would not only be hard to conceal from FBI agents waiting in Reno, but could possibly land them in Federal prison for a long time...it is extremely doubtful ANY of the stews were foolish enough to accept freshly stolen money obtained by hijacking the airline they worked for. Mucklow especially fits this bill. She was known to her co-workers as a deeply religious, Bible-thumping proselytizer who tried converting damn near everyone except the passengers. 

Tina admitted she was handed ransom money.. The stews said all were offered tip money from the drink change. There are a few reports that Flo and Alice were also offered ransom money as they left.  They all claimed the money was refused or returned in Tina's case.

It would not have been a crime to take the money if they turned it in, they should have taken it for potential prints. It is actually something that happens often, hijackers give money to crew and sometimes passengers. It compromised them as witnesses.

Tina had a huge bag and coat if she did keep the money it could have easily been concealed.

Being religious is irrelevant. 

Maybe she kept the money handed to her then was scared to turn it in naively thinking she would be in trouble, she wouldn't have been. If she didn't turn it in right away she had to keep it eventually discarding it..

If Tina did keep the money she would be compromised as a witness.

 

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14 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

No, Shutter you still don't get the point..

It only addresses the "tie was a plant" argument. 

The standard argument claims Cooper was so careful about all the evidence he must have planted the tie. He wouldn't have been so sloppy to leave it.. Well, handing cash to the stews which could have his fingerprints isn't careful and meticulous. If he was sloppy with the money he could have been sloppy with the tie.

Shutter, you keep stating the obvious..

The point is ONLY to asses the argument that the "tie was planted" because Cooper was meticulous with evidence.. He was not. The premise for that argument is false.

Edited by FLYJACK

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Tom and I got the same slope for TBAR...  about 10%. 5.5-5.7 degrees

That puts the money spot about 4 ft above the river in Feb 1980. Less if buried.

The money spot is reached by seasonal water level fluctuations. You don't need the 72/74 flood event to reach the money spot. The seasonal high flow for the Columbia is Spring.

Money found along high water line.. said right at beginning

 

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Eric and Robert99 are still pushing these falsehoods... based on compounded assumptions represented as FACTS..

 

I have addressed these many times and they just get ignored...

It is not a fact that the placard came from inside 305... unlikely but possible

There is no evidence the other part found was from 305...

The wind at the Placard find around 8 PM was S recorded at Toledo..

The winds aloft at the placard find from SW is NOT A FACT. There is no record.

Even the winds the FBI used for the LZ was an estimate, even that was not a fact.

The flightpath was not the F-106, they turned E too late and did loops.

 

The western flightpath theory is conjecture, assumptions and rejection of known facts.

There is really ZERO to support it. ZERO, it is just made up.

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3 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

Shutter, you keep stating the obvious..

The point is ONLY to asses the argument that the "tie was planted" because Cooper was meticulous with evidence.. He was not. The premise for that argument is false.

Yes, Shutter you have missed the point, completely

It only negates a premise used for an argument.. it doesn't make a positive argument for anything which you are assuming. 

You have always had trouble with logic.

I am not making any argument other than the premise for Cooper "planting the tie" is busted. That is all... you have added the inverse and assumed an argument that isn't there.

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23 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

...and could have only left the tie as a plant...

At least for my statement, I was not stating that I believe the tie was a plant. I was merely speculating the possibility. It seems that a lot of people on this case try to come to absolute conclusions about things that cannot be definitively known. Only Cooper knows for sure whether the tie was a plant or an oversight, or whether it was even his.

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1 minute ago, dudeman17 said:

At least for my statement, I was not stating that I believe the tie was a plant. I was merely speculating the possibility. It seems that a lot of people on this case try to come to absolute conclusions about things that cannot be definitively known. Only Cooper knows for sure whether the tie was a plant or an oversight, or whether it was even his.

The tie plant theory is a common one that goes way back..

WE don't know if he discarded it intentionally, or accidentally..

 

I believe he used it to wipe prints in the plane but that is speculation.

