DB Cooper

[snowmman 3]

This is just a harebrained thought.

I learned about accidental inflight stair deployments on 727s reading news articles, and in airline "accident" reports.

We've been musing about how the idea/knowledge of stair deployment might have arrived in Cooper's brain.

Rather than engineering or test flight results, I'm wondering if there were any accidental stair openings inflight for 727s in the period '65-'71. Boeing might have records of this.

The news article I read talked about how they opened the aft door, secured a crew member with seat belts and leaned out to close the stairs which had opened about 2'

Be interesting if we could dig up any reports of accidental stair deployments '65-'71. inflight or other.

[snowmman 3]

I was thinking about whether we might be putting too much thinking into this. and whether Ckret may be right with what we might call The Dufus Theory.

Cini was planning on parachuting. And he was before Cooper.

We don't go on and on about where Cini might have gotten the idea that he could parachute out of a [edit] DC-8. (Edit: I didn't know Cini wasn't 727)
But that apparently was his plan before he was stopped while going for the package supposedly containing a chute.

So we could say "Cooper got the idea the same way Cini got the idea".

The only problem is that we don't know of any Details where Cini acted like he knew about planes. It seems Cooper did know about planes a little...so we start dreaming about how he must have brought his knowledge up to similar levels in the other required areas.

But maybe he just didn't. Maybe just kind of a morph of Cini.

As far as I can tell, Cini had a package that he said had a parachute? I'm not sure if he had a real parachute. He brought it with him? Can anyone fill in the facts on the Cini case, parachute-wise?

[Orange1 0]

off the net (where else?!)
Two weeks before Cooper's hijacking, a passenger named Paul Cini brandished a handgun aboard an Air Canada flight over Montana. He extorted money and a parachute, just like Cooper, but he was rushed and subdued by the jet's crew when he put down the gun to don the parachute. The FBI's Himmelsbach has said he believes Cooper borrowed his basic plan from Cini and the detail of a bomb in his briefcase from the plot of "Airport," the disaster flick released six months before the Cooper hijacking.
from: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/9.html

there are some other links but i can't find much more info than that.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 20]

Quote

This is just a harebrained thought.

I learned about accidental inflight stair deployments on 727s reading news articles, and in airline "accident" reports.

We've been musing about how the idea/knowledge of stair deployment might have arrived in Cooper's brain.

Rather than engineering or test flight results, I'm wondering if there were any accidental stair openings inflight for 727s in the period '65-'71. Boeing might have records of this.

The news article I read talked about how they opened the aft door, secured a crew member with seat belts and leaned out to close the stairs which had opened about 2'

Be interesting if we could dig up any reports of accidental stair deployments '65-'71. inflight or other.

wondering about the details... This would result in a loss of cabin pressure which is a HUGE deal if at high altitudes.

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

[snowmman 3]

[I just realized it was a DC-8! Don't know what that means to a Cooper Dufus Theory!]

I read that it was a shotgun not a handgun, and he had dynamite and a parachute in a package tied with twine. They say he was going for the parachute when they whacked him with the fireax, but I'm not sure if there was really a chute. Evidently the dynamite and shotgun were real?

Note this NYT article from the trial doesn't mention the dynamite, and it says Cini said the package had a parachute. So I'm wondering.
(see attached)
Here's some google news snippets. Some make it sound like real dynamite, since they mention the number of sticks. I think some said 54, some 60.

Canada Jet Crew Subdues Hijacker After 6 Hours
New York Times - Nov 14, 1971
Mr. Bonny knocked out the hijacker, identified as Paul Joseph Cini, ... The hijacker, armed with a shotgun and saying he was carrying dynamite wired as a ...

Canada Jet Crew Subdues Hijacker After 6 Hours
New York Times - Nov 14, 1971
Mr. Bonny knocked out the hijacker, identified as Paul Joseph Cini, who was about to ... had with him a twine-wrapped package he said contained a parachute. ...

reno_evening_gazette (Newspaper) - November 15, 1971, Reno, Nevada
The young man, Paul Cini, was reported in satisfactory condition in a Calgary ... Armed with a shotgun and a package which he said contained dynamite, ...

Here's one that says it 60 sticks of dynamite

Daily Review, The (Newspaper) - November 14, 1971,
... identified the suspect Saturday as 27-year- old Paul J. Cini of Calgary. ... The other bag contained 60 sticks of dynamite, with which the hijacker ...

