olemisscub

"In my mind, therefore, there is no reason to exclude the arrival of the money in some Northwestern waterway on the night of the hijacking." Except that wads of currency don't float...they sink, right?

The bulkhead door could definitely be locked from the outside. They would often leave these planes overnight on the tarmac with the aft stairs down. That tells me that they must have had a way to lock the bulkhead door to prevent thieves or whatever. It may have been literal keys because I believe there were actual keys that could unlock the stairs from the outside. Perhaps the same set of keys unlocked both?

Good stuff. His timing is odd as well. Rat says that Tina was ringing the emergency chimes right as they were nosing off the ground. So before Tina hits the chimes she had to be handed the note from Flo and have enough time to process it, before that she had to have had enough time to see Flo looking odd and to go inquire about it, before that Flo had to have sat down by Cooper and been shown the bomb, before that Flo would have buckled up and been seated when Cooper turns around and tells her to read the note, before that Flo would have been walking around, and finally before that Cooper hands her the note. So between Cooper initially handing her the note and the plane nosing off the ground there had to be at the very least 2 or 3 minutes. What if Flo read the note immediately and screamed in terror alerting everyone? What would Cooper have done then? They'd have still been on the ground in Portland when all that took place. Why wouldn't he have just waited to give her the note when he was certain they were off the ground? I also think some of the language Cooper used speaks to "phony tough guy" as opposed to "actual tough guy". His stuff like "no funny stuff or I'll do the job" just sounds like movie lingo. I doubt some actual badass like Braden would have said such a thing. Also, as you mentioned, Cooper apparently had this fear of air marshals. This tells me he was a bit timid. Again, I doubt a Braden-type would have been vocally concerned about such a thing.

I believe this interview to be Michael Cooper's. Missoula is the only city that fits the redactions and he's the only Missoula passenger whose name fits along with the story. Charles Street's name fits but he was on a business trip with Arnold Andvik and Charles Truitt for the General Services Administration in Seattle, so he wasn't just passing through.

Just realized that Nancy House was only 24 at the time of the hijacking. For some reason I always imagined her being an older lady, I suppose due to the name Nancy sounding like an old school name to me.

Yeah, I guess I was mainly referring to Cossey being correct about them both being emergency chutes before he pivots to the “he didn’t choose the comfy civilian chute” BS. As far as I can tell there’s no reason to ever look for a further description of the chutes in the 302’s beyond that first 302 from Hayden. That appears to be the most accurate description.

Tina first brought one of the main (big, to use her words) chutes, then both chest packs during one trip, then the final main. Cooper was already fooling with the good chest pack when she brought the final main. Cossey's original descriptions were correct. No idea why he changed it. These are both from Nov 71.

Their jobs would have been much easier if they had OCR scanning of every 302 like we have. I’d like to think that many of the errant public declarations Larry made early in his tenure (dummy chute, loafers, military chute over civilian chute, etc) could have been avoided if he had searchable 302’s at the time.

Been saying this for ages. Glad we agree.

Tina's description is pretty clear about him wrapping the money bag up. It then appears that he tried to put the whole bag (still wrapped up presumably) into the container of the good reserve. So if he, at some point later, had decided to put some of the money in the dummy chute container, then he would have needed to unwrap the money bag to access the cash. That seems rather tedious with the clock ticking.

On a related note, in Cossey's first interview with the FBI he states his belief that Cooper could have removed the parachute from one of the chest packs and used it as an additional money bag. He states this immediately after acknowledging that the harnesses didn't have D-rings, so is he assuming that Cooper would have tied this bag to his body with paracord or is he possibly suggesting that the connector snaps could be fit onto the harness? Meltzer told me that he tried to see if you could fit the fabric on the harness of an NB-8 into the connector snaps of an old reserve and it won't fit. So, if he did use the dummy chute as an extra money bag then it would have to have been tied with the paracord to the harness or his body. For the dummy chute we seem to have three options (if there are others let me know): 1. He tied it to his body to be used as a reserve. My issue with this is that it seems a bit of a dodgy prospect. Since I've never jumped out of a plane, I think I can accurately play the role of a "whuffo Cooper" in these discussions. I think if I was Cooper and my harnesses didn't have D-rings I'd just have to accept the fact that I wasn't going to be jumping with a reserve. I wouldn't trust any knots I'm tying with paracord to hold if I had to open a reserve. 2. He popped it, threw the sewn together dummy canopy out the back, stuffed some of the money in there, snapped it back up, then tied it to his person or to the harness with paracord. The issue with this is why you would do this at all. Would there be any benefit to having two awkward things tied to your body as opposed to one? 3. He just threw it intact out of the back of the aircraft at some point.

Made enhanced versions of these.

Yeah. This brief clip from a WWII training film indicates that. FullSizeRender.MOV

Colorized and enhanced the Count Coopula sketch

CooperCon is moving permanently to Seattle starting 2023. Ulis announced it this morning. That's a wise move IMO.

Totally random, but I asked Carr what these random initials are that you see on 302's and he said they are the initials of the secretaries/clerks who typed up the report.

Braden became a member of the Golden Arrows in early 1960 (if my facts are right), so I'm pretty sure what I've read regarding him participating in the early HALO trials was correct.

random trivia, but I'm pretty sure Braden was one of the "test jumpers" when they first came up with HALO.

I’m a lefty and because we live in such a right handed world we are pretty ambidextrous. I wouldn’t want anything modified for me. I’d just learn to deal with it the way that it was designed for everyone else.

When you say left pull do you mean that it's on the right side of your body and you pull toward the left?

Since we got back from CooperCon I've sent Mark the 302's describing the chutes, particularly the one from 11/25/71 where Hayden's name is redacted. My money is on that one being the most accurate description we have since it was given by Hayden mere hours after he handed them over.

I can't make Bill's name work. Spreckel is the only witness I can make fit and it fits perfectly. My only issue would be that this is coming from the Portland office, but Spreckel lived on Vashon Island. Who knows, maybe he was working out of Portland at the time or something. Regardless, Spreckel is the only name that works.

This is what boredom will do to a man...

what book is being referenced?

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with you suggesting that they didn't recognize him as different. Their psychological profile on him goes into detail about who they think he was: a manager/executive type, well educated, not a career criminal, perhaps his only crime, likely angry about what was happening in the aerospace industry at the time.