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At 7:45 PM he had the flight crew take the plane back into the air, ordering them to fly towards Mexico at low speed and altitude with the landing gear down and 15 degrees of flap. Six minutes later, a warning light indicated that the 727's built-in rear stairway had been lowered. Six minutes after that, the crew felt a "bump" suggesting that Cooper had jumped from the ramp into the stormy night somewhere over the Washougal River watershed.
On February 13, 1980, $5,800 (in bundles of $20 bills) of the ransom money was found by a family on a picnic five miles northwest of Vancouver, Washington on the banks of the Columbia River, though there are several variations to this account.
Knowing that he would be jumping out of the back of the plane, he also demanded that the pilot, which was actually co-pilot William Rataczak, fly with landing gear down, flaps set to 15-degrees, to not exceed 170 miles per hour and not to fly above 10,000 feet. The plane was refueled but even with a full load of fuel, the 727 wouldn't be able to make it to Mexico from Seattle with the flaps down (which made the plane less aerodynamic and thus less efficient) so Cooper had little choice but to agree to a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. The plane departed for Reno at 7:44 p.m. and Cooper soon asked the only remaining stewardess (Tina Mucklow Larson) how to lower the rear stairs in the back of the 727. He then ordered the stewardess to close the curtain in first class behind her and to remain with the rest of the crew in the cockpit for the remainder of the flight. A final peek before shutting the curtain revealed a skyjacker attempting to tie something around his waist.
It was the last anyone ever saw of the man called Dan Cooper. In all likelihood, he was tying the 21-pound bag of money to a tether in hopes it would land first and give him some indication that the pitch-dark landing was about to occur. At around 8:00 p.m. the pilot noticed a red warning light which indicated a door was open. If this had happened at 35,000 feet, the plane would have depressurized but Cooper had wisely requested an altitude of only 10,000 feet. Though the warning light did not indicate which door had became ajar, the crew correctly deduced that the aft passenger staircase in the tail section of the plane had been forced open by the skyjacker.
You might think Cooper's cunning plan was original, but you'd be wrong. Dan Cooper was a copycat. Just two weeks earlier in Montana Paul Cini, who declared himself a member of the IRA, tried to become a para-jacker on an Air Canada flight with a gun but was subdued by the crew as he tried to put on his parachute. Cooper instead relied on the plot of the 1970 movie Airport. He used the threat of a bomb in a briefcase instead.
Schneier on Security: Airport Security Confiscates RockOf course, there are ceramic knives that would easily pass security. ... Anyone who's ever had a paper cut knows it can slice like a knife. ... www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/10/airport_securit_4.html - 90k - Cached - Similar pages
Carrying a knife through airport [email protected] used to carry a ceramic boot knife when I was in Thailand, ... The next time you consider attempting to get through an airport security stop with a weapon ... everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=902681 - 65k - Cached - Similar pages
The company Kyocera also offer a so-called 'black' blade made by an extra firing or sintering via hot isostatic pressing (HIP). These black knives are said to be 'tougher'.
They are used by chefs, bomb disposal squads (they are not conductive and not magnetic), divers (they will not rust in salt water), and people with certain allergies (chemically inert).
Ceramic knives present a conceptual problem to the security industry since ceramics are not picked up by metal detectors. To solve this problem, many manufacturers of non-military knives include a quantity of metal in each knife to ensure they are detectable with standard equipment. Ceramic knives can be detected by extremely high frequency scanners, although (as of 2006) these scanners are not yet in widespread use.
It has been thirty five yrs since Cooper took his flight out of Portland to Seattle. Departing from Seattle he jumped with a $200 K ransom. I am the widow of a man who claimed that he was Cooper 11 days before he died in 1995. I have been researching his past for 11 yrs now and I need the help of this forum to uncover his jump history. So far I have done everything for the FBI except put him in a parachute. The help of those who read this forum will be appreciated. I don't want to debate theories about how the crime was done and who else may have done it. All I want is to find information about sky jumping and any information I might be able to find about Duane Lorin Weber and any of his AKA's. If anyone is interested I will post photos of him on the forum from different areas of his life in hopes that someone knows an old timer who might recognize him. The old timers usually don't use computers so it will help me immensely if you guys would print the photos and take them to your meetings or anyplace that these old timers might be found. Perhaps there is a magazine for jumpers that might run some of the photos. Please help me in my search and once and for all to bury Cooper. Respectfully, Jo Weber, Widow of Duane L. Weber aka Dan Cooper as he told me, plus the many aliases that he is known to have used.
Later, Jo Weber said,while under sedation and seldom lucid, Duane Weber offered a final lament, "I put $173,000 in a bucket and can't find the bucket."
The reason I think that they have eliminated McCoy and Duane Weber as the real "Dan Cooper" is that they had DNA evidence of the skyjacker ( the cigarette butts from the Raliegh cigarettes he smoked while commiting the skyjack ) that is still sealed in evidence bags at the FBI evidence room. I beleive that the DNA did not match either of the two. I think that McCoy used "Cooper's executed plan as a blueprint, being that he had the experience as a jumper in the service. I think Duane Weber story is a bunch of BS. Just my 2c.
Scott instructed Schaffner to go back and sit next to Cooper, and ascertain if the bomb was in fact real. Sensing this, Cooper opened his briefcase momentarily, long enough for Schaffner to see red cylinders, a large battery, and wires, convincing her the bomb was real.
The plane landed at the airport at 5:39 P.M.[15] Cooper then instructed Scott to taxi the plane to a remote section of the tarmac and also dim the lights in the cabin to deter police snipers.
At the time Cooper jumped, the plane was flying through a heavy rainstorm, with no light source coming from the ground due to cloud coverage [4]. Because of the poor visibility, his descent went unnoticed by the United States Air Force F-106 jet fighters tracking the airliner.
Richard McCoy, Jr. Main article: Richard McCoy, Jr. One of the 1972 hijackings was carried out by Richard McCoy, Jr. On April 7, 1972, four months after Cooper's hijacking, McCoy boarded United Airlines Flight 855 during a stopover in Denver, Colorado, and demanded four parachutes and $500,000. Married and with two young children, McCoy was a Mormon Sunday school teacher studying law enforcement at Brigham Young University. He had a record as a Vietnam veteran and was a former Green Beret, a helicopter pilot, and an avid skydiver.
A. This once-top secret starlight scope that magnified moonlight a thousand times. Our scope navigator lay prone on an old mattress and peered out a three-foot-square hole in the cargo floor, using the scope to spot truck headlights.
The skydivers knew they were in trouble. But Gagnon, who had been the first to open his parachute, was a few hundred metres above the others. He was the only one sucked into a black cloud. From the ground, Audit watched in panic as Gagnon disappeared. For five minutes, Gagnon was missing. He later told Audit that he was trapped in a black fog, hurtling upwards. Gagnon checked his altimeter -- he had climbed 1,000 metres. He cut away his main parachute and tumbled toward the ground until he was out of the clouds.
Then Gagnon opened his reserve parachute and drifted helplessly. About 15 minutes later, he landed on the south side of the Ottawa River, in Orleans, Ont., about 25 kilometres south of the airfield where he was supposed to touch down.