NickDG

There's a bit of new information on D.B. Cooper case from 1971 . . . Nick > Who was D.B. Cooper? FBI theories, new evidence revealed in documentary Tuesday, July 27, 2004 You tell people a story, chances are they're going to want to know the ending. In most circumstances, I try to provide updates as soon as possible after the initial columns run. But today I offer an update on a story that ran a few years ago, about a mystery that stretches back to 1971. The story may never have a satisfying ending, but it continues to provide interesting twists: In August 2000, the D.B. Cooper case was exhumed in this column and readers still call and write to ask if the clues we provided have panned out. Back then a Florida woman named Jo Weber called to say she suspected her late husband, Duane Weber, had been D.B. Cooper, the only man who ever hijacked a commercial airliner in this country and got away with it. He also got away with $200,000. It's hard to believe anyone in the Northwest hasn't heard of D.B. Cooper, but for newcomers and young folks, here's a brief history: On Thanksgiving Eve 1971, a man who identified himself to the airline as "Dan Cooper" hijacked Northwest Airlines Flight 305, bound for Seattle. Dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses, he handed a flight attendant a note that said he had a bomb and wanted $200,000 to not detonate it. The plane landed in Seattle, Cooper was given the money, released the passengers and several of the crew, and directed the pilot to fly to Mexico. When the plane hit 10,000 feet, in a fierce storm, Cooper put on a parachute, opened the rear door, and jumped. His identity remains one of the 20th century's greatest mysteries. Jo Weber has suspected for years she has the answer. Jo, a real estate agent who lives near Pensacola, Fla., contacted me four years ago, shared her suspicions and asked for help reaching people who had seen D.B. Cooper that day in 1971. She wanted them to look at photographs of her late husband, Duane. Jo said Duane had made a deathbed confession that he was Dan Cooper. (The hijacker never called himself D.B. Cooper -- that name stuck after a reporter misreported the name.) There were other strange clues, Jo said. In 1994 she'd discovered an old plane ticket from Portland to Seattle in Duane's tax papers. After she asked him about it, the ticket disappeared. And FBI sketches of Cooper resembled Duane. Duane always had been vague about his past; it was only years after their 1977 marriage that Jo learned Duane had spent time in prison; some of that time was served in a federal penitentiary in Washington state. Duane once told her he'd hurt his knee "jumping out of an airplane." Another time he explained how flares could be made to look like a bomb. And then there were the tickets and souvenirs from a trip to the Northwest in 1979, when Duane showed Jo around an area north of the Columbia River. He appeared to know it well, Jo said in 2000. At one point, she says, Duane "pointed to a logging road and said, 'That's where D.B. Cooper walked out of the woods.' I said to him, 'How do you know that?' And he says, 'Maybe I was on the ground.' I just took it as a joke." For a long time, the FBI and others took Jo's theory as a joke. But there were others who thought she should be listened to. Ralph Himmelsbach, who headed the FBI investigation of Cooper from 1971 until his retirement in 1980, told me four years ago that he had had dozens of conversations with Jo and thought Duane was a credible suspect. A few years ago an FBI agent visited Jo at her home in Florida and spent hours talking to her and examining Duane's possessions. When Jo heard nothing after his visit, she decided to continue her own investigation and contacted me. After the column ran, a number of folks who had seen, talked to, or been on the flight with D.B. Cooper called and shared their recollections. All agreed to look at photos of Duane, to see if they recognized his face after nearly 30 years. We were able to locate the agent who'd sold Cooper his ticket, and a man on the flight who'd remained in the cabin with D.B. Cooper after other passengers were moved away. We also located the flight attendant Cooper spoke with; she'd become a nun, and Jo had been looking for her for years. Still, Jo could not get a conclusive answer. But this case is not yet closed. The FBI came to Jo last year and asked for items that might provide DNA from Duane, she says. The FBI will not comment on Jo Weber or the status of the Cooper investigation. But on Aug. 7 the Discovery Channel will air a documentary titled "Flight From Justice: The Story of D.B. Cooper." Not only will Jo Weber be interviewed on the show, producers say FBI investigators will share their theories on who hijacked that plane nearly 33 years ago. Some think Cooper died in his jump. A portion of the money -- a bundle of $20 bills -- was found in a Columbia River sandbar near Vancouver in 1980. But there's another intriguing possibility raised in the show: In 1972 a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles was hijacked by a man named Richard McCoy Jr. McCoy was a former Vietnam vet and a pilot who extorted $500,000 that day. He later escaped from custody and was killed in a gunbattle with an FBI agent. Was McCoy actually D.B. Cooper, repeating his crime? Or was he a copycat? The documentary promises to reveal new evidence.

