Pages 53-66 in Blast. Thought you said you'd actually read the book...you talk about it enough.
you mean this! ?
RobertMBlevins
Registered: Aug 1, 2010
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Sep 2, 2012, 3:10 PM
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Telephone Interview With
Bill Rataczak, First Officer and
Co-Pilot for Northwest Flight 305
Bill Rataczak: Hello.
Porteous: Hi, this is Skipp Porteous with Sherlock Investigations in New York.
Bill Rataczak: Yes, I know who you are.
Porteous: Do you have a few minutes to talk?
Bill Rataczak: Sure. You caught me at mealtime, but I haven’t sat down to it yet. It’s not a major deal.
Porteous: Oh, OK. You should be a radio personality; you have a radio voice.
Bill Rataczak: (Laughter) Thank you. I’m lucky to have any voice at all after what happened to me last summer.
Porteous: What happened?
Bill Rataczak: I was out riding my racing bicycle on a country road last year on the black top and got hit by a gravel truck. Broke my neck, broke my orbital bones around my eyes, my jaw was wired shut, broken, for eight weeks. I was in a halo for a little over four months. I’m still trying to recover from that. I have swallowing and jaw problems. I have no feeling below my waist, but I can walk and that’s the fortunate thing.
I’ve been in therapy ever since I got out of intensive care – they threw me into therapy. I’ve been trying to get back into some semblance of mobility; that’s the reason I haven’t given you a call; my days are busy with therapy and exercises. It’s not the life I would choose.
Porteous: I can understand that. You were the co-pilot on Flight 305 on the day of the Cooper hijacking?
Bill Rataczak: That’s correct.
Porteous: I’m sure you have vivid memories of that day.
Bill Rataczak: I still do, some of the things have slipped a bit, but usually conversation uncovers it again.
Porteous: Do you think the man you know as D.B. Cooper could have been a Northwest employee?
Bill Rataczak: Well, I suppose it’s possible, but based on recent reports about the brother of the person who was a flight attendant, I don’t think so. I have not heard anything from that party that would indicate this. (This is a reference to Lyle Christiansen, the brother of Kenny Christiansen.) There are experiences that only those who were involved would have known about. I have not found anybody yet, whether it’s the FBI, or the two fellows that wrote the book on McCoy—they thought this McCoy was D.B. Cooper and I can tell you he was not—I see nothing that was in evidence that would point to it. *I think McCoy was a copycat. I don’t think that fellow from Northwest was, but then I don’t really know.
(*Reference to Richard Floyd McCoy as a Cooper suspect in the book The Real McCoy – It was later determined that McCoy was not in Washington or Oregon at the time of the Cooper hijacking, but in Utah having Thanksgiving dinner with family. Months later, McCoy tried his own version of the Cooper hijacking with a different flight, but was soon caught. He was tried and sentenced for air piracy, but escaped prison. He was killed by an F.B.I. agent three months later in Virginia Beach, Virginia. McCoy walked into a house where he was hiding out. The F.B.I. was already waiting. When McCoy pulled a weapon, he was killed instantly by a shotgun blast from one of the F.B.I. agents.)
Porteous: Do you think Cooper survived the jump?
Bill Rataczak: Well, my gut feeling is—I sometimes think with my heart and sometimes with my brain—my heart says I hope he didn’t—my brain says I don’t think he did. The bottom line is I don’t think he survived it. When one considers the terrain out there…we were flying over the Cascade Mountains. I used to run out there all the time on layovers—crew rest between flights on overnights and so forth—and I would run railroad tracks and highways and country roads and I can tell you that people have corroborated this—they have a tremendous amount of black raspberry or blackberry, I don’t know, I’m not a botanist—I don’t know one from the other—they have a lot of those bushes in that terrain to prevent the railroad beds from eroding and highways from doing the same thing—and I’m told that’s a prevalent underbrush of the mountainous areas of the Cascades and if he were anywhere deep in the woods out there I don’t know how he could possibly get through there without a pair of leather chaps or flame thrower or a machete. I don’t think he could do it. Although we hear stories from Jo Weber, you’re familiar with her?
Porteous: Yes, I talked with her.
Bill Rataczak: She claims her husband took her up there by the old highway, Route 1 or 2, it goes by the coast—this road being slightly to the east of the current highway. She said that was there he walked out of the woods. Well, maybe he did. Maybe he landed close to the road and was able to get out. I don’t know. I do know that our technical support people who were on the radio with us during the hijacking, especially Paul Soderlind, tried to determine the exact area where Cooper might have jumped. We relied heavily on him for technical information during the flight. He was head of Technical Operations in our Flight Training Department.
Paul and many others did a lot of work trying to determine the exact area in general, and then tried to narrow down where the hijacker could have landed after he jumped from the airplane. They finally determined the likely spot. Well, our crew on board was 99% sure they were correct because we felt a tremendous amount of pressure bump in our ears when the aft stairs rebounded when they closed. It would be like rolling down and rolling back up the window with a vast crank on your car when you’re speeding down the highway, which is something we’ve all experienced with our ears. We also got confirmation on the Flight Engineer’s panel indicating that the stairs had momentarily closed. I make the analogy that walking down those aft stairs during flight was like walking to the end of a diving board. The more you weigh, the more the board will bend, and when Cooper finally jumped from it, the stairs rebounded and sort of came back to neutral. Well, the stairs were open about thirty to thirty-six inches under the air-stream after Cooper opened the door—that’s just the natural point where they will fall – the gap between the bottom of the stairs and the closure point in flight. When he walked out there his weight made the steps open further the farther he went down. Then, he was certainly able to jump from the bottom step. So we pretty much know when he jumped.
