DB Cooper

[snowmman 3]

Interestingly I found an inventory of dredge material sites on the Columbia used by the Army Corps of Engineers. It was updated in 1998, but historical sites are shown.

They are located by mile number on the river.

Note that other places on this web site show that dredge material site selection is a highly complicated process. They called it "beach nourishment". For instance, in '94 there were studies about salmon strandings maybe being affected by the beach nourishment program. So there were a lot of environmental questions around site selection. You couldn't just dump dredge material anywhere.

Why is this important?

Because a dredge material site does not necessarily contain material that was dredged immediately coincident to it.

http://www.columbiaestuary.org/dmmp/appendixE.html

remember that dredging on the Columbia has been ongoing forever!


It could be simply that Lewis river dredging material is sometimes dumped upstream at the nearest listed dredging material site.

[Sluggo_Monster 0]

I couldn’t find the other photo I have of the Aft door after landing at Reno, so here are a few screen captures from the ABC World News Tonight with Walter Cronkite (11/26/1971).

The quality of the images is poor, but, I just don’t see all that much damage.

The last photo (Last.jpg) is an example of how damage to an aft door should look.

Sluggo_Monster

Web Page
Blog
NORJAK Forum

[jose9878 0]

Hey Sluggo,

There's video of the stairs here;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A5wARW8FcF0

[Sluggo_Monster 0]

That's where the "screen captures" came from.

Sluggo

Web Page
Blog
NORJAK Forum

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Let me get this straight. Your theory is that the money landed at/near where the parachute was found, it then gradually made its way down Cedar Creek into the Lewis River and then made its way to the Columbia River at which point it had sunk.

It would have sunk before this, but I'll let that go.

Next, you think "the dredging operation" began north and made its way UPSTREAM as it went. You then think the cash got stuck in the machine for 10 miles. Meanwhile, the machine continues to spit river sludge the whole time until finally at mile 10, it yaks up the money.

The money would have been "in" the 1974 layer, not above it.

As it was, the money was found about 18 inches above the 1974 layer. The money was not muddy or browned from hanging out on the river bottom. The money was, however, moldy and decomposed. The rubber bands survived the travel but then quickly became brittle once the cash was on the sand.

Individual stacks of cash can only float for about 10 minutes and 30 seconds. Sunken cash at the bottom of the river will not float its way miraculously to the top for a sand bar deposit. You took care of that one.

The rest of it does not fit. See attached photo, you will see the "layer" in the sand about 18 inches down. There's a distinct difference between river silt and normal sand.

Great try grasshopper.

Sluggo,
That picture ran in the Reno (gazette?) I believe, and it was taken in Reno if I'm not mistaken. It would appear it was taken after the stairs were repaired. I've had that picture in my files for months... thank you for posting.

[Sluggo_Monster 0]

Speaking of the Cronkite Video….


There is a man getting off the plane (or maybe escorting the passengers) who has what looks like a small portable radio of the time. Not a “Walkie-Talkie” but an AM or AM/FM transistor radio.

These screen captures don’t make him very clear, so look at the video and watch for him. He comes into the field at about 00:24 into the video.

Ckret, Is this guy Law Enforcement, a passenger, Airport Management? Do you have any idea who he is and why he has what appears to be a radio receiver (not Transmitter/receiver).

Sluggo

Web Page
Blog
NORJAK Forum

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Sluggo... walkie talkie man fits the sketch! I just ran a facial comparison and he beat everyone...

Okay, just kidding. But curious what radio station he was listening to.

[1969912 0]

Probably a guy who had a portable radio in his carry-on listening to news about the hijacking (or trying to).

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[snowmman 3]

Hi Safecracking..

Think of the stuff on the beach as evidence. Dirt/sand/clay plus money.

Now we need to look at the trail of where it came from.

We could say it's been there forever, or deposited by river flow/erosion.

Or we could say it came from movement by man.

I'm pointing out that the Columbia has been dredged for a long time and you can't dump dredging material just anywhere.

Even if you want to assume the money was put there, the dredging material still could have come from anywhere. If the dredging material could come from anywhere, then the money could.

I pick the Lewis River just because it fits the other information.

It's way more plausible than the Washougal drainage theories, I think.

Why don't you think dredging operations can preserve things like money?

Alternatively, if you tell me that dirt was moved around, and then tell me that money wasn't, why should I think that is accurate?