Picture water rushing down a streambed. Look at the way it rushes over, under, and around rocks that are in its way. Thank God, we can't see air, if we did, I don't think we'd have the courage to go and play in it . . . Nick

How I Quit Being a Skydiver and Learned to Love the Line-Mod . . . Like many jumpers back in the day, I returned from an early Bridge Day ready to rape and pillage everything in my hometown. This is a time when we operated purely on balls and bravado, and anything seemed possible. It’s a time when we’d laugh, because we knew a secret, a secret no one else seemed to know. It's a time when we thought we knew it all, when really we knew nothing at all. It's a time that laid the groundwork for everything that would follow, and it's a time that’s hard to believe so many of us survived. We rejoiced, those of us who’d already spent years enslaved to the drop zone system. We suddenly, like overnight, realized our rigs and experience could be applied elsewhere. It’s a true awakening, when we found sport parachuting at the local DZ merely a detour to our true calling. That calling, that thing that made us all go to the DZ in the first place, was our innate desire to be free and to be able to fly. Oh, I can’t begin to tell you how the fact we didn’t need anyone’s permission, or support, changed everything. It now became possible for one person, with one rig, to change the world and how we’d look at that world forevermore . . . In that vein, I’d love to organize an “old school way” at Bridge Day. You know who you are, email me at [email protected] Nick D

Yes, it was BD 1989, and it was the first time jumping is called off since BD began. This was probably Jean Boenish’s toughest year as BD Organizer, and, I believe, greatly influenced her decision to hand off organizing duties to Andy Calistrate two years later. The reasons for the cancellation, in order of priority are, the pick-up boats could not stay on station in the swift river conditions and therefore would not participate, the very high water levels, and, as I recall, it was very windy, and the air and water temperatures are very cold. It’s odd, but none of tourist orientated BD web sites mention this fact while they do acknowledge the later BD that’s cancelled for security concerns right after 9/11. I suppose they don’t want to give would-be visitors the idea the chances of seeing BASE jumpers (what they really come for) can be dependant on the conditions. However, the situation in ‘89 is a very odd one. Friday night in Jean’s hotel room the staff is already discussing the deplorable conditions and what it would mean in terms of safety. (The conditions are the worst ever seen, and in light of all BDs before or since, the conditions could rightly be termed freakish.) The debate among the staff ranged from some saying hard-core experienced BASE jumpers could handle these conditions, while others argued no one could handle conditions like these. The real concern, however, is the first time BASE jumpers. In those days the ratio between experienced jumpers and first timers is more heavily weighted towards first timers. By evening’s end Jean is leaning toward calling it off, but we all went to sleep to see what conditions morning would bring. The conditions Saturday morning are a bit better, but still bad. Yet, there is a slight chance that conditions might improve later in the day. Now is when things started to come to a boil. Some of the most experienced are howling about not being able to jump, and even some of the non-experienced are doing the same. I remember one first timer saying he had 3000 skydives and could easily make the jump. Ugh! Then things got worse. The Park Service comes to Jean and wants her to sign for and except the permit to land on park property. Slowly it dawned on us the Park Service didn’t want any part in canceling the jumping. We thought the reasons are either they don’t want any grief from a townspeople that profits greatly from BD, or, and this is the prevailing idea, they wanted enough carnage to take place so they could shut down jumping forever. Jean is in a tight spot. Finally, at about 11:00 AM she gathered the jumpers and announced she would not be accepting the permit and the jumping portion of Bridge Day ’89 is cancelled. It’s now a splinter group of jumpers emerges and says they will accept the permit. However, legalities, the permit is made out in Jean’s name, prevents that. About fifty jumpers did brave the conditions and made bandit jumps to the cheers of the spectators. Many opted for the RR tracks, and many received citations from both Rangers and Railroad officials. One jumper crashed through the windshield of a Ranger’s private vehicle that’s parked near the landing area. To his credit, that jumper made good on that by later sending the Ranger a personal check for something like $1200. And that’s the way it was, Bridge Day 1989. (Or, at least, the way I remember it.) Nick