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40 minutes ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Dudeman:  Cooper was seen by Tina Mucklow securing the money bag with lines cut from the working reserve parachute. She also said he attached at least one 'main' (longer) line around the bag and was tying it around his waist. It is doubtful he ditched that whole assembly after she went forward beyond the First Class curtain. He would have to cut all the lines loose, and re-pack everything into the non-working (trainer) reserve container. This does not seem feasible to me, since he jumped fairly quickly after the airstairs showed 'open' on the Flight Engineer's control panel. 

The reason he probably did it that way is illustrated by the picture below. The most likely scenario on what happened to the non-working reserve is that, like the briefcase, it probably went right out the back and into the night as soon as Cooper dropped the stairs. A possible reason why no one has found either of those things is because they were probably ditched over an area that is privately owned by Weyerhauser Logging. That is the vast area of working forests just north of Ariel. All the access roads are gated and locked, although hunters can apply to enter during hunting season. But in the long run, it is FAR less visited than your typical National Forests, which are wide open to everyone. 

jumppic.jpg.a3898ddc5e1580f78aff5694606feced.jpg

 

That's all fine, and I've read that before, it's just that the poster 'Chaucer' had asked specifically whether a parachute container packed with money would float, so I was just commenting generally on that.

Who knows what Cooper actually did, what his experience was and how he thought about such things, but...

I don't like that idea about the money bag hanging below him, and here's why: If he jumps with the bag separated from his body tied to a line like that, it's going to trail behind him in freefall as soon as he exits. Such things have a nasty habit of snagging deploying parachutes and causing deadly malfunctions. If he tumbles on exit and it wraps around him before he pulls, all the worse. When the military does stuff like depicted in the picture, even on a static-line jump, that pack is attached to the body on exit and through deployment. After opening is when it's dropped below. That is done so that the heavy pack lands first, and unweights from the parachute before the jumper lands. A 20 lb. money bag wouldn't weigh enough to necessitate that.

A modern exception to THAT that I've seen is, the jumper exits a tailgate aircraft with a full 55-gallon steel drum full of whatever hanging below them. That thing is going to hang below them even in freefall and not trail behind. They use modified tandem rigs with huge square canopies and freefall drogues. In freefall it hangs a bit below them, then after opening they drop it lower to better time the landing.

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12 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I've wondered if he may have just pulled the ripcord right there at the bottom of the stairs and let it squib out and pull him off safely.

Again, who knows what Cooper knew, thought, or actually did. If this scenario makes sense to you and 377, maybe it made sense to Cooper. But here are some problems with it...

The idea that Cooper pulls while still on the stairs to 'see if it works', with the idea that he can go back up for the other rig if it doesn't, that only works in the event of a total pack closure malfunction where the container does not open. Especially on reserves, which that bailout rig was, malfunctions are rare, and total pack closure malfunctions extremely rare. If the container opens and anything comes out, it's going to pull him off the stairs.

Again, malfunctions are rare, but on that basic round reserve, if it does malfunction, it's more likely a malfunction of the deploying parachute. This might be a full streamer, where it does not inflate at all, which would be fatal. More likely is that it's more in the nature of a line-over or partial inversion, where it mostly inflates but is distorted. This would likely not be fatal but how injurious it might be depends on how much it affects the rate of descent. Deploying the parachute into the high-speed, turbulent air right behind the jet would actually increase the possibility of this type of malfunction. Perhaps not by much, as evidenced by static-line jumps, but even with those the jumper is falling a bit farther away/below the aircraft into 'cleaner' air.

The parachute could snag on part of the tail or stairs. If it stays, he's trailing behind the jet. If it lets loose, the parachute might be torn/damaged.

That basic round reserve is made and packed to open fairly quickly. In normal use, who knows how low the pilot/crewman might be when they bail and find the ripcord. At the 180-200 airspeed of the jet, that opening shock is going to snap the snot out of him. It's rare, but people have been seriously injured and even killed as a result of extremely hard openings. Would be better to freefall a bit and slow down to normal terminal of 110-120.

But once again, who knows if Cooper knew or considered any of this.

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There was no red X.. this reports an X with red closing flaps..

 

Still hard to believe Emerick didn't notice that it was a dummy chute.