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 17, 1971,
'Quiet, Aloof CALGARY (CP) Paul Cini, 27, charged in.the hijacking of an Air Canada DC-8 Friday, was described by his neighbors Sunday as "quiet and very ...

[Hey: Bonny Lake connection: Mr. Bonny was the guy that knocked out Cini :) about as good as mentioning D.B./Depoe Bay connection !!!]

Quote

off the net (where else?!)
Two weeks before Cooper's hijacking, a passenger named Paul Cini brandished a handgun aboard an Air Canada flight over Montana. He extorted money and a parachute, just like Cooper, but he was rushed and subdued by the jet's crew when he put down the gun to don the parachute. The FBI's Himmelsbach has said he believes Cooper borrowed his basic plan from Cini and the detail of a bomb in his briefcase from the plot of "Airport," the disaster flick released six months before the Cooper hijacking.
from: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/9.html

there are some other links but i can't find much more info than that.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

On January 18, 1996 the Boston Globe, a daily newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts carried a small article with the headline "Jet Stairs Deploy in Flight." A Reuters news item with a dateline of San Antonio, Texas gave a brief amount of the unusual in-flight incident:

A Trans World Boeing 727 with 72 people aboard landed at San Antonio International Airport Tuesday night after the aircraft's rear stairs deployed in flight. TWA Flight 199 was flying from St. Louis to San Antonio when a cockpit warning light indicated that the stairs under the jet's tail engine had become unlocked, an airline spokesman said....

The pilot descended to 3,000 feet and depressurized the cabin so that the stairs, which are behind a bulkhead door in the rear of the aircraft, could be retracted. "A crew member reached around, grabbed the handle, and pulled, raising the stairs hydraulically," [the spokesman] said. A rope was tied around the handle to keep the stairs raised.... TWA policy requires that the rear stairs be lowered when an aircraft is on the ground as a safety precaution, and crews use the stairs to gain access.

The airline is reviewing maintenance operations at St. Louis-Lambert International Airport. The jet was back in service yesterday.

Another newspaper story appeared the same day in the nationally distributed USA Today, but that account had more of the story. Its headline was "Crew Member Held by Belts Shuts Airborne Jet's Stairs" and reporter Robert Davis wrote:

A stairwell on a Trans World Airlines dropped in flight, and a crew member tethered by seat belts pulled it closed.... The three-member cockpit crew first noticed the problem at an altitude of 35,000 feet when a light flashed, warning the stairs under the plane's tail were ajar. Crew members peered out a window on the back door leading to the stairs and saw the stairs had dropped about two feet. Flight attendants moved passengers away. The pilot descended to 3,000 feet and depressurized the cabin so the crew could open the door and one could grab a lever for the hydraulic system that operates the stairs. The crew member who reached for the lever was tied with seat belts so another could hold him. The stairs rose, but didn't latch, so the crew members tied the lever in place.... Mechanics in San Antonio serviced the hydraulic system that operates the stairs. The plane, operated by TWA since 1969, flew its scheduled route Wednesday.

Federal officials showed little interest because there were no injuries and no damage. Part of TWA's investigation will focus on why a latch designed after the USA's only unsolved skyjacking failed to keep the stairs closed.... "There is a lock that is supposed to prevent [the door opening]....the stairs sometimes get stuck, requiring service before the plane leaves the gate, but [the TWA spokesman] says he doesn't know of another in- flight problem with the stairs.

from http://www.aero.com/publications/parachutes/9602/pc0296.htm

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

Yeah, Orange1, that web account is backed up by news articles from the time period also.

Here's a '95? 727 rear stair indicator lite going on right before landing. I think the real message is that we don't know about accidental deployments. They don't all make the news. They also might not want people to know if the Cooper Vane is not 100% reliable.?

PBIA'S FIREFIGHTING TEAM RESPONDED TO 44 EMERGENCIES IN 1995
Palm Beach Post - NewsBank - Jun 9, 1996
On May 13, Pilot Frank T. Gravina prepared to land the Boeing 727 when a rear stair indicator light went on in the cockpit. ...

