lxchilton

Well, I think the other idea is simpler and somewhat "better," but I also see the plausibility in changing his plans because he's realizing that he is going to get rushed on the ground in Reno. For me both of these rely on hefty amounts of speculation and I think it's more likely that he was always prepared to jump close to where he began. Cooper's pattern isn't really consistent across the board too--his anger at fuel times (maybe regarding d rings too) runs contrary to his seeming ease regarding the moneybag et al.

I don't think Cooper was an idiot, but I think he was master of some portions of the hijacking and just ambitious, confident, driven, adaptive, and lucky about others. He knew parachutes. I don't think anything about that worried him in terms of getting on the ground. Is his ability to adapt to certain changes in the plans related to just that quality in him or did he make assumptions and when those assumptions were proven to be in error?

Hey look that is a simple list of your thoughts! I have trouble with two of the items you mention, the first is him putting up no fuss about the range thing if it was ever a consideration--if they misunderstood this and all of a sudden told him they can't make it because of the configuration would he not have said "no, that's not what I mean, what the hell is wrong with you?" The second is randomly deciding to jump out--if everything else is seemingly so ordered and supported by evidence, why this one incredibly out of left field choice? I'm not arguing the other stuff above; you've chosen a set of interpretations that are evidence backed and no others are.

I don't think Cooper was dumb overall, but he certainly had a lack of knowledge when it came to parts of his hijacking. If we think of a plan as going from A to Z, you can still arrive at Z if the letters in the middle end up getting changed, switched around, or altered in some way. That's basic, but it is a simplification of the plan to illustrate the point. To the specific points above where there are no answers allowed other than those you have provided: Why he demanded Mexico. The longer the plane is in the air the greater the area that needs to be searched, provided they don't know where he jumps out. It also muddies the reasoning behind his hijacking; shades of hijackers who want to go to Cuba. (I'm not hung up on that, it's just a tertiary possibility. Why he got the range wrong. The flight from SEA to MEX is roughly 200 miles shorter than the maximum range of a 727-100 at the time. Cooper looked that up/saw it/asked about it and then thought it would apply, but didn't think about or understand the range issues caused by flying low and dirty. This is something he appears to have been "dumb" about. Why he rejected large airports and changed his demands. I can think of a million reasons he didn't want to head towards California--I'd argue that he's from there and doesn't want the FBI immediately involved near where he lived. That's some real head canon stuff though so I won't go there now. Mostly I think he wants them to think he will be on the plane when it lands; feigned concern about the place being too busy, etc. Why he did not indicate or confirm a path. I'm torn between him knowing that the 10,000ft altitude is going to actually going to define a specific enough path (I refuse to change this word, just be flexible) towards Portland, or if he just thought that having a destination to the south would get him there. I am slightly inclined to think he has a bit of ignorance in this department since he is not specific. Why he jumped random and blind in the PNW. I don't think he did. His goal--the 'Z' in this hijack--was to jump when he saw the first light of civilization north of Portland. For the most part this is just rehashing what we have all been harping about for so long; I reiterate it because it's a valid set of answers to the questions we all have about the vagaries of the case. My own view is that these are simpler explanations than yours, but yours might have merit as well. The "why" portion of your argument is lacking, however, despite the instance on the above answers "ignoring evidence."

If that's the case, that engineering the plane heading south from Seattle is a fools errand because it could have gone 100 different ways, I would suggest that Cooper was overconfident in his ability to make the plane head the direction he wanted, not that it suggests anything about what his original plan was. Cooper was dumb about some things and his overconfidence here could be another example of being dumb but also very lucky.

The existence of "dozens and dozens" of paths doesn't really matter if it is conceivable that Cooper had only planned as far as getting the plane headed south after taking off from Seattle. The fact that his 10,000ft altitude ends up getting them on v23 means that he might have surmised that that was the route they would take, but it's not clear that he knew it or not. Cooper may have known the weather would be bad, but the crew saw the lights so Cooper would have been able to see them too. It's conceivable that that was his plan about when to jump and he did so. Cooper most certainly did not say "I will land here at this exact spot," but he could have said "I will jump well before Portland where there are lights so I know I am not in the middle of a forest and can hoof it out of there without being caught in a tree, etc." This is not the only set of options, but I can't see any real reasoning behind why this set of options is bad other than that you are sure it was wrong, mainly because of word choice.

Any dictionary definition of 'path' is going to feature, as the second or third meaning, something along the lines of "the direction an object is traveling." It doesn't matter though because this isn't about debate or discussion, it's about noise and deflection.

You say this as if it is one or the other, but he could have altered parts of the original plan without affecting the end result. It's less complicated and requires less evidence to assume this is the case. His LZ could be pretty big as long as he can hoof it back to wherever his car or other escape is. If the targeted LZ is as big as "nearish Portland" then he can still have "targeted" it. If there is evidence of an original plan then it would be great to see that...but if there is not (there is not and I'm not just suggesting that it doesn't exist; you have provided nothing other than being contrary) then it's a waste of time.

Yes that is the nature with almost all the stuff in this case, though I argue that this is simpler than trying to suggest he actually had another mystery plan beforehand. I am erring on the side of you just being obstinate, but if there is a reasoning behind this it would go a long way to maybe tip your hand slightly.

To me that "characteristic" is that he thought he could still achieve his original goal with those modifiers in place.

Well what I'm saying is that those negotiations and changes and decisions can all fit inside his original plan, especially if it's as nebulous and simple as it seems to be. It doesn't matter if the destination changes as long as the plane is headed generally in the same direction, it doesn't matter when the door opens as long as he can open it when he wants, it doesn't matter when he puts the chute on...as long as he does it before he jumps. The knapsack thing is so wild since he doesn't push back on it. Other than it just being more important that he has chutes and the money so he's going to figure it out ASAP with as little outside interaction as possible...I can't really follow his lack of action there.

Those are facts, but I don't know that they mean anything other than that they happened.

What evidence is there that his plan changes when they decide to head to Reno instead of Mexico? If a change is made it appears to happen entirely inside Cooper's head with no indication to the outside world, which would mean there is no evidence for it. Not saying that it can't have happened, just that it's a real stab in the dark vs an educated guess.

But couldn't his "plan" have been that he just wanted to head south and jump out in a general sort of area thinking that the feds would be looking everywhere along the path to Mexico (which ended up being Reno)? That overall plan isn't ad hoc, it just means in his outline that "jump" portion is kind of "wing it."

I think we can all see that assuming the plane would go exactly where you want it when you don't tell it to go exactly where you want it to go isn't the best plan. That doesn't mean that it wasn't Cooper's plan though. He knew enough about all the things involved in the hijacking to be dangerous, but he may not have known as much as he seems to since we don't know who he is. South can be a path--head south. That's a path as in: "the course or direction in which a person or thing is moving." It is not the same as defining an exact flightpath, but your argument seems to be entirely tied up in this dumb distinction. His exact LZ was ad hoc in that he didn't pinpoint anything but he assumed (whether out of ignnorance, confidence, knowledge, etc. we don't know) he would end up back where he started. Back where his means of conveyance was. Back to the simplest explanation for this all. And he appears to have done just that.