 

https://uspa.org/p/the-secrets-of-db-cooper-part-one-notorious-flight-305

"Belly-Mount Reserves
Investigators also discovered that in his rush to grab the rigs, the skydiver in the loft accidentally grabbed the drop zone’s dummy reserve, marked with a large “X” and red closing flaps. The DZ used the dummy reserve for students to practice deploying the reserve by scooping the canopy out of the container and throwing it in the air and over their heads.

Cossey explained, “For the dummy rig, I cut the reserve in half and sewed the panels together so that when the student threw it out, I could just fold it up and put it back in the container in half the time. That reserve was half the density of a regular reserve, and it was obvious to anyone with experience that it wasn’t a normal reserve.” Nonetheless, the regular reserve remained in the aircraft, and the dummy marked with an X was gone. Cossey personally thought Cooper removed the dummy reserve, stuffed the cash in its container and wore that on his chest as he jumped."

 

Emerick's step daughter talks about the chutes, mentions the big X on one (no colour), Relevant part starts at 2:30 in video

 

 

 

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Here, the FBI finds out from an AP reporter (Clossey) who spoke to Cossey on the 25th that the reserve chute was for demonstration only..

It was Cossey's dummy chute, he stated it had an X with red closing flaps

The X with red flaps falsely morphed into a red X first appearing on DZ.

The FBI probably held back the markings on the dummy chute in the files to be able to identify it.

 

The reporter got a hold of Cossey on the evening 25th before the FBI could after trying all day.

Emerick grabbed old chutes he never expected back.. the missing dummy probably had an X (black) with red closing flaps.

 

 

clossey-cosseydummychute.jpeg.c17c9ea0db38da1fb45e57ae9b400c1d.jpeg

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On 9/25/2020 at 10:24 AM, FLYJACK said:

Obviously there's a lot of stuff in that article that does not match what is reported here and on the Forum, but one interesting thing of note is that Cossey claims that he supplied two backpack rigs, one of which was a B-4 sport rig. That rig would have the D-rings to attach the reserve. Yeah, it says Cossey believed that was the rig left on the plane, and that doesn't match the FBI description of the rig left on the plane, but still, it's a curious bit of info, the remote possibility that Cooper had a sport rig to choose from...

---

It also quotes Himmelsbach as saying that 'half a dozen hijackers tried to pull off the same caper', some of which 'were killed in the jump'. Any truth to that?

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15 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

This is America baby, and although you are allowed to have your say, you are NOT allowed to intimidate people to get your point across. 

 

Robert, the party that you currently support has been doing this very thing for quite a while now. Watch the news lately?

We shouldn't be discussing politics here, but since you brought it up I will add this: Trump may lose, I personally think he's in trouble. I also gave him no chance 4 years ago, so we'll see.

But if he loses, it won't be for the reason you stated above. It will be because we live in a country that is full of snowflakes.

Peace

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1 hour ago, RobertMBlevins said:

Oh. You mean the guy who won the Nobel Peace Prize and spent his post-presidency building homes for poor people. The US Navy vet who served on submarines. The peanut farmer who never told a lie in office. I have heard of him. 

Yeah, he was (is) REALLY bad. ^_^ Just an awful excuse for an American. He went back to teaching Sunday School last year, but had to stop when the pandemic hit. That was after his brain operation to relieve pressure, which succeeded. 

 

Yes, that guy. Great ex-president, perhaps the best ever. But absolute train wreck as President. I find it ironic how the worst president of my lifetime was immediately followed by the greatest....well, until recently.

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(edited)

New FBI file up #51

https://vault.fbi.gov/D-B-Cooper /d.b.-cooper-part-51-of-51/view

 

Interesting one,, in mid 90's. Tipster's give Duane Weber (Jo's stories) and Kenneth Christiansen (?) also Robert Rackstraw mentioned.. all named in the files.

 

The cigarette butts were considered for DNA but it was discovered they had been destroyed years earlier in Vegas, not lost.

cigbutssdestroyed.jpeg.c4cac3f51e6ab87a5ee8e8b901fee88f.jpeg

Edited by FLYJACK

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