[snowmman 3]

[Edit: we've said "lights out" on 305 may have been for dark-adapting Cooper's eyes. After reading this, one might muse about avoiding intercept with lights out, along with my theme of radar inaccuracy possibilities]

This is just going to be a dump of some anecdotal info from two SAGE folk, but without direct knowledge of the 305 event. We know the '72 map was made using USAF radar data. We don't know what radar. We speculate SAGE at McChord was involved. McChord definitely had a SAGE site. [Edit] reading some of the stuff below, and knowing that F106 intercepts were standard for SAGE, we might think SAGE is likely.

I actually got to touch an old SAGE console recently. They actually have built-in cigarette ashtrays and lighters like a car. And rotary black dial phones. Funny imagining they were supposed to save us from Russian bombers.

I was musing about possible inaccuracies in USAF radar from McChord. There are theories that the radar info is from SAGE, which would make the Mt. Hebo site likely. Individual radar radius was probably 150 miles? although rain would attentuate the transmitted signal, and irregular terrain, and low altitude would make it less effective in the Flight 305 case? (there are a number of academic papers that address the issues of low altitude radar propagation factors)


Also, you can read the detail here which makes it reasonable to guess that the two F106 chase planes may not have radar intercepted 305. Note we have no data on positioning that comes from the F106s. 305 supposedly had lights out. Low altitude intercepts (to me) seemed to be dependent on visual intercept to a degree?

[edit] Story about F106 S-turns could have been not wanting to fully admit poor intercept capability? Who knows? No data on visual intercept success.


anecdotal info from another SAGE site scope operator:
--------------------------------------------------------------
source 1:
SAGE tied in radars from throughout the region, not just from the home station, and could also get feeds from adjoining divisions. In 1972 the 25th Air Division's area of operations included all of Washington, Oregon and portions of northern California, northern Nevada, western Idaho and western Montana.
The site which probably did most of the tracking once Flight 305 got south towards the Columbia was Mount Hebo AFS (689th RADS) on the Oregon coast, possibly back-stopped by Keno AFS (827th ADG), although that was well south near Klamath Falls and possibly by the 637th ADG at Othello AFS. Mount Hebo would've provided the best picture of the aircraft and allowed tracking of it with all data transmitted to the SAGE DC. The latter ordered the launch of the two 318th FIS F-106As. From what I understand, the squadron was having a party that night and had trouble finding two pilots who were in condition to fly. I suspect the story is apocryphal, as the 318th maintained a 24-hour alert facility at the south end of the McChord ramp...still, it's a great story!
Anyway, McChord wouldn't have had any trouble tracking the B727 as it moved south. If Cooper had stayed on the plane into northern California, the 25th AD would've handled tracking and interception duties off to the 26th Air Division out of Luke AFB, AZ.
-----------------------------------------------
source 2:
For me, close to a radar site is less than 30 miles. As to other Air Force radars operating back then, they would have belonged to units of the Tactical Air Command (TAC) and used for their training purposes. SAGE was part of Aerospace Defense Command (ADCOM) and did not have access to TAC radar information.

And a radar's range was nowhere close to 600 miles. The genius of SAGE was that it took all these radars with limited range, and had each one send it's radar info via telephone lines to the SAGE computer. SAGE then put all of that info together into one large picture that saw everything that all of the individual sites saw, all in picuture. This, by the way, was the beginning of today's internet technology ... sending visual information via telephone lines for processing and manipulation. And the first mouse was a SAGE lightgun, but I digress.

TAC had no system like ADCOM's so whatever an individual site saw, if it was up and running at all, that would have been it. I have no personal experience with TAC but I think their sites were just running to control daily training missions whereas ADCOM sites were up "turning and burning" 24 hours a day. We, after all, had a missioin to defend America 24 hours a day. TAC was training to do a mission some day ... maybe.

I was thinking about what you said regarding the F-106's having problems because the Northwest 727 was going low and slow.

I don't know if this has any bearing on your research or not but we used to practice low and slow intercepts, anywhere from as low as 2,000 feet up to 7,000 feet, depending on how close our military air space was to the radar site. Due to the curvature of the earth blocking out targets at increasingly high altituded the farther away they were from the radar, that put limits on us. Close to the radar site = very low. Not close to the radar site = not so low.