[snowmman 3]

It's easy to "pull a Cooper" and assume perfect knowledge of something.

Not all dredging operations are mechanical. You don't need that if it's soft silt. We don't know what the details are for Columbia River dredging. Just as a fer-instance, here's a case where stuff is "sucked" not ground up like you imply.

I'm saying there's not enough info to rule out a dredge putting the money there. I don't care about the layer analysis. It might have been imperfect or the history of dredging material depositing may have been incomplete.

Maybe Ckret can provide the data to analyze


from http://education.usace.army.mil/navigation/dredging.html

Hopper dredges are ships with large hoppers, or containment areas, inside. Fitted with powerful pumps, the dredge suctions dredged material from the channel bottom through long intake pipes, called drag arms, and stores it in the hoppers. The water portion of the slurry is drained from the material and is discharged from the vessel during operations. When the hoppers are full, dredging stops and the ship travels to an in-water disposal site, where the dredged material is discharged through the bottom of the ship.

Hopper dredges are well-suited to dredging heavy sands. They can maintain operations in relatively rough seas and because they are mobile, they can be used in high traffic areas. They are often used at ocean entrances, but cannot be used in confined or shallow areas. Hopper dredges can move quickly to disposal sites under their own power, but since the dredging stops during the transit to and from the disposal area, the operation loses efficiency if the haul distance is far.

[377 21]

Odd, and definitely not a transceiver. Doubt if any law enforcement types would be sporting a big transistor radio with a telescoping antenna. Despite the lack of utility, it just looks too uncool and ambitious agents do pay attention to appearance. Your chances of getting promoted to SAC or deputy director would be harmed if you looked like a complete geek when deployed on a high profile case.

Great to have Ckret back. I agree with him 100000% that no skydiver would opt for the NB6 rig without reserve D rings if a Pioneer sport rig with reserve D rings were available. 2 chances to live versus one. Easy choice. Also a reserve offers you a way down from a tree, just throw it out, climb out of the harness and shinny down the lines. Surely a skydiver jumping over a rural area would have considered that.

Although I initially thought that the found canopy had no relation to Cooper, the fact that the FBI can't release all the info about it yet makes me wonder. Maybe there is a connection and they are doing further investigation.

I don't put much credence in the low loud jet heard by some witnesses being the Cooper 727. VERY unlikely that they would be flying really close to terrain except for landing and takeoff. Maybe it was the interceptors. F 106s were LOUD!!

Kinda surprised that the F 106 chase planes couldn't intercept the 727. They can match speeds with a 727 without much trouble. F 106s were able to refuel from KC 97 prop driven tankers (at least according the the KC 97 dash one flight manual) which were much slower and also from KC 135 tankers (basically Boeing 707s) which had speed profiles similar to the 727.

F 106s received in flight refueling mods during an upgrade in the late 1960s. F 106s from McChord did the first operational in flight refueling of the type during a deployment to Korea connected with the Pueblo crisis.

Maybe the F 106s broke off the 727 intercept due to poor visibility and the associated danger. F 106s did a practice intercept off the east coast in reduced visibility, collided with the target Beechcraft, and killed the passengers. It was ugly, they found human hair and scalp stuck to part of the F106 that hit the Beech.

At the risk of wrath from those on this forum who have devoted a lot of time and intelligence to tracing the flight path, I still stubbornly cling to my assertion that the found money got there naturally and that if the flight path info we have says that natural transport to the find site was impossible, then we need to revise the flight path.

So far my opinion is:

Cooper was not a skydiver. Cooper had studied Boeing 727 systems in considerable detail. He KNEW that the stairs could be deployed in flight. That was NOT a widely know fact. He knew that in flight stair deployment meant that the plane would have to be depressurized or flown unpressurized. He knew about appropriate flap angles, gear down and airspeeds. He was a loner. He needed money, a lot of it and quick. Gambling? Drugs? Divorce? Foreclosure? Who knows, but I do not think he did it just as a payback to NWA or as any kind of statement. He needed cash.

This may have been his first jump and if so, he sure had balls. With a 28 ft canopy stuffed tight into an NB6 container he had a REALLY hard pull for sure and may have gone in undeployed. If you have never had a hard pull on a ripcord rig I can tell you it is a scary event. MUCH scarier if you have no reserve. Scarier yet if you are unstable. If you are at all prone to panic, a hard pull is DEFINITELY gonna ignite MAJOR panic and panic impedes performance. Been there, done that as a solo freefall student back in the day before AFF.

