snowmman

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?

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.

assume the FBI map is right. The money goes into the Lewis River. The reason it gets found at a site that got dredged is because the dredging operation put it there.

The money floated down the Lewis River. It got upstream to that dredging operation on the Columbia in a very interesting way. They had been using the dredging equipment up by where the Lewis drains into the Columbia. The equipment wasn't 100% cleaned out/some material was still on the barge when they moved upstream to the Tina Bar location. Dredging Tina Bar dumped out some of the debris left over from the Lewis River dredge *** Ckret said, a long time ago: What kills the whole theory the money got there the night of or just after is the dredging operation in 74. They put almost two feet of sand and clay on the beach. If the money had been put there the night of, there is no way it could have worked it's way to the surface through the clay deposit. ***

thanks for replies. I'll go back and read all posts where my thinking's at: So I'm pissed off because they fired me in Mar. '71. Yeah I wear a clip on tie even though I'm in my 40s. That's just who I am. It's not like it's a disguise or anything. I didn't plan on leaving it. It's one I normally wore to work. I'm a tie wearer. That's why I have a tie clip. Why did I dress like that? No huge plan, I went with what made me comfortable and feel like I was in control. If I dress like someone else, it'll be obvious. I'll stick out. I'll know I'm fake. I didn't bring a gun because I wasn't going to shoot someone just because of my bad attitude. I knew the bomb looked kind of embarassingly fake, that's why I just flashed it. But hey I'm an engineer...I spent more time on building my little fake bomb, then getting a gun which would have been more useful in guaranteeing success of the plan. To be honest, there was part of me that just wanted to show them, so maybe I did have a little tunnel vision...yeah all of them while they're sitting around eating their Thanksgiving dinner. They'll be talking about me. I was unmarried. Heck if they shot me or I died in the jump, to be honest it wouldn't really matter. The bomb is why I felt confident. Of course they're going to do what I say. I've got a bomb! And I even know the script they'll follow, just like all the other hijackings. To be honest I was slightly surprised when it all went to plan. When it came time to jump, I just had to go. I wasn't going to stay on the plane. You stay on the plane, you go to jail. There was no option other than to go out the door and take my chances. I picked the camo rig over the padded Pioneer sport rig, because I was a little concerned I didn't quite understand the sport rig. The simpler-looking rig looked like it would "just work". Yeah I initially asked for just two backpack rigs, but then when they started talking about it, I thought yeah okay reserves...that might make it safer...I didn't really know anything about whether I could actually use a reserve successfully but it sounded good. And the flaps..well I just said lowered flaps and gear, and then the pilot says "what flap position" and I say well what's typical? and he says 15 so I say yeah 15 that's why the 15 came up later. oh and my name. First name Donald. Middle name Cooper. Last name xxx

I've never parachuted before. But here's a mental exercise. Assume it's thanksgiving and I'm up in Seattle flying on a 727 to Portland. I'm wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sandals and it's raining. Ground temps around 45F. You hand me a random rig and I say "Sure dude" and figure out to strap it on and find the ripcord. We manage to get the aft stairs open, and the plane is flying with gear and flaps down at around 200mph. I wait until I see the city lights of Portland and Vancouver thru the clouds. I flash you the thumbs up and run down the stairs and pull the rip right as I leap off the last step yelling "Yeehaw!" I guess I don't see why I'm dead. I guess there's a percentage of bad chute opening, percentage of landing totally messed up. But if I get on the ground dude and can walk, I don't care how cold it is. I'm outta there and I'm alive and you'll be seeing me. I can walk barefoot for a day in 32F. The people who say "he couldn't survive in leather shoes" I don't think have really had to push the envelope to stay alive. If you're breathing and not bleeding, you can go for a week with nothing else. Hell, I'd do the same game plan outside of most any major city in the US, without even seeing the city first, and be reasonably certain I'd be back to tell the story. I would not jump into the woods. You'd have to be really stupid to do that. You jump when you see the lights. So why do I need to know anything more here? Tell me why I'm dead. I don't think I am. I think the problem with pilots and jumpers, is that you guys rightly focus on safety all the time. The thing is, me, I just wouldn't care about it..I'd assume you guys have got the technology sorted out. I'd just go for it. I don't need to know anything. That's why people have been able to do their first jump ever off El Cap. Whoosh!

I saw earlier in this thread someone saying Cooper asked for the stairs to be down at takeoff.. He did not ask for the stairs to be down at takeoff. A careful reading of the recently released transcripts confirms it. The pilot/control initially incorrectly thought you could not lower them in flight and were debating the issue of stairs down or intermediate at takeoff. Cooper was consistent in saying the aft door would be open and the stairs lowered after they took off. not before. Later when they finally acknowledged the plane had been flown this way before, with flaps down and gear down, and 2-300 lb boxes shoved out, they realized they didn't have to take off with the stairs down. Cooper was the one who knew you could lower the stairs in flight. The crew/tower had to come around to that point of view.