The standard procedure for F-106's was for two of them to be on every intercept. For low targets one would fly by the target aircraft as slowly as he could but still be passing him. Once past it the F-106 would zoom ahead, do a right turn in a racetrack pattern and come in from behind the target again. While this one was repositioning himself the second F-106 would be in position to do his low, slow flyby within visual range until he passed the target, and then he'd zoom ahead and reposition himself, with the two six's taking turns keeping a visual on the target. This was challenging work, which is why we practiced it.

I have no idea if the F-106's did that with the Northwest 727 with Cooper on it, but those are the procedures. Trying to do this at night in the mountains and out of radar contact ... that would have been a very, very difficult endeavor. Unlike today's fighters, the F-106 did not have "look down" capability. Than meant that at low level looking down on a target, the target would just blend in with the background radar clutter and would be almost impossible to see. Today's fighters have doppler hooked into the radar so the radar has the ability to "see" something that has a different speed to it other than the ground below that was passing by. So what would be easy for an F-15 or F-16 to do would be almost impossible for an F-106.

---------------------------------------------
Edit: Speculating about stored SAGE data and who might have analyzed it for the '72 map:

Source 1:

I don't know how long the old magnetic tapes would've recorded but yes, the tapes were stored for later review and analysis. The four air defense sectors (later three, then two) retained this ability through the transition to the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) during the late 1970s/early 1980s and still have the capability with the new BCS-F set-up, although I'm pretty certain nowadays all recording is done digitally vice on magnetic tape. One of the primary missions of the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) is post-mission analysis of intercepts, disappearing aircraft, inflight disasters (the STS Columbia's breakup over Texas several years ago), etc.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

I think the REAL DB Cooper could show up at your door with Ed McMahon and a film crew, hand you one of the $20.00 bills and you would STILL claim it was Duane.

Jo, let's say the FBI comes up with a match on fingerprints and DNA on another suspect (whether Gosset or someone else). Would you finally accept that it was not Duane (without for example coming up with some kind of coverup theory)? Just a yes or no.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

I just realized we have evidence that the stairs were stowable after landing with stairs deployed at Reno.

The photo of the man inspecting the aft stairs.

A copy is at Sluggo's most excellent web site:

http://n467us.com/Photo%20Evidence_files/image044.jpg

It's after landing. Stairs look stowed to me.

Just more evidence that we should second guess all opinions offered by authorities in the transcripts.

Do people agree/disagree with this stowed stairs assessment?

[edit] before stowing, but after landing
http://n467us.com/Photo%20Evidence_files/image046.jpg
also see rommel.jpg previously posted

[Sluggo_Monster 0]

All,

I put something uncharacteristically frivolous on my site today. Someone sent me a morphed sketch (between the 1971 Composite and the 1988 Unsolved Mysteries sketch). I put the image on the site and have nine suspects and a poll to see which suspect most resembles the morphed sketch.

Check it out [HERE].

Sluggo_Monster

Web Page
Blog
NORJAK Forum

[skyjack71 0]

DNA - No - it is compromised and they need to have Duane's actual DNA. If they have CONCLUSIVE complete DNA then yes.

FINGERPRINTS - Yes and No. Nothing is conclusive until they check the archived prints on Duane against what was left on the plane and the FBI file on Duane.

Sorry but the answers are conditional on the factors involved.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[Ckret 0]

Uncle Sluggo,

Good work, if #3 isn't Cooper he is up to no good.

[JSBIRD 1]

Hey Slug...# 3 looks like a career criminal to me

359

"Now I've settled down,
in a quiet little town,
and forgot about everything"

[Ckret 0]

Jo,

I have been meaning to ask you this for months now, what information do you have that the DNA is compromised?

[n467us 0]

Sluggo-

Great website, thanks for creating it and keeping it conspiracy free!

[jumpin_Jan 1]

some random airstair thoughts...

Me thinks the placard was used in an attempt to get the stairs to stay open beyond a 2' opening for exit.

I further surmised a few hundred posts ago that he musta fashioned something else when the placard did not work. I guessed he used suspension line or money.

The 727-100 stairs have 2 methods of operation normal and emergency. The emergency mode breaks the locks that hold the stairs closed. Based on the pic I guess he used the normal procedure because they appear to be locked closed in Reno.
http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/commerce/manuals/tp12296/scheduleA/section2.htm


I read somewhere that the 727 definately had a skid plate mod available.
The pic showing the closed stairs seems to show damage, possibly from over rotation on a previous flight.

