olemisscub

Yes, I'm going with Rat's statement as well. The more specific a statement is then the more reliable it is. Rat's statement is quite specific. Much like Tina's statement about putting the matchbook in the seat pocket (which she apparently reconfirmed in Tosaw...except she changed it to the ashtray and not seat pocket) As for the matchbook, it may have had writing in it from an earlier time, but there is no evidence whatsoever that he wrote anything while on the plane nor any evidence that Tina ferried any notes to the cockpit, so I think it's safe to assume that Farrell was incorrectly interpreting Rat's statement by writing that the match was used to convey notes. Also recall Rat's speech. He never saw the matchbook. He said he learned about what was on it when Tina spoke at the debriefing. And I agree that Cooper didn't care about prints. Not even in the least.

This is correct, according to Tina and Rat's 302's. Yet Flo says she wrote it on a note pad from her purse.

Yes, my assumption has always been that it was the envelope that she wrote on. So why would he care about that being returned to him? What's interesting is that in Flo's 302 she says that she wrote his demands on a note pad that she pulled from her purse. Yet Tina and Rat both say it was written on the envelope. I just noticed something. Your post above is of Tina's Reno 302 and it says "She also at that time..." Yet my scan from Himmy's files (and Geoff Gray's) say "SCHAFFNER at that time." Ok, so it looks like they spotted that error at some point and the later versions of the Reno 302 have it corrected.

But why did he want the envelope back? He didn't write on it.

But we're talking about Farrell's statement specifically. He says it was used to convey notes. I believe that to be a mistake. Again, I think it possibly had something written on it from an earlier time. I think he just wanted everything he brought on board with him to leave with him out of an abundance of caution. I mean, there was nothing at all written on the envelope by Cooper, just by Flo, and yet he still wanted that envelope back. He must have been pretty pissed when he realized he left his tie.

But Tina says it was recovered from where she had discarded it: in the seat pocket. That's pretty specific, so it was never in the cockpit. I see it as one of two things: He just wanted to leave literally no trace whatsoever of himself on the plane (nothing to do with fingerprints...as you say, he didn't seem to care about his prints) OR it did have something written on it, perhaps a phone number, etc.

I attempted to do that with Vordahl when I was looking for any circumstantial evidence with him. I was able to find where, a week before the hijacking, there was an ICS graduation event for Hydroelectric Engineers that was like 3 miles from his house. Vordahl's town only had like 300 people in it and he was alderman, and also a huge nerd, so I postulated that a giant nerd like him wouldn't have missed a gathering of other nerds so close to his home. Additionally, those are the sort of events that alderman types would attend. That was really just throwing crap against the wall though, I don't think the matches can really help find a suspect. I think the only use for the matches as a tool is for an offensive weapon against the dummies who claim Cooper was "fake smoking." I point out that when he boarded the plane that the majority of the matches were already gone from the ICS matchbook, indicating that he had been using it for his cigarettes for some time beforehand. Thus, he wasn't just "stage smoking".

Being that Tina has never made any comment ever about ferrying notes to the cockpit, I've been of the belief that this is Farrell brainfarting a bit and misinterpreting Rat's 302. If you'll look at Rat's 302, he has a paragraph where he talks about the notes being returned to Cooper and in the same paragraph comments on the match book. His 302 even uses this same phraseology, calling it a "match cover". Would be easy to see how that statement could be misinterpreted. In a search of the files, the only time "match cover" comes up is in Rat's 302 and Farrell's report. I don't think that's a coincidence.

The ICS matches were used as advertisements, so they were just everywhere. Thrown in gas stations, laying on tables at airports, etc. I'm not sure how old you are and so maybe you don't remember this, but think of them as those AOL CD-ROM's. They were so common that there was no point in trying to trace them.

As I indicated in my YouTube video last night, it's become my belief lately, from reviewing the files and from talking extensively to two of the original case agents from 71, that the FBI thought they were going to catch this guy rather quickly. They did their jobs well, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they thought those details were of no consequence. The ICS matches in particular were extremely ubiquitous. I'm struggling to think of a modern equivalent but those matchbooks were apparently everywhere back in those days. It likely wouldn't have been seen as a lead.

Larry told me that the handwritten notes from the crew interviews in Reno still exist. I suspect we'll see those eventually and maybe it'll be written in there.

Ever since I spotted that I've not been sure what to make of that incongruence. It would certainly make sense that they would have matches stored somewhere on the plane for passengers. However, Cooper ran out of the ICS matches rather quickly. He had less than half a book left when he boarded the plane. As a smoker he surely would have had another book with him. Tina's 302 says "she indicated that he had another book of matches". So I dunno...

Good catch. The only other major incongruence I'd spotted was the matches thing, which Flyjack was just just talking about.

Rat mentioned the ICS matches in a talk he gave about 10 years ago RatICSMatches.mp4

I can't think of any reason for him to have kept the sunglasses on once she went to the front. Seems to me like he wanted the lights off mainly so his eyes could adjust to the darkness. Perhaps he may have also been somewhat concerned of the possibility that if the lights were on that a chase plane could spot him on the stairs. Also, I'd be interested to know just how dark it actually was when the lights were turned off. Did they have some sort of ever-present ambient lighting that would always remain on unless the plane was actually turned off? Like how you see on modern planes they have lights along the floor of the aisles that always stay on. The only copycat that I'm aware of who had a flashlight was McCoy. I asked Mac about it a while back, and he said he didn't want a flashlight because he might have been too tempted to use it once he got to the ground and that could have given his position away.