Hi Sluggo...thanks for the kml with Victor 23 It looks like you have the chute find in Ariel, WA not Amboy, WA?? Use Amboy, and let me have a mile or so drift for each point (to approx the straight line) ? ? ? ? ? ? Don’t see a straight line. What am I missing?

oh I forgot you guys might not have poured over the transcripts yet. You get used to the abbreviations and the XXX on typos. The first transcript must have been typed on the fly while things were happening? http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/library/dbcooper_transcripts.pdf it's nice to see the cronkite/curtis news report from that evening to get you in the mood of the times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5wARW8FcF0 here's some weather info from portland on 11/24/71 The transcripts confirm the pilot reporting -7 degree as reported by the press, for air temp at 10,000 ft.. but it's obviously Celsius. I think the press misreported that badly at the time. Ground temps were much milder. I got it from the US National Climatic Data Center by going thru the pages at http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/cdoselect.cmd?datasetabbv=GSOD this says min of 45F and max of 51F that day in Portland. 19711124 48.1 8 43.3 8 1013.5 8 1012.3 8 14.5 8 10.8 8 14.0 999.9 51.1 * 45.0 * 99.99 999.9 010000 99999924229

okay, if I look at Amboy, WA, (reserve chute found?) Heisson, WA (newly quoted witness) and the money location on the Columbia at 45°43'2.88"N 122°45'34.55"W you can approximate a straight line thru those 3 points. About a 21-22 mile path. so it takes maybe 7 minutes for the plane to cover it. And it ends with the plane crossing to the west side of I-5, so maybe that's what Scott was remembering..being on the west side of I-5 as he approached Vancouver. Remember he was going a lot slower than normal so his memories/perceptions of when/where may be a little off. So let's say as Cooper is standing there, the reserve chute rips off in the wind because it's not properly attached, because it didn't have the right D rings for the main harness, as Cossey has said. It falls and lands in Amboy. That's the 1946 canopy...sewn up as a training rig. Or maybe Cooper just tossed it when it was obvious it was screwed up attachwise, or he realizes it's just a damn training rig! Then the plane flies over the house in Heisson, WA as the witness says. Then Cooper jumps, near the Columbia and lands near where the money was found. He doesn't open the parachute (an open parachute probably would have been found, even if he stashed it..and he wasn't taking it with him...remember McCoys chute was found pretty quick, stashed in a culvert by a boy..these things get found) So assume the money ripped off somewhat on the jump so it lands on the east beach of the Columbia or the water nearby...and Cooper actually augered into the mud on the west side of the Columbia river. Not as much development there. ..then or now...like the Sauvie Island area. He doesn't land in the river, cause his body would have shown up. He just augers into the mud, and that's that. Mud hides everything. Remember that plane that crashed in the swamps in Florida. Disappeared in the muck. There's been no development out there in that large area...so no one finds him.. Sauvie Island is 26000 acres. Note how it's a lot of water too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauvie_Island Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres (105 km²). It lies approximately ten miles northwest of downtown Portland, between the Columbia River to the east, the Multnomah Channel to the west, and the Willamette River to the south. Much of the interior comprises water; Sturgeon Lake, in the north central part of the island, is the most prominent water feature. The land area is 84.82 km² (32.75 sq mi, or 20,959 acres).