I doubt the stairs "slammed" closed after exit as Ckret said he thinks happened.
In my mind the hydraulics would have prevented that.

If the stairs had been locked down for takeoff it may have taken a lot of up elevator to compensate for the ventral 'airbrake'.
@ 2.5 feet wide and about 12 feet long that's 30 square feet of surface area to compensate for.


PULL!
jumpin_Jan

"Dangerous toys are fun but ya could get hurt" -- Vash The Stampede

[n467us 0]

Ckret:

At the risk of getting booted from this forum, what would be the harm in comparing the fingerprints to all of those on prison incarceration records for Duane Weber and his aliases and getting it out of the way? I am asking from the standpoint of "let's get it over with" because that may be the only true evidence that will ever link him to DB Cooper. If there is a link, it is time well invested. Thoughts?

[n467us 0]

I think the "placard" was paper or cardboard that was inserted in a plastic sleeve/holder if my memory is right I remember seeing it described as such... it is probably in evidence at FBI and Ckret can possibly confirm that -- in other words I do not think it was feasible to be used to prop open the stair, etc.

[jumpin_Jan 1]

Quote

I think the "placard" was paper or cardboard that was inserted in a plastic sleeve/holder if my memory is right I remember seeing it described as such... it is probably in evidence at FBI and Ckret can possibly confirm that -- in other words I do not think it was feasible to be used to prop open the stair, etc.

I was under the impression it was metal and was found already folded in 1/2.
I think I got that impression from an account from the finder that it was a scrap of sheet metal.
In hindsight and having searched dizzy you are prolly correct as I see it described as a candy wrapper.
The posts below suggest it was tin though.
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3092696;search_string=placard;#3092696

My thinking is that it was wedged between the stair actuator handle and the wall of the stairway, unsuccessfully.

Can someone clarify?


PULL!
jumpin_Jan

"Dangerous toys are fun but ya could get hurt" -- Vash The Stampede

[Ckret 0]

JJ,

The airstairs do slam back into the craft and i posted picks of it doing so on this thread. It is the only way the pressure bump can be created.

[snowmman 3]

[1 q for Ckret at end]

I'm trying to picture Duane doing the hijack. All the photos we seem to have from around 1971, seem to have him in glasses.

I suppose Jo wouldn't know what his eyesight was without them then. But he must have needed them a lot.

I'm wondering then why Cooper didn't board the plane wearing glasses? Ckret has said the sunglasses/tinted glasses were put on after one of the stews had already seen his eyes?

I'm also wondering about the actual jump. If Cooper was Duane, did he take them off, and put them back on when he landed? Did it not affect his ability to pull?

I'm just wondering why the eyeglasses have never been discussed before, and how they are a non-issue for the details of the hijack and witness statements.

When Cooper bought the ticket from the ticket agent, was he wearing glasses? I'm guessing Cooper only had the tinted glasses, and he wasn't wearing them then, because it would have been very odd?

Maybe Ckret can answer about the ticket agent's description.

[edit] Quoting a past post from Ckret, to confirm the glasses went on after the note pass:

"He had brown eyes (Schaffner saw his eyes before he put on the glasses, he looked directly at her several times urging her to read the note)"

[Ckret 0]

n467us,

Weber's prints were compared to those recovered from flight 305. There are no other prints to compare.

[Ckret 0]

Cooper was never described with wearing eyeglasses, just the sunglasses and only after he had made his demands to Schaffner.

[snowmman 3]

Thanks Ckret for the glasses answer.

I'm curious now to hear how Jo explains this and reconciles her photos. The only photo I've seen with no glasses is Duane at age 25?

Even the 1960 "glamor shot" has him holding glasses in his hand...i.e. temporarily removed.

So by 1960 he must have needed them always?

Edit: I'm reposting a Jo photo which she described as
"1968 location unknown" (paraphrase). I've hiked with guys who wear glasses. It's a pain. You don't do it unless you need them. See photo. Why is Duane wearing glasses there? Note the photo is perfect evidence for time since there is a date on the right border, from when it was developed. It says Jul '69 to my eye when I blew it up. Jo may have misread it as '68. But close enough.