Glad to see the forum liven up again.

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

I don't care about the layer analysis.

Well, I guess that conversation is over.

I take it for granted sometimes that people understand earth science. I can look at that picture and identify the strata in the sand immediately. I wasn't born that way, I learned from the guy who wrote the book, literally. He was a friend and a mentor to me in my college days.

I can post a picture and refer to the findings, but if people want to overrule science with indisputable conjecture, then I guess I'm just left dumbfounded.

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

Speaking of the Cronkite Video….


There is a man getting off the plane (or maybe escorting the passengers) who has what looks like a small portable radio of the time. Not a “Walkie-Talkie” but an AM or AM/FM transistor radio.

These screen captures don’t make him very clear, so look at the video and watch for him. He comes into the field at about 00:24 into the video.

Ckret, Is this guy Law Enforcement, a passenger, Airport Management? Do you have any idea who he is and why he has what appears to be a radio receiver (not Transmitter/receiver).

Sluggo

My take on the picture of those passengers exiting into the airport is that this segment is either stock footage or footage shot the next day. By the correspondence between 305 and Reno on the 24th, Cooper's plane parked away from the terminal and the passengers walked out onto the tarmac. This video shows different passengers debarking from a plane parked at the terminal. Or at least that's my interpretation.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[snowmman 3]

The Columbia River sediment may be primarily sand from what I read.

There are two important points:
1) There's a lot of sand when they dredge
2) They typical redeposit upstream. This is called "beach nourishment". You want to replenish what was eroded away

So money found in sand upstream from where it may have been dredged, doesn't seem crazy to me. And laughing at the notion of redepositing upstream just means we're not dredging experts. I know I'm not.

If there's a report that's analyzed dredging operations
of all kinds from 1971 to 1980 and said the money could only have floated there or been buried there, that's news to me and I'd like to see it.

It's comical that this theory is not possible, but the Washougal theory is.

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Have you finished reading the old thread yet?

If you hadn't asked some questions that he'd know, I'd suspect you were Richard Tosaw.

Your First post, Am I Dead or Alive...
Tosaw's book "Dead or Alive?"

Your insistence on river dredging.
Tosaw's insistence on river dredging that he hires divers to find more of the loot.

Posts that come off really strong.
Tosaw's reputation of being hard nosed and arrogant.

Like I said, you seem very well read. Much further than a typical first time visitor here... but if I didn't see you ask questions that Tosaw would have known, I'd guess you were him.

[low_pull1 2]

................
Therefore, we have witnesses who swear the jet was East and witnesses who swear the jet was right where McChord AFB said it was.
...........................

is it possible that there was more than one jet?

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

I think that was the point 377, Albert18, and myself made... there were chase jets running clover patterns.

I chalk it up to either chase fighters or reverb. I believe they heard something, but I don't think it trumps AFB radar.

[Ckret 0]

Snowman, you seem like you are willing to get involved in the discussion and I am sure everyone is looking forward to your insight but you have to get caught up.

I am sure I posted in the very long discussion about the money that it could not have been part of the dredge because the type used had blades to break up the sediment into small pieces. According to the person managing the site the dredge would have destroyed the cash.

Not to mention that the money was found in bundle form next to each other. So the theory that bundles independent of each other were sucked up north of the Lewis from the bottom of the Columbia, then deposited on a barage, still together but independent of each other, and then spit back out on the beach at Tenas bar still side by side but independent of each other. Thats a tall order. But I like that your thinking.

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

I think that was the point 377, Albert18, and myself made... there were chase jets running clover patterns.

I chalk it up to either chase fighters or reverb. I believe they heard something, but I don't think it trumps AFB radar.

cloverleaf patterns huh? Interesting. Didn't know that was standard procedure (or is it?). Does that kind of pattern keep one 'safe' in bad visibility? (I really don't know and would like to).

As to the 'loud jet noise' coming close over the witness' houses. Don't know if a 727 flying dirty at 10,000' makes that much noise, but our DC-9 can't be heard when it's dumping skydivers at 12,500' over Perris. The lower stairs are taken off the DC-9 (not dragging like with the 727) so that would make some difference as to how much power has to be added to keep the 727 aloft, however.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[snowmman 3]

This is the first time I've seen this. Can people confirm provide details? I know about McCoy. That's one.
Who are the other two?