Comes from Tosaw. He had a really solid interview with Tina, apparently. History has shown that Tosaw's narrative of the actual hijacking was very accurate, so I don't see any reason to doubt the veracity of this.

That's true, but absent Tina making comments about Cooper asking her to dim the lights, I think we have to assume that the fuel truck guy was simply seeing the effect of those shades being pulled. Cooper certainly needed the lights given what he was up to back there with the chutes and the bag, especially wearing sunglasses.

Since we know that Tina didn't turn the lights out until Cooper sent her to the cockpit, I'm guessing that his statement is due to the window shades in the rear being closed. I've tried to determine when that photo was taken and I suspect it was pretty early on. The passengers may even still be on board. Tina says she didn't close the window shades until right after she brought the first parachute on. That would have been shortly after the passengers got off. In the photo, you can see Al Lee standing by the passenger door of the Dart. The passengers had not yet been moved far from the aircraft when Tina was getting the parachutes because we know that several of the passengers saw the chutes. In the full photo the trunk is just out of frame, so we can't say for certain if it's open or not in the photo. I'm not sure about the money bag's location in the Dart, but I'm quite certain that the chutes were all placed in the trunk. My intuition would be that the money bag would have been up front with Lee and not in the trunk. No doubt he didn't let that thing out of his clutches until he handed it over. So with Al Lee standing next to the passenger door, I'm imagining this photo may be right before she got the money or right after she took it on board. All speculation of course, regarding the precise moment that photo was taken, but I think it's safe to say that it's somewhere around the 6 pm range. Passengers are either still on board or are just out of frame to the left. Lee did tell them to go stand behind the Dart around 6 or so, after the passenger tried to go back on board. My best guess is that this is while the passengers are still on board. It'd have been a much more dramatic photo if the passengers were in the shot and were standing right behind the Dart. So this is right before or right after Tina gets the money IMO. Do you disagree with that assessment?

With respect to Eric, contained within there is one of the reasons why this was never going to work. "Moreover, Dunbar and Ulis are asking the FBI to grant Ulis and a DNA specialist access..." Eric HAS to be in the room when it happens. I told him this was an issue like a year ago. Instead of FOIA'ing it or doing this publicity campaign type stuff, I told him he needed to line up a DNA specialist and have THEM contact the FBI through back channels and request access. From my perspective, that was the only chance the idea ever had for success. Eric needed to divorce himself from it and only have a role in the background. I believe Eric has good intentions with all of this, but from the FBI's perspective, he's just some guy who has been on TV a few times and is out making statements to the media.

He had a heck of a resume for a crazy person

Go to the 21 minute mark in my video from tonight.

I agree. He’s very solid everywhere else. Odd coincidence that his murder suicide was in Vancouver just a week before Tena Bar.

Regardless of when it came about or where he picked it up from, he knew that they could receive their IFR clearance (several miles wide, several miles long, and 2000 feet deep) in the air. He was confident enough in knowing that information that he called their bluff on it. I'd say he also seemed to have confidence in his knowledge of the refueling procedures.

Yep, I understand it technically pre-dates WWII. I'm just arguing that pilots in WWII weren't generally trained in anything except VFR. Furthermore, having to actually receive an IFR Clearance was not standard until the late 50's when the FAA came along. The point is, I believe it's highly suggestive, although certainly not at all dispositive (unfortunately) that his experience with aviation went beyond just WWII. I often point to copycat Melvin Fisher as the closest analog to Cooper of the copycats (I'm aware you and I disagree on that haha). He had been a pilot trainee in the war, but apparently flunked out and ended up on a bomber crew. Like with Cooper, his pilots seemed to think he knew a thing or two about aircraft. But would his experience in WWII have made him capable of calling the pilots bluff if they said they had to wait to get their IFR Clearance? I'd guess not. But obviously we can't be sure. I'll message Mac and see if he knows what IFR clearance is. Surely with 2,000 hours on an aircraft in the 1960's he'd know what that was.

Any of those 4 options would make sense to me. It's an exhibition of what is so confounding about the evidence in this case. There are no outright smoking guns that indicate his actual background. The most I'm willing to affirmatively say is that he had a history with aviation to some degree or another. I also don't think it's too far of a limb to climb out on to suggest that he may have had pilot training at some point, perhaps even being a pilot himself. I believe the fact that he called their bluff on them having to wait for IFR Clearance is highly suggestive of some experience as a pilot that extended past WWII. My research indicates that IFR clearances are a post-WWII mechanism. Military pilots during the war didn't have that training and probably didn't even know what it was. That specific phrase "IFR clearance" doesn't show up on Newspapers dot com until 1954 or so. So him calling their bluff on that, if that's indeed what he was doing, illustrates more recent experience with aviation, from mid-1950's forward.