Kamkisky

Did Cooper know the plane could fly to Mexico? If the answer is yes, then Cooper chose to negotiate refueling stops over flying straight to Mexico. You can argue it’s over a miscommunication but it’s what happened. Cooper was open to switching Mexico for Reno…when he knew the plane could make it to Mexico flying normally. Whatever understanding he had or the pilots had doesn’t change that Cooper walked in the plane knowing it go make it to Mexico and decided to change to Reno. This is where your theory hits a wall. If Mexico is the goal he gave up on it real easy when he didn’t have to. Cooper could just demand they fly directly to Mexico and no funny stuff. Simple. Done deal…305 goes to Mexico. In my theory he just wants south so he don’t give up on anything. He gains the jump configuration he wants to be operational the whole time…he secures his only line of escape AND keeps the direction he wanted.

So he wants to go to Mexico, that’s his real plan? He knows the plane can fly that far, but there’s a miscommunication through Tina and he is told they have to make several stops because of the configuration. Cooper just accepts this, thereby eliminating his initial plan. He just gives up and his plan is defunct for a reason he could have stopped by simply saying “No. Fly at a normal configuration and as fast as possible straight to Mexico, no funny stuff.” I don’t get it. If he wants Mexico, he could get Mexico. Also, if he wanted Mexico why skyjack in PNW? Rejecting large airports *means* he thought he’d still be on the plane is a logical jump. Once they say they’d have to stop to refuel Cooper has to either say no, go straight to Mexico OR negotiate refuel stops. It’s like giving the name to the ticket agent, it’s merely a prerequisite. He has to do it, but he doesn’t care and his name isn’t Dan Cooper. Cooper said no to big and yes to small airports, ok. He also didn’t pick the coastal option, we could surmise he didn’t want to be on the coast too. Once Cooper has the loot on the runway in Seattle he only needs three things from other people…the plane to go south, the configuration to be jumpable and for the stairs to be lowered. I don’t see any counter argument to Cooper wanting to go south. Can anyone argue he wanted to go north? East? West? He clearly wanted to go south. What is directly south of Seattle? Portland, where he jumps. I’m not sure where you are getting the 130 miles wide part from. Mt St Helens is well less than 100 miles from the coast and Portland is about 50 miles. He wedges them in by saying 10k ft. They have to go back over the Portland area, which is his goal. Maybe there were miscommunications on the configuration but what we know for sure is Cooper choose to fly dirty with stops over flying normal and straight to Mexico. Why is he willing to make such a massive adjustment to his Mexico plan? I’d proffer it’s because he doesn’t care…he is exiting at Portland. He only needs south, the rest is just to stretch out the search area and Reno works just like Mexico He keeps Tina to show him the lever. He then tests it out early to make sure he can work it. He waits, he knows where he is. This is part of the advantage a short flight from A to B and back A…with no other metros. As the time starts getting closer to BG he fully descends the stairs by 8:05. He answers the phone, it’s all good. He sees BG lights, game time. He’d had the lights of I-5 as a guide for awhile too. You write: “Cooper wanted out before Reno and as soon as he could he just jumped. No targeted LZ.“ So he just got lucky he didn’t jump into wilderness or downtown Portland or Redding? Basically, how does he decide where to jump before Reno if he wasn’t planning on it? He managed to jump into a great spot…

My understanding is you are an 8:11 jump person vs an 8:13 type. Is that correct? Either way works for my theory. As soon as he sees BG lights it’s go time. If he saw BG 90 seconds sooner or later has no impact on the overall plan and using the lights of BG. It’s just minutiae. The pilot Ryan talked to was on the FBIs radar right after the jump. They searched his place and gave his wife a hard time. He has been flying this area for over 50 years. I take his input very seriously. He says it’s darkness regarding city lights till BG. BG just happens to be right at the 8:11-8:13 window. The flight simulator we can argue with but it is another data point worth considering. At what point did Cooper get the stairs down? Isn’t it around 8:05 when he answers the interphone and says hi to Tina and that everything is now good? That’s the set up. He was preparing after 20 minutes of waiting. It was just before go time. This is part of why having a short flight is beneficial. Cooper can track his location better. I disagree about Reno. I don’t think Cooper had any intention of being on the plane then. But while he is negotiating he is sitting on the runway in Seattle with the aft stairs closed. He wanted Mexico, but he’ll take anything south. Why not pick podunk over major metro if you’re Cooper? Give yourself another option if everything fails. The fact he didn’t argue much about the stairs being up or down or which airport to refuel at indicates to me he only tangential cared. LA? No thanks. Huge…tons of cops. Reno, sure. Less cops. Whatever. It’s south and that’s the point. His plan was to be gone by Portland. He’s just giving himself an option if his plan fails, he is nonchalant relatively speaking because it’s the backup option. If you are right and Cooper just wanted to get out of the US -he knew roughly the flight distance of a 727, he didn’t ask to go to Brazil- then why ask for the dirty configuration at all in Seattle? Wouldn’t the best option be to tell them to fly as fast as possible to Mexico and not ask for drag flaps/10k ft/landing gear down? And if that was a mistake, he wanted it later, why wouldn’t he bitch about the stops? He knew the plane under normal conditions could make it to Mexico. If that’s his destination why not just get there ASAP? IMO Cooper wanted south over Portland. He gave instructions that would take him south and have the plane in a configuration to jump. He has only two needs, he achieved both. It worked. As for the 120 mile wide path…Cooper set conditions that wedge them in on the east with the mountains. If the plane had gone west to the coast he would have told them to go back and try again. There is nothing on the coast that works for Cooper, it’s all terrible for him. He would not want the coast and wouldn’t put up with it. Why would he? It makes no sense for a guy looking to jump. Of all three other directions West is the worst for jumping. My theory is he kept it simple. Select a short flight. Go from one metro to the next, without other metros to confuse you. Learn the key indicators (BG/I-5 lights). Know the terrain from the air and ground. Jump before the metro lights. Simple. Can’t mess it up. Hell, any one of us could pick the spot between BG and Portland from the air at night knowing what we do now. We can tell the distance/time/lights, so could he. That’s all he needed. As for a vehicle or accomplice…not needed. Any good car thief can get away regardless of where he lands. Cooper only needed good terrain to land in. Once he is on the ground he is almost certainly armed and dangerous and will take the first viable vehicle and flee. Cooper thinks they are looking from Seattle to Reno, the night before Thanksgiving. He has time to steal a vehicle and make 100 miles before anyone notices.