some random things maybe Ckret can respond to sorry for the length (i was posting on another forum) this witness and flight path: http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/03/03282008_Chute-opens-speculation.cfm ....Dennis Levanen, who lives in the Heisson area, said he vividly remembers the airplane flying directly over his house on Thanksgiving Eve in 1971. He quibbles with the FBI’s flight path of the airplane, noting that it appears several miles west of where it actually flew. “It was just huge and roaring,” he said. “It was under a lot of power to keep it airborne, going as slow as the guy demanded.”... I've also been reading the recently released transcripts and have some questions. Starting with: did Cooper even ask for 4 chutes to start with? I don't think so. I don't think he asked for reserves. page 1 of the transcript has this exchange (when it starts with 305, that's communication from the plane) 305 PSGR ADV IS RIHAKING ENRTE TO EA STEW HAS BEEN HANDED NOTE REQST 2HND THSD AND KNAPSACK BY 5PM SEA THIS AFTNN WANTS 2 BAK PAK PARACHUTES WANTS MONEY IN NEGOTBL AMERICAN CURRNCY DENOMINATION OF BILLS NOT IMPORATANT HAS BOMB IN BRIEF CASE AND ILL USE IT IF ANYTHING IS DONE TO BLOCK HIS REQUEST ENRTE TO SEA (note the ENRTE TO EA and ENRTE TO SEA) is "enroute to seattle" ah. 2HND THSD is "two hundred thousand" abbreviation Interesting Cooper asked for a knapsack (I guess they didn't give him one) so that was his plan for the money..not tying it around himself like he did...see he did have a good plan for carrying the money. Okay the idea of chest packs seems to have been introduced by the team on the ground I think...not Cooper. page 2 of the transcripts SEADD ARE IN CTC WITH LOCAL BANK AND ARRANGING FOR THE MONEY ND WILL HAVE THE TWO CHEST PACKS SOON ALREADY HAVE THE TWO BACK PACKS Maybe the ground team thought they were being smart by giving him chest plus back rigs. Or maybe they were just stalling for time. So this whole thing about the training reserve may be bogus. Cooper might have just tossed it. There's the whole military/civilian chute backstory that's not in the transcripts. Maybe they talked to the military and then talked to Cooper again, but Cooper rejected the military chutes (as has been reported). I think it was just a verbal rejection if so. In any case, maybe the ground team started this whole 4 parachute thing...chest vs back. I still don't know where the 2nd backpack rig ended up. Supposedly it was still on the plane afterwards? If so where did it go? Cossey knew which rig Cooper jumped with...so Cossey must have saw an unused backpack rig. Maybe the FBI just gave it back to Cossey? rather than keeping it as evidence? If so, that's embarassing to them now? I was also wondering if the FBI had investigated people that were part of all the big layoffs at Boeing in Spring '71. The supersonic transport had just been cancelled. They had huge layoffs that year. I could see how getting the money, and showing Boeing that he was a lot smarter than they thought would make sense. The 15 degree flap request in the transcripts sounds interesting till you realize a 727-100 only had 3 positions 5/15/25 and 15 was typical. Did the pilot relay 15 degrees in his opinion, or did Cooper actually specify the 15 degree position. I'm wondering if Cooper worked on trim analysis at Boeing, since he knew with gear down and flaps at 15, you could fly the 727 with the stairs down. The pilots didn't even know that you could lower it in flight. Witness this from the transcripts while the plane was still on the ground.. (abbreviations are easy to decipher. These apparently were typed on the fly. .typist apparently used "XXX" at the end of a word if he made an error..no backspace in those days! so ignore words ending in XXX in the transcripts) Cooper specified they would fly with the "AFT STAIRS TO BE LWRD AFTER TKOFF" and "AFT PSGR LOADING DOOR WILL BE OPEN" even before they took off after fueling see page 10. "305 R HAVEXXX AFT PSGR LOADING DOOR WILL BE OPEN AND WILL REMAIN IN THAT POSN AND AFT STAIRS TO BE LWRD AFTR TKOFF" The pilot/control apparently thought the stairs couldn't be lowered in flight, so there was all sorts of debate about taking off with the stairs down or partially down. But Cooper didn't say that. He was comfortable with the idea of opening in flight. What's weird is that they later say they had dumped two to three hundred lb. boxes out the aft stairs...so they must have known they could be opened in flight (since you can't take off that way)..so they weren't thinking straight. They just didn't know. Maybe there's a lot of exchanges with experts not shown, gathering this kind of info on the fly..so we see some communication early on where they didn't know about 727 experience with aft door/stairs open while flying. on page 10/11 (note the xxx's are I think the guy on the typewriter trying to correct mistakes...so ignore those) "305 HAV NOXXX NEGOTD RLS OF 2 GIRLS LVG ANY MOMENT 3RD GIRL TO STAY ITH ACFT WANTS HER TO MANIPULATE STAIRS FOR HIM AFTR PLANE AIRBORNE HAVE TRIED TO TELL HIM INXXX UNAM OPRTE STAIRS TO LWRD AFTR TKOFF TRYING TO GET HIM TO LET US LWR STAIRS PARTLLY FOR TKOFF" "MSP FLT OPNS DONT KNOW OF ANY WAY TO