Cini was the guy who had a gun and was subdued while putting on the parachute, before Cooper's stunt. He doesn't count cause he didn't jump. (He was 1971)

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/9.html

"Three other hijackers copied the Cini/Cooper scheme in 1972 alone. All three survived the skydive—more "proof" for those who believe Cooper lived. One was shot dead and the others captured on the ground."

If this is true, then what does it mean? where they all 727 aft stair jumps? If so, it says the odds of success are pretty high? What kind of rigs did they have? Were they all experienced jumpers? What airspeeds did they jump at? (grmph..where's an FBI agent when you need one
We know McCoy was experienced with his own gear.
What about the other two?

May have to mine the newspaper archives in 1972
McCoy (James Johnson) was April 7, 1972

[snowmman 3]

hey this sounds like what we say at work Ckret when no one wants to write the current spec...we say it's all the email chain.

So you're saying there was one and only one dredging operation that deposted material at the site from 1971 to 1980 and that it dredged material adjacent to the site with a bladed dredge that would destroy the money (according to the operator)

Or are you saying you know they dredged that particular area in 1974 and dumped the material there, but have no idea whether there was any dumping at any other time from 1971-1980.

This is a key question, because if you say you know all that, you're saying the sand covering the found money came from natural river erosion, or there was some other event (like trucking in sand) that produced the sand. Or the money was planted/buried by a human.

If heavy equipment was used on the sand at some time after a predicted flotation, then I suppose the equipment could have buried it at most any depth.

All these questions are answered in the chain of posts?

Quote

Snowman, you seem like you are willing to get involved in the discussion and I am sure everyone is looking forward to your insight but you have to get caught up.

I am sure I posted in the very long discussion about the money that it could not have been part of the dredge because the type used had blades to break up the sediment into small pieces. According to the person managing the site the dredge would have destroyed the cash.

Not to mention that the money was found in bundle form next to each other. So the theory that bundles independent of each other were sucked up north of the Lewis from the bottom of the Columbia, then deposited on a barage, still together but independent of each other, and then spit back out on the beach at Tenas bar still side by side but independent of each other. Thats a tall order. But I like that your thinking.

[snowmman 3]

just saw a news article on the web today on that.

cossey kinda dismissed it? said not even close? but what is he comparing to? and expected nb-6 28 ft canopy (or 26)...

he doesn't have a clue what was inside the "training" reserve. If I had a training reserve, it'd probably be the oldest chute I got. No one can exclude the training reserve can they?

Or: do we know the training reserve is the same part number as the red one that the FBI has, just modified/sewn (that one's nylon I assume)

Or: do we not have a clue (no records...no memory since it was sewn shut)

[snowmman 3]

so Ckret is comfortable with the idea that a dredge wouldn't deposit bundles of money next to each other neatly, but that random flotation would.

I'm not sure why random flotation would. Is the idea that something other than rubber bands kept the money "close together"? something other than the bag. The bag wasn't found. The theory then is it rotted away around the money bundles with no trace? Any nylon rope wouldn't have rotted if the money didn't.

I don't get the thrust of this "bundles were found next to each other" point is.

If it tells me anything, it suggests human burial.

Straighten me out. What's the theory then. Me I think of natural flotation and dredges as being almost equal. I don't see how natural flotation solves the side-by-side issue.

[Ckret 0]

Its all theory since no one was there, and it was posted a while back, read it.

i don't know where you got "random flotation" the theory forwarded has nothing to do with random flotation, go back and read it.

You could be a valued member here, but your asking questions and making statements that have been discussed. Go back and read the posts, if something new pops up bring it, it would be great to have a fresh look. But your not bringing anything new and it takes energy and time no one has to bring you up to speed.

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

“When the guy left on Friday, he said, ‘Don’t say anything for a couple of days,’” Cossey said. “I said, ‘That’s ridiculous. It’s not the right parachute. It’s not even close.’”

Well Ckret, I can't really blame you. It did create quite the media sensation. I can tell you just from my own family, the mystery has been given a new birth.

I'd still get the harness, just to bring some closure to this "mystery". The kids could have pointed the way.

I'll say this much, when given an real location in the search zone, the reporters actually took the time to look and see if the streams and creeks explained the money & they do not. I feel somewhat vindicated.

Now just to move the plane 12 miles, the timeline 5 minutes, and get the bag to float long enough to travel 20+ miles and we'll be home.

Cossey Says No Way