olemisscub

I've never had a real clear answer for this, but it was a radio for "cockpit communications" according to Tina's statement. I wrote this on your reddit post just now, but the word "radio" comes from Tina. I think it would be better described as a walkie-talkie for communicating with Al Lee and/or the fuel truck guys. Essentially it was for short-range communication with some of the guys on the ground outside. Cooper seemed to be aware of its existence. It's nowhere in the transcript where they mention discussing this with him, but I guess they must have explained to him at some point that it would be needed to communicate with the guy bringing the ransom items, etc.

The key takeaway from this post is that the 302 briefly mentions a suspect becoming a bit of a Cooperite after being eliminated. This is the first time we’ve seen that as far as I’m aware. I don’t know of any other suspects like that.

Debilitating nearsightedness from every eyewitness? Sorry, I couldn’t help the quip. Haha. I look forward to seeing what you found one day. Hope all is well with you and yours.

So now you ARE saying he was Cooper? Weren’t you saying just recently that you weren’t claiming he was Cooper, you just couldn’t eliminate him?

40% of bank robberies go unsolved. I don't find it surprising that a case of first impression like this one went unsolved. And don't take offense to this because it's not meant to be derisive, but you've said a few times before that you're trying to figure out how the FBI failed to identify Hahneman as Cooper despite having him in custody. So I think your belief that something unique occurred is colored somewhat by your research into Hahneman. The most likely reason Cooper wasn't caught was due to some combination of him successfully keeping his mouth shut before and after the hijacking, catching law enforcement by surprise, by being entirely unremarkable in his appearance, by limiting interactions with eyewitnesses, and by not being sloppy. Let's look at what led the FBI to the copycats. McCoy - ran his mouth before the hijacking Mac - ran his mouth before the hijacking Hahneman - ran his mouth DURING the hijacking. Although I'm sure you'll tell me it was something else, haha, but the FBI's affidavit for the arrest warrant explained that they were able to figure him out due to the things he mentioned during the hijacking, such as his dad being of German extraction, his dad being buried in New Orleans, his mother being Honduran, and his past employment with Philco. LaPoint - jumped in day time and chase plane followed him to the ground. He was caught in the act essentially. Heady - Made a grievously sloppy mistake leaving his car on the side of the road with its USPA bumper sticker. So yeah, not a huge mystery to me. Cooper kept his mouth shut, caught the Feds by surprise, and eft nothing on the plane to help identify him nor said anything on the plane to help identify him.

Also, it appears I was wrong in thinking that Soderlind came up with V-23. Reading this it seems that the assignment came from the Seattle Tower, not NWO.

Couple of things from my transcript of Rataczak's NWA speech. He rambles so much in that speech, it's hard to keep up. But my idea was to go and fly due west out over the Pacific about 10 or 20 miles. It's dark. It's pitch black. He doesn't have any GPS. There's no such thing back then. He did have this paper bag, but all he had in the briefcase was eight sticks of dynamite, road flares, we don't know. So we knew that if we went out 20 miles, and he decided to jump out of the airplane: have a nice trip! Well, so, we started talking about where we were going to refuel. I said how about San Francisco. “Too big an airport”, he said. Well, then how about Los Angeles? The refrain again became “Too big an airport.” San Diego? “No, that's too big an airport. I don't want to go there. You have to pick a smaller airport.” So we told this to Paul and Paul said, We've got it set up now, Bill. I told him what I had planned on proposing to Scotty. He said, “Bill, we've got it set up to go to Reno.” So that was our objective.

Still not seeing a reason for him to say all of that if he's still hours away from jumping.

Yeah that's a good point. He didn't really have any tactical reason to spill the beans on his jump configuration if he was wanting to jump hours later.

I see. fwiw, Mac instructed them to fly to Toronto from St. Louis because he figured Michigan was along that flight path. This is where I can see some commonality between Mac and Cooper with how both were clearly winging it.

This theory must surely be based on H, no? If he weren't the guy you were investigating, would this still be a theory of yours?

I’ve always been open to your idea on that, but I’ve still never received a satisfactory answer for my main issue with the theory. If you want to jump into Mexico, why do you begin your hijack so far away? He could have just hijacked a Phoenix to Albuquerque flight or something like that. Hijacking that far north and then sending the plane on a fool’s errand to Mexico is precisely what you’d do if you were planning to jump early. It’s smart actually. He just brainfarted on the increased fuel consumption.

People like to give Cooper more credit than he deserves. It wouldn’t have hurt his escape one bit to have specified a flight path. As I’ve said, Cooper knew the plane’s location was obviously being tracked, so it was no disadvantage to just go ahead and specify a flight path. I see three options, with the first being the most likely IMO and last being very unlikely 1) He assumed they’d be flying south and didn’t want to spend too long on the plane after takeoff. Once he was ready and confident, he goes down the stairs and sees a Goldilocks area like Mac: not too far from civilization but also not too close. Then he jumps. If he wasn’t a complete fool he’d have had a compass in his pocket or in his bag. 2) He had specific coordinates or a destination with him that he originally planned to give to the pilots only AFTER takeoff. Heady, McCoy, Cini, and Hahneman did this. But something spooks him and he just says “fuck it” and decides to jump as soon as he felt reasonably safe doing so. 3) He was the accomplice and something happened to the original Cooper (think Johnston being arrested the night before) and he just decides to do it himself before the original Cooper squealed on the plan and ratted him out. In this scenario Cooper seems to only know about the half the plan, which is why he is essentially winging everything after he gets the money.