LOCK STAIRS IN INTMTDE POSN" "305 R WIL TALK TO HIM AGAIN" So it's not like there was some surprise when he lowered the aft stairs. The previous reports made it out to be a big surprise when he lowered the stairs in flight. They knew he wanted to do that all along. The combination of stairs, plus flaps (and gear down?) is what led them to say they wouldn't make Mexico. Cooper hadn't thought of that...the issue of more fuel needed if he tells them Mexico with flaps and stairs. He wasn't really going to Mexico, so he kinda missed that issue in his tunnel thinking. Here's another important note. at 5:47 PM PST "305 WE HAVE INSTRCTNS FROM THE INDVDL WANTS NR1 (?) GO TO MEXICO CITY 2 TO FLY WITH GEAR DOWN AND FLAPS AT 15 EGDEG AFTR UNDERWAY ALL LITHGHTS TO BE TURND OUT IN ACFT" So it's not clear that Cooper specified 15 degree flaps. The pilot reported 15 degree flaps. It's possible Cooper just told the pilot to lower the flaps, and the pilot was just being precise in reporting to the tower the exact state and why that wouldn't let him fly to Mexico. This is important because a lot of reports quote the flap degree specification as evidence of Cooper being an aviation person. There's nothing that says Cooper specified the degree of the flaps. (on second thought, I'm thinking Cooper did specify 15. It's consistent with how the pilot relays demands from Cooper) It's possible Scott later said Cooper requested 15 degrees. But it's also possible that he didn't. (I'm thinking in the end Cooper did say 15 ..see bottom here. But did he calculate 15 degrees as a Boeing engineer experienced in trim/stabilizer calcs, or did he have firsthand experience in a flight that opened the aft doors (vietnam/cia or ??)) page 11 and 12 has notes about how they can't take off with the stairs down...(I don't think Cooper asked them to?) but then note on page 12 they say they know the plane has been flown with the stairs lowered "MSP FLT OPS HAVE NO CNTRL PROBLEM WHEN XTNDD MAY BE SUM SLITE PITCHUP BUT ERY CNTRLLBL PLANE HAS BEEN FLOWN THIS WAY HAVE LARGE BOXES OF 2 TO 3HND LBS THRU THE DOOR IN THIS CONFIG MUST BE DOWN WITH LANDING FLAPS SPEED NOT TO CRITICAL ANY FLAT POSN BTWN 5 AND 40 AND SPEED TO 120 KTS DONT HAVE ANGLE YET BUT WORKING ON IT" I wonder if the experience shoving two to three hundred pound boxes thru the open aft door, was from Vietnam? So the tower was trying to work out what kind of trim was needed with the flaps, to keep the plane from pitching up, while flying with the aft stairs down... But: Maybe he is insisting on a flap degree: on page 12 "305 HE SEEMS TO BE INSISTENT WITH STAIRS IN 1 DEG" (typo? maybe 15?) "MSP IMPOSS TO TKOFF WITH STAIRS XTNDD BUT FULL UTXXX UP" "305 R WANTS GIRL TO INITIATE STAIRS AFTR TKOFF SHUD WE TIE HER DOWN TO STRUCTURE" I think maybe Cooper understood the trim issues of a plane. If he was a laid-off Boeing engineer like I think, maybe he calculated the required flap angle with aft stairs lowered, to keep the plane trim. on page 13/14 they note at 7:42 PM (edit: I had wrongly said 7:34 PM before) that he's trying to lower the stairs and they have an aft stair lite on they say they're 14 miles on V23 (vector 23) So the aft stairs were lowered a lot earlier than 8:05? page 16 is where they Stewardess Mucklow sees him with the "KNAPSACK AROUND HIM AND THINKS HE WILL ATTEMPT A JUMP" they say indicated speed is 160 knots on page 16? and they're at ten thousand feet or are they at 15 thousand "indicated" as he says, and they're going to 10 thousand...The 15 is a typo...later transcripts with other towers more accurately cover the climb to 10 thousand. So is the plane going slower than previously indicated? And Cooper maybe jumped before they got to 10 thousand? not clear. "MSP FLT OPS WHT IS ALTDE" "305 NOW AT 15THSD INDCTD 160 FUEL FLOW 4000 15 DEG FLAP GEAR DOWN CQN WILL STAY AT 1XX TEN THSD TIL HAS LEFT" "8:01 PM PST" (the time for an exchange is always last in the group) at 8:12 PM on page 18, the pilot notes the oscillations and says he must be doing something with the "AIR STAIRS" at 8:05 PM on page 17 they noted trying to make contact with Cooper two times but no response. But then he did respond on the PA system.. so he's still there at 8:05 PM.. So there's a big 7 minute window of time where they don't really know where he jumped. The oscillation could have been from the stairs going full lowered when weighted by Cooper (as FBI testing showed) or maybe not He could have jumped/fell after the oscillation..i.e. the FBI test had a guy walk out on the stairs, not actually jump (they used a sled for another test...)...maybe cooper hung on the stairs for a little while when he felt the plane oscillation..Maybe he jumped/fell 1 minute or so after the oscillation...i.e. around 8:13 still reading (I'm on page 18 of 99) The new info for me was that the aft stairs were lowered well before 8:05...i.e. 7:42 (edited from 7:34) So Cooper was waiting...waiting until he saw his (or maybe a?) desired landing zone before he jumped. He didn't just get the stairs open and go for it right away. Combine that with being able to see Portland/Vancouver lights thru the cloud cover, and it makes me more comfortable about Vancouver being the targeted jump zone.