olemisscub

Well, but Cossey never once is quoted in the FBI Files as stating they were his chutes. Quite the opposite. He mentions Hayden multiple times in the files. I just don't really see any reason to doubt his claim that it was an NB-6 that he gave Hayden. Again, they were fairly ubiquitous at the time, and still are. Look at what deep dives you and I have done trying to find examples of this P2-B24. Yet at any given time there are 20 NB-6's on sale on ebay. What are the odds Cossey had two rare WWII bailout rigs to give Hayden? And like I said, Hayden didn't seem to think they were identical. If they were identical containers he'd have said so. Hayden describing them as Olive Drab isn't a big deal to me either. I own two NB-6's and if someone asked me what color they were I'd also say Olive Drab. That's the color I instinctively think of when I think of that greenish military color. For me the only Cossey inconsistency within the files (we can ignore everything he ever said to the media) is why both he AND Hayden state it was a 28 foot canopy when the packing card says 24.

Couple of thoughts. You don't have to modify an NB6 to put a 28 footer in there. That's Gryder nonsense because this chute he "found" has an expanded container. I'm not even sure where he came up with that. Cossey merely told Bruce that he stuffed a 28 footer in there. Didn't say anything about modifying the container to make it larger. I texted Lee Gossett, the rigger from the 60's, and asked him about putting 24's into NB-6's. He just said "sure, why not?" Pioneer refers to the canopy. Packing cards from that era don't have container info. At least none that I've seen. There is something lost in translation in that Girolamo 302. Steinthal isn't mentioned yet Pioneer is. But then when we go to it being booked into evidence Pioneer is connected to the Museum chute and then Steinthal is connected to the Cooper chute. Those cards only have one slot for Manufacturer. Cooper's chute wouldn't say Pioneer AND Steinthal. Like I said, packing cards follow the canopy, not the container. Girolamo's 302 has a conflation error, I think. I don't see enough evidence to overrule what Cossey is saying about the Cooper chute. I can see how Hayden's description is of an NB-6. He doesn't use the verbiage "military back pack parachute" except for the Cooper chute. NB-6's are obviously of military origin but they also "look" like military chutes. It certainly looks more military than the museum chute. I don't think Hayden thought of the tan chute as a military chute at all because he adds the disclaimer that it has a military canopy inside. He doesn't make that disclaimer when discussing the Cooper chute because in his mind he's describing a military chute, so of course it has a military canopy inside. Hayden's description indicates to me that he doesn't view them the same way. I don't think he considered the tan chute to be military at all. Also, Cossey says he just threw a couple backpacks together. Why would he have a SET of P2-B24's to give Hayden? Those are obviously rare. NB-6's were fairly ubiquitous at that time period. Much more likely he'd have an NB-6 laying around as opposed to having a SET of WWII bailout containers.

Couple of comments: Important to remember that FBI agents in North Carolina don't know anything about the case. They would have collected the parachute and sent all other statements and evidence to the Seattle Office who have jurisdiction over NORJAK. The case agent there is who would deal with all of this. I'm quite certain the current case agent knows this is bogus and knew it well over a year ago. Just saying.... :-) But sadly the FBI never/rarely make comments about things like this. They're not going to put out a press release saying that the chute is bogus and Gryder knows that. Them asking for McCoy's DNA was, as I expected, just them wanting to dot their i's and cross their t's because they weren't ever able to get McCoy DNA back in the early 2000's (they tried). They just wanted to run it against the CODIS profile that all the other suspects had their profiles tested against. CODIS profile contains three partial profiles lifted from the tie. They are partial which means that millions of people have DNA that would partially match. Larry Carr was told by the crime lab that the CODIS DNA is useless because the tie has been so contaminated that there is a high likelihood that the three profiles have nothing to do with the hijacker

The 8 cars thing is a bit hyperbolic by Dan. Rick McCoy did a recent podcast and he explained that it was like 2 FBI cars and the rest were just local law enforcement who were interested like game wardens and a couple off-duty sheriff's and the like. Small town and all that.

I wonder if Jack Pringle was the one who was there that day when the money was divided. According to Brian, they divided the money up at the FBI office in Portland. He and his dad showed up there in 1986 and all of the money was placed out on a large conference table. A coin was flipped between Dwayne and a guy representing Royal Globe. Dwayne won, so he got to choose first. Then the Royal guy got to choose and so forth and so on, back and forth, until it was just scraps. Brian said the guy from Royal was frustrated because of how long Dwayne was taking. Dwayne was smart about it and wanted the ones with the most legible serial numbers. He said the guy from Royal was just grabbing whichever ones and not examining them in too much detail. So I'm guessing that must have been Pringle doing that if he's the one who had custody of the money and sent it off by mail.