Sorry, everyone, Murray has it right. Nick

In general (very general) early BASE static line jumps are more popular in Great Britain then here. In the U.S. direct bag is the way most new BASE jumpers entered the sport in the early 1980s. This followed the skydiving model where you crawled before walking. (Unlike today in skydiving, where you walk first, and then lot's of times wind up crawling later

Mike Sergio, an actor, and later a film maker, also helped Owen Quinn become the first person to parachute from the World Trade Center Tower #1 in 1975. Owen was Mike’s first jump course instructor, and he helped Owen get into the building, and distracted a security guard while Owen prepared to jump. Mike’s the one who took the famous photo of Owen’s launching over the side. When Mike was approaching Shea Stadium that night, towing a large banner that said, “Go Mets,” he said he was ready to veer off into the parking lot rather than interrupt a play in progress. However, he realized the cheers he’s hearing are for him, and play on the field had already stopped. Say what you will, but the Mets are trailing in that series, and behind in this game, until Sergio landed. When play resumed the Mets rallied to win the game, and eventually the series. Sport’s writers called it the second miracle of the NY Mets. (The first being, of course, they won the ’69 Series in their first year in the league.) When the FAA came after him all they wanted is the name of the pilot who flew him over the stadium, but to this day, Sergio has never given up that information. This probably won’t go down well with people who go along with the program, (my God, where did all you people come from?) and don’t say anything unless you never did a bandit jump yourself. But to me, Sergio, and others like him who operate outside the lines, are heroes. But, that’s just the rebel in me . . . Nick

Rick & Joy, And I also remember Nick Bender holding class on how to navigate elevator shafts (a skill sometimes required to access building jumps) and using the Holiday Inn's elevator as a training aid . . . Not taking it too seriously, this degenerated into a brand new sport we dubbed, Surfing the Box. The ultimate surf was four, or five, of us riding up and down (atop the elevator) while the security guard is actually riding inside searching for a mysterious giggling sound that's been reported by several wuffoe guests . . . Nick

PM or e-mail me. . . . Nick BASE [email protected]

>>The business case problem I see with any of this is suing.

Thanks, Tom, but no thanks . . . After what you've put into the sport, you're getting a free copy. Also, thank you to everyone else for all the wonderful emails I received encouraging me to attend BD 2004 (especially Jason). That weekend is also my 50th B-day! So yes, I’m will be there, and I can’t wait to see you all again . . . Nick

>>I can't remember the date Carl invented the word BASE in the motel, but Smitty qualified for BASE 1 on Jan. 18, 1981.

The first four off El Cap that day are, in order, Kent Lane, Tom Start, Mike Sherrin, and Ken Gosselin. All four of these guys, members of the same Lake Elsinore skydiving team, never seriously got into fixed object jumping after that and all are still alive. At least two, Lane, and Sherrin are still skydiving. Carl didn’t make the jump even though the whole thing was his idea, until the next trip about a week later, as his first priority was filming the initial event. Of that group, Carl is the only one that kept cliff jumping, and Carl is the only one that is dead. These weren’t the first El Capitan parachute jumps (Carl didn’t coin the phrase BASE jumping until early 1982) as two jumpers did it in 1966. Both used round parachutes and all the skill possessed by skydivers of that time. Both are badly injured from hitting the wall under canopy and also in the rough landings on the boulder strewn talus. These two jumps are seen as stupid stunts by the rest of the skydiving community, and that was the end of it for awhile. The world just wasn’t ready to embrace true human flight. What Carl did in 1978 was bring modern gear (ram airs & piggybacks) and the ability to track to fixed object parachuting thereby modernizing an age old idea. Carl Boenish’s biggest contribution may have been making fixed object jumping repeatable. Then, he began to change people’s minds (through his films and boundless energy) about the sport. Cliff parachuting went from a stupid stunt to the beginnings of the sport we know today. Carl, who’s universally loved and revered in the skydiving community at the time, put his entire reputation on the line for fixed object jumping. And he paid the ultimate price, first in his relationships with long time skydiving friends who didn’t possess the vision he had, and of course, finally with his life. Everything we have today, Bridge Day, dedicated BASE jumping equipment, BASE first jump courses, and yes even the Potato Bridge, all stem, directly or indirectly, from this one man. Think about that the next time you are standing on the edge . . . Nick