How does one PROVE an opinion that is being made about something that isn’t provable? Until we know who Cooper is for certain, everyone’s opinion on his physical features can never be more than an opinion. And it’s remarkable you don’t realize how completely foolish a statement like this is: “It is an opinion with no logical argument given the evidence.” Really? What EVIDENCE do we have other than the witness statements? You’re telling me that it’s NOT logical for me, or anyone else, to believe that Cooper was likely around six feet tall when our four witnesses who saw him standing said he was “5’11, 6 feet, 6 feet, and 6’1+” Again, these are OPINIONS. I don’t BELIEVE Cooper was under 5’10. I think he was closer to six feet tall. That’s not me saying that Cooper could NOT have been 5’9. I’m merely saying that I DON’T BELIEVE he was under 5’10.

My argument is just common sense. Multiple people thinking someone who is 6 feet or taller who is actually 5’8 is certainly going to be the exception and not the rule. You can twist yourself into a pretzel and write five paragraphs trying to explain that away, but my argument is just common sense. We are all humans. We understand height. We have four witnesses who saw him standing and three of them put him as tall as six feet. The other went as tall as 5’11. I’m sure you can find an occasion where someone thought someone was six foot who was 5’8, but you’re having to argue that essentially EVERY eyewitness who saw him standing was THAT far off. That’s really improbable. For your suspect to be Cooper, just think about how terrible the bulk of the eyewitnesses have to be with regard to height and facial features. Absolutely dreadful eyewitnesses would be necessary for him to be Cooper. No offense meant here, but maybe your suspect is the problem and not the witnesses?

I'd like to see your evidence of many people thinking Hahneman was 6'. If I see evidence of multiple people believing Hahneman was 6', then perhaps I'd begin to agree with you. Otherwise it doesn't bust my argument to pieces because I'm just having to take your word for it. And pretty please with sugar on top don't claim that your evidence of people saying he was 6' is some sort of proprietary information for a documentary. If you don't want to share this never before seen photo or sketch of Cooper, sure, that's fair play to not share that. But multiple eyewitnesses saying Hahneman was 6' is another thing entirely. You can share that.

And yet you disregard the testimony of an eyewitness who is both MALE and who saw him STANDING in favor of men who only saw him seated and who stated that he was slouching the whole time? And before you say it, I’m aware that Williams said he wasn’t sure if he’d recognize Cooper again. That doesn’t negate his impression of the man’s size, which is far easier to recall than details of a man’s face. It would help to know Hal’s height, but I’ve been unable to find it as yet. I have no dog in the height game. These are unbiased opinions on my part, central to those opinions are how hard it is for me to believe that a man would come face to face with another man who was 5’8 or 5’9 and then tell agents that he was “6’1+”. That’s extremely improbable. It’s more likely that an eyewitness who saw a slouching man in a seat would be off in their height estimation as opposed to eyewitness who came face to face with a man in a neutral setting like an airport terminal. I just don’t find it to be a coincidence that the smallest estimations of his height all come from people who only ever saw him sitting. We’ll always disagree on this, I suppose. That’s fine. The FBI were casting a wide net with their height range. I don’t fault them for that.

V27 and 165 were the same thing. This is a sectional from June 1971.

Cooper didn't do anything that would have forced them to take V-23, that's the problem. V27 was a viable option that would have actually made some logical sense for them to take since it would have avoided flying over populated areas.

This one was a tough one to parse for my book and I ultimately decided to go with Reno coming from Soderlind, even though I'm open to the possibility that this came from Cooper and I may change it. There seems to be ample evidence from the teletype, Soderlind's notes, and Tosaw all pointing to NWO coming up with it and Cooper "accepting" Reno. He wouldn't be accepting something if it was his idea, right? Tosaw (who was thick as fleas with Soderlind apparently) In the teletypes, we have Cooper only suggesting Phoenix at 6:25. Then later just past 7:00, Soderlind is back and is bringing up Reno, which Cooper accepts. In Soderlind's notes we also see Cooper agreeing to it. Again, I don't think you'd be categorized as agreeing to something that was your suggestion. They wouldn't write that "the hijacker agreed to go to Mexico City" because that was his demand. Also, "without much, if any, objection." Why would he be objecting to something that was one of his suggestions? On the flip side, we have Tina and Rat's 302s. Although there is a part of me that wonders if there something that was lost in translation and/or the 302 is just poorly written. How could Cooper state the aircraft could make Yuma or Reno? He didn't know it couldn't get to Mexico, so how would he have known? Also, why would Cooper suggest Yuma after Phoenix was rejected? That's only like 150 miles from Phoenix. But then again, Rat's 302 indicates that Cooper's alternatives were Reno, Yuma, and Sacramento. If Nicky is able to secure the actual audio recording from the hijacking, obviously that would help us a tremendous amount because the info in the teletypes on this particular topic is somewhat confusing. fwiw, I ended up writing it like this because I decided to go with the teletype being that it was in real-time. As I said, I'm open to changing it though.

It better be

Phoenix was the only alternative he suggested.

That was Lysne, the ticket agent, who said that Cooper struck him as more of a "laboring man as opposed to an office worker". Reading Flo's 302, she described him as a polite man who spoke in a serious but calm and sometimes uninterested manner. At one point, she felt he was acting childish, though overall he came across as normal in his demeanor.

Former 82nd Airborne Paratrooper of the year and recreational skydiver. He spoke at Cooper Con last year and I’ve done a few shows with him on my channel.