Georger, do you think you could look in some old notes and let me know the date in 2014 that you and Hominid spoke to Anderson?

The truth is an absolute defense against slander. Is what Blevins said true or not?

That's funny lol

This is what mine looks like.

Chris Cunningham and I did a show last night for anyone interested. Also available on the DB Cooper Sleuth podcast on all apps.

Mac's opinion, since I've began speaking to him regularly, is that Cooper was just a thief, same as he was. A smarter thief than himself, he will admit, but still just a thief. It was just a "clever bank robbery", in other words.

Well, I'm not saying Cooper was completely without the ability to think about things in a clever way. He very obviously had divergent thinking to be able to come up with the heist. Spilling his drink on purpose seems a bit too much for me to believe in. However, I do think the timing of when he passed the note was something he did no purpose. Rataczak said that he received Tina's call literally while Scott was still pulling back on the yoke. They were essentially rolling down the runway as Cooper began the hijacking. I've considered that this was done on purpose because the noise and distraction of takeoff would have covered what he was saying to Flo. Consider that Bill remembers seeing Flo sitting next to Cooper writing something down but couldn't hear what was being said, despite the fact that Flo and Cooper were less than five feet away from him. So perhaps the engine noise during takeoff and climbing were to cover the conversation. Tina did say that Cooper was whispering to her for much of the time they were talking, but Flo didn't indicate that Cooper was whispering when speaking to her.

Jeez, what a glowing review. Who do I make the check out to? lol

I'd argue that you're overthinking it. I try not to ascribe Cooper with the ability to play 4D Chess. What if Flo had change for him right then and there? I don't see the need to create extra scenarios with Flo. It's likely he knew the stews would be sitting in their jump seats directly behind him once the plane began to taxi to the runway. Recall that she was already sitting down in her jump seat when Cooper passed her the note. She said she had been buckled for about 30 seconds when it occurred. So he really never needed to have any superfluous interactions with her. Also, I don't believe Flo was ever aware that he spilled his drink. Seems like something she'd have mentioned in her 302. I believe that Cooper had already downed his drink by the time he spilled it. I speculate that all he spilled was the ice that remained, which of course is pretty easy to clean up yourself. No need to get a stewardess involved.

Show I did with Tom last night.

I've just PM'd you.

Yes, she got into it while dating Jim Hancock. Interestingly, Jim would eventually be the one at NWA who calculated Cooper’s descent for the DZ. She ended up getting a pilot’s license too.

Larry is mistaken. This was before the Citizen Sleuths showed up and measured how much of the shroud lines were missing. It was something close to 100 feet that Cooper had cut. I think he had plenty of line to do what he wanted.

I believe he only ever cut on the one reserve. I think he avoided the dummy chute. It obviously didn't look right and I doubt he wanted it near him, which is why I think he chunked it out the back at some point in between Seattle and Portland. But I have had the same questions you've had about it. When you read through her 302's it does make you wonder whether he also tampered with the dummy chute, but upon further reading it doesn't seem so. As for Alice, she had actually been skydiving before the Cooper hijacking. Would be interesting to know what she actually said to Cooper about the parachutes.

This was fun

That is Cooper's chute, 100%. It has the same packing date as the museum chute, which squares with Hayden getting them from Cossey.

Cossey never supplied the serial numbers. FBI asked him multiple times and he never did. We have an image of the packing card from the “museum chute” i.e. the backpack that he didn’t take. We also have the packing card from the backpack that he took, the “Cooper chute”. That packing card was found on the aircraft. I’ve pasted the info from the Cooper chute onto the photo of the museum chute’s packing card.

Just my personal opinion here, of course, but I suspect we're overplaying the 'grudge' line. Having prosecuted criminals for years and also defending them for years, most of them can try to justify their misdeeds by blaming someone else. So they all could claim they had a grudge if they wanted to. It's a bit of a useless clue because it could be literally anything. Maybe he was pissed at airlines for taking money away from railroads, or maybe he was pissed because the SST project was shut down, or maybe he was a supporter of the American Indian Movement and was pissed about that whole deal, or maybe it was just something simple and personal like that he had a grudge against his ex-wife who took the kids in the divorce. There's no way it can be an informative clue for us, in my opinion. I've also said before that maybe it was just something cool sounding to say in response to "why did you pick Northwest Airlines to hijack?" It sounded cool as opposed to saying "I hijacked your airline because I'm a dirty thief."

Ich schatze das!