Hi All, This Sunday (August 8, 2004) marks another anniversary of Carl Boenish organizing the first modern El Capitan loads in Yosemite National Park. (August 8, 1978). I just wanted to mention I (almost) have my book on the history of the sport ready for the publisher. I’m going to be working on it full time from now on in. Please, you guys, don’t invent, or discover anything new about the sport, for about the next year, as I’d hate to see the book go out of date too soon. BTW, If Carl had lived he’d be sixty three this year . . . As for this Sunday, please celebrate each in your own way. Nick

To add to my last . . . Carl Boenish, in the very early days of exploring, what was then ultra-low fixed object jumps, fabricated a large metal hoop to which he attached an already open round parachute with clothespins. The suspension lines hung in a U shape and led to a harnessed jumper standing next to the hoop. It was the poor man’s Coney Island parachute jump. I know Ritchie Stein made his first (of any kind) jumps like this. After these “test” jumps they started to jump packed and closed containers. However, Carl felt the need to differentiate between the hoop type and packed type jumps. And that’s why his definition says a packed (as in not already partially deployed) parachute. A direct bag is a real BASE jump, as the parachute is packed, you’re just not wearing the container it’s packed into on your back. Carl, of course, had no way to see what the future would bring. And believe me, Carl wasn’t all that serious about BASE in the sense that he was really just trying to have fun with it all. I think if he was alive today, he would chuckle that car-motor laugh of his, and say, “rollovers, etc, are BASE jumps too.” Nick

>>The rule (I believe) is that the jump must be made from a packed container... not sure where a DB would fit into that.

Yes, I saw that. I'm not sure what part C.R. plays here, he may not be the frontman, but rather playing a more behind the scenes role. And I never known the person who told me about C.R. to be wrong about much. Nick

Thinking, oh well, we are now seeing the yang that results from the ying of having an everyday legal bridge. However, the feasibility of selling BASE rides has come up many times over the years in the BASE community. Even tandem BASE has been considered. (Not the way it was done at Bridge Day, but with real BASE tandem rigs). At that time the issue wasn’t should we do it, or even could we do it, it was more, where do we do it? So, I always thought this type of thing an inevitable part of the growth of the sport. And, I can’t help but admit, I’m interested in where this is going to lead. My only concern, like many of you, was who is this fellow, and would his actions cause me to someday add an innocent vacationing wuffoe to the list of BASE fatalities. This morning, through a reliable source, I was told who the Tanning Guy is. Anyone who still has copies of my Fixed Object Journal will find a letter, or two, from him. And also a reference to him, I made in a 1991 Bridge Day article. His initials are C.R. Although, I haven’t had much contact with him over the years, other than a friendly e-mail once in awhile. I knew him to have his head on straight. And he was as enthusiastic about BASE jumping as any of us. This is what I wrote of him in 1991. “The battleship Wisconsin steamed home from the Persian Gulf with a young Navel Officer aboard named C.R.. After months at sea he had just two things on his mind, and the second thing was Bridge Day. He made his first two BASE jumps at Bridge Day 1991 [with my help] and his afterglow lasted until the last time I saw him, still on his feet at four in the morning in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. Way to go, Navy!” Oh, and this squabbling about who’s a BASE jumper, and who’s a skydiver is solved once you remember what Janis Joplin sang, “It’s all the same thing, man.” We are all just sport parachutists . . . Nick

>>Though it would be really damn entertaining to watch him put people off. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

My friend, a good BASE brother, and a great American patriot, Don Jacobson, carried a Model 1911 Colt 45 on every jump he made downtown. He’d had much previous trouble with his car being broke into and his gear stolen while scouting downtown building entry points, he’s been rousted and hassled by police and security guards to the point he wasn’t going to take it anymore. I’ll never forget the night we are downtown and Don said to me in all seriousness. “Nick, the next son of bitch that tells me I can’t BASE jump is going to be picking hot lead out of his liver.” When we got to the roof of the building and looked over the edge, the wind is all wrong, and the traffic in the street is too heavy. “So what do you think, Nick?” Don asked me. “Looks good to me, Bro . . .” Nick