If Cooper wanted to jump later, where? Unless that intended spot is in California -ie south of Oregon- the Reno switch from Mexico should have made no difference. Here’s my take: Cooper picked 305 because he knew the area from the air and ground. The PNW is likely not where he lived and the typical grey weather helps this type of crime, jumping into a clear night makes him more visible. He also selected 305 because it was a short flight, this makes times and distances more manageable. I strongly suspect he flew 305 in a dry run. I also suspect he flew the area at night prior to the skyjacking, maybe in a commercial plane or maybe as a pilot of a small plane. There are three other main factors that lead me to believe he wanted to jump north of Portland: 1) The pilot Ryan talked to that has been flying in the area since before 71. That pilot said the first city lights that were visible when going south were Battle Ground. North of BG is dark forest. And as one got to BG the lights of the VC/Port metro appear. 2) A poster on Reddit just did simulations on the flight and I-5 can be a guide post from Centralia south. The poster also said Portland and BG are EASIER to spot at night because of the lights and during the day the relatively flat terrain allows them to kinda sneak up on you. 3) Cooper waited through the darkness for 30 minutes. He begins to act -oscillations- right as the plane reaches BG. He jumps between BG and the metro, into a great place for a night jump to happen. Maybe he just got super lucky. But his actions seem to tell a different story. He used the I-5, BG and metro lights to guide him. It wouldn’t have taken more than a dry run or two to figure this plan out and it worked perfectly. Why? Because it is simple and with controlled variables. I think Cooper had experience flying and landing at night and that’s part of why he could spot Tacoma. this wasn’t his first time navigating from the sky. He was comfortable with that skill. McNally said when he jumped he could look forward from the stairs. If you look at the flight path, just south of BG the plane is perfectly aligned to see the metro lights off his left shoulder and BG lights off the tail of the plane. As for Mexico and V23, maybe there was a mixup in the flying dirty the whole way or not. I lean towards not. It was the pilots who first suggest taking off with the stairs down. Cooper didn’t fight them either way. Why? Because he didn’t really care. He just wants two things…go south and in the configuration he requested when he is ready to jump. I think Cooper preferred Reno because it’s smaller, if something happened and he couldn’t jump (remember he’s on the ground with the stairs closed while negotiating) he wanted to give himself the best odds. So he wanted the most podunk places. He said Mexico to create the longest search area, obviously not knowing about the pressure bump. He had likely looked up the range of the 727. As for V23, maybe he knew or not I don’t think it matters. There are only 4 main directions and Cooper was clear, south. That’s it. That's the flight path he wants, it takes him directly where he plans to go I also believe he picked the day before Thanksgiving because it would slow down law enforcement…and it did. In short: -skyjack over terrain you know, and keep it simple (one direction and one metro away) -do it at night and right before a holiday -use the major visual clues for orientation

This isn’t my experience. A daily hardcore -pack or more- smoker will always have a rolling supply of smokes and lights. It’s not always a neatly paired one for one, it’s more like a par system used at a restaurants. They never run out. The idea of running out is anathema. Running out is for casual smokers or if they are flat broke…at which point they’ll be bumming cigs from others. Cooper prepared for his crime. Having cigs and lights would rank up there with having a pistol or goggles. Cooper wouldn’t have known how long it would take till he next could grab smokes, he would have arrived at PDX stocked up. His using up one match book off beat with his cigarette pack being used up shows he is a more regular smoker and his ability to pull out another match book and keep on puffing shows he was likely a regular smoker. If his pack of smokes ran out, he likely would have opened another one.

Hi all…. New to this forum. I post at Reddit on Cooper. I’ll jump right in, a legit smoker would be sure to arrive at PDX with smokes. Heavy smokers don’t leave it to chance, they never run out. That’s the difference between a casual and hardcore smoker. While the photo of the vending machine is interesting, Cooper came prepared. He would have had a day or two worth of smokes on him. Shifting gears, there was a very interesting parachute discussion recently on here. It seems there are two schools of thought, one being Cossey was always straight with the FBI about it being an NB6 even if he told reporters more and more nonsense over the years. The other school seems to believe Cossey made a mistake originally with the FBI thinking the chutes all came from the skydiving center and he never corrected it, thus it’s likely not an NB6. Is this basically the situation? What is the chute at the museum in Seattle? And what did Cossey tell the FBI the chute was? We have one of the two chutes so if Cossey was right about that chute immediately he is likely right about the other. But if Cossey’s story on that chute doesn’t line up with the chute in the museum there a problem.