As I'm still in dial up hell here, so I didn't d/l the video posted, but I'll assume it's the same one, or similar to, the one that's seen in Michael Moore's movie “Fahrenheit 911”. It was very funny. When I worked at Basic Research and we decided to market the HOPE (High Office Parachute Escape) system it wasn’t to make a fast buck off the hysteria of 9/11. It was only after we saw non-jumping companies, like Executive Chute, or whatever they call themselves, a company with no parachuting experience at all, start to market these systems. It was a very short step to thinking if they are doing it, we who actually build parachutes that we jumped, could do it better. And we did. Is it necessary? I don’t know. I think the potential is certainly more in the vein of fire and earthquake, rather than terrorism. But, I do know this. Donald Trump hands out HOPE systems like party favors to his favorite employees. Historically, there was a pretty good system designed for tall building escape back in the 1981. Jimmy Tyler, BASE 13, and some others came up with it. The system involved round parachutes (they used Piglets) and a stainless steel cable long enough to reach the ground. In an emergency the steel cable is dropped from the top of the building. Rescue crews on the ground hooked the cable to the a hard point on a fire truck that is backed away to form a 30-45 degree angle from the building. Escapees hooked their harness’ onto the cable with a carabineer and jumped. No steering, or parachuting ability was needed, as the open round would slow the decent and the cable would bring you down into the waiting arms of rescuers below. At the time we all thought this was nuts, until Jimmy actually tested the system and it worked like a charm. They did it a number of times and it really worked every time. The round showed no tendency to wrap around the cable and the only thing that kept it from being implemented was the whuffos inability to know a good thing when they saw it. When I think of all the people who have perished in tall building emergencies since that time, it makes me shudder. Nick

When Troy Widgery first developed Red Bull, I remember Al Frisby, at Perris, spitting it out and saying, "Well, now we know what Troy did with all those tube stows he couldn't sell . . . Nick

Also consider that the application of force on the breakcord is not a static load, like the test method shown. Your all up weight is accelerating away from S/L at the moment that weight is applied to the breakcord. I'm not a mathematician, but this increases the forces applied considerably. I never seen, or heard of, a BASE jumper in tow (I guess we need a new phrase there) but the opposite, a premature parting of the breakcord, has occurred too many times. In the same vein, if you compared how we packed for BASE in the old days, when free packing was the rule, and how it’s done now, it’s like night and day. We used to be afraid of any type of reefing that could possibly (even though it was imaginary) hang up the opening sequence. We’d pack thinking, open, open, open. When we should have been thinking, don’t open, don’t open, don’t open. We learned the hard way it’s easier to pack in a way that could blow your stuff up, and much harder to do it in a way where it wouldn't open at all. One of the benefits of BASE specific gear, and BASE specific jumpers, is we don’t see much canopy damage anymore. I ripped the center cell rib completely out of a Cruiselite once time, and it scared me badly, but there were no BASE canopies available at that time, so I sewed it back together and kept on trucking . . . Nick

After a routine landing from a downtown hotel three private security officers from a nearby waterfront shopping area surrounded me. When I tried to walk away one drew a weapon and actually pointed it at me. He gun hand is shaking and his lips are quivering, and it really pissed me off. It used to be law enforcement types never drew their weapons, except in extreme circumstances, and then would never actually point it at someone unless they intended to shoot. Now you can watch an episode, or two, of COPS, and see they won’t knock on a door on a barking dog call without their weapons drawn. Okay, I know it’s a more dangerous world these days, but it still bothers me. As calmly as I could I said to the officer, “please put the weapon away, sir, nothing very bad is happening here.” He lowered the weapon. “What did I do?” I asked him. “You did an illegal stunt.” “You’re making that up, that’s not a law.” I said and laughed. And then the other two started laughing and that was the end of it. They let me go . . . Nick

From the photos the canopies appear to be 28-foot military surplus Cheapos, not 35-foot T-10s . . . All us "old school" folks made their first skydives with these. The bottom line is they are doing something very dangerous in that a first time jumper, doing a first time water landing, unless assured of being assisted, could find it difficult to deal with all those lines and all that material in the water. Nick