Where he jumped was up to air-traffic control to coordinate with our technical people. They plotted an area based on winds that were prevalent at that time, and then, of course, there were different approaches to his fall that could have occurred. When did he deploy the chute, for example? Did he deploy it immediately? If he did, then he would be carried farther from the jump point by the wind. Or if something went wrong and he didn’t deploy at all and ended up boring a hole in the ground and is forever buried and is now nothing more than a skeleton, then he would have been closer to point of departure. So, somewhere in between is where he probably landed. With the winds it is hard to say.
But, it’s strange that there’s no chute that was ever found. That would be somewhat understandable given the underbrush and the terrain if it was never deployed. But, if it was deployed then it certainly is possible that he was able to gather it up and stuff it into a tree trunk or something. Lots of questions remain about the whole thing. I don’t know if there will ever be answers.
Porteous: The chute was red and yellow, wasn’t it?
Bill Rataczak: Well, that’s a good question. I don’t know if it was. That’s the first I’ve heard of that. That’s something I should take up with Ralph Himmelsbach. (The FBI Special Agent who was originally assigned to the case.) Certainly, we know there were four chutes. That gave us some worry because we thought maybe he wanted all three of us to jump with him. Then my concern was that the FBI had already tried to stop the hijacking by using delaying tactics during the refueling process on the ground prior to our re-departure from Sea-Tac airport. I thought the F.B.I. might try to put someone’s laundry into one of the chute packs and one of us would get stuck with it.
Porteous: That must have worried you a bit.
Bill Rataczak: I have to say that was one of the few times that we really got a bit concerned. The other time was when we didn’t meet his deadline to get everything together on the ground in Seattle—the parachutes, maps, charts that we needed, and the money of course. When that deadline came and went he became very agitated and threatened to blow up the airplane.
Another time was when the money that was to be brought in by Tina was brought in a hap sack, a bag. I’m not quite sure how to describe the bag other than it was a very coarse hap sack with a leather shoulder strap across it and a leather handle and the $200,000 was in that. He wanted a hiking-type knapsack, but knapsacks weren’t as popular then as they are nowadays, where every kid in the street has one. But obviously someone in the bank had the bag. Those were times when we were afraid we might only hear one syllable of the word ‘bang.’ We might only hear the first letter or two of it. (Refers to Cooper becoming so angry he might set off the bomb)
Porteous: Did he ask for the $200,000 in $20 bills?
Bill Rataczak: I have to check my notes, I’m not certain if he did or not. Hmmm, I think he did ask for, no, I don’t think he did. He just wanted $200,000 in a knapsack. I’m not certain if he did or not. I have to go through my notes again and look at that. As I understand it—this in not uncommon—right back here in the Midwest, right here in Minneapolis as a matter of fact, there was a family—Piper was the name of the family—he was a wealthy investment banker—his wife was kidnapped and they demanded money—about 30 years ago—the money was finally left under a tree somewhere in the north woods of Minneapolis. I think that was the catalyst for investment firms and banks to have the money put aside to have it ready for such contingencies. Seattle was ready for this. It was kind of strange; we thought the money would take a long time to put together. The money was one of the first things put on the plane. As I understand it, the consortium of banks in Seattle put money together for just a situation—kidnapping of one of their employees or a spouse or something like that. So the bills were all marked and ready to go. I’m not sure, but I’ve read that the serial numbers were logged when the demand came in. You may know more than I do about that.
Porteous: Did you actually see Cooper?
Bill Rataczak: No, I never did. He was in the back of the airplane. To my knowledge he never moved from the seat that he occupied in the very back row—until he was ready to leave the aircraft. At least two of the flight attendants saw him of course. Tina sat next to him. Florence Schaffner is the one who received the note from him after he boarded the airplane. This was the time when the jetway, as we called them, was just being put in place. (A ‘jetway’ is a telescoping corridor that extends from an airport terminal to an aircraft for the boarding of passengers.) Seattle had them. That was still an ongoing construction project at most airports. He boarded the airplane with all the other passengers through this jetway. I remember it was raining at the time. He sat in the back of the plane, and that’s where he gave Florence Schaffner the note.
Porteous: We showed Florence the picture we have of Christiansen, and she said it resembled the hijacker more than any other photo she has seen.
Bill Rataczak: Is Christiansen the Northwest employee?
Porteous: Yes, Kenneth Christiansen. Did you know him? (Rataczak and Christiansen worked for Northwest Airlines at the same time, although they worked different routes.)
Bill Rataczak: No, I have no recollection of it. We weren’t the largest airline at the time; I probably would have known his name. We didn’t have a lot of male flight attendants. I would guess that if I had flown with him I probably would have recalled his name—no, I have no recollection of that.
(Note from the authors: Northwest Airlines usually kept the same crews for the same routes, and other Northwest employees interviewed about Christiansen recalled little, if anything, about him. He was described as ‘quiet and polite’ by some, while others simply asked ‘Who?’ Christiansen mostly flew the Orient routes and only rarely the U.S. routes. He would often work eight days in a row and then be off work for up to fourteen days before being called up for another flight. In addition, NWA employees were sometimes either out on strike, or being laid off and later re-hired by the airline.)
Porteous: Do you think the FBI is handling this case properly?
Bill Rataczak: I’m not an FBI agent. It’s turned into a cold case, although now there is more interest again. I had differences with the FBI. I never verbally put it into Ralph Himmelsbach’s face, though. I felt the FBI was taking advantage of a captive audience in terms of the flight crew on the ground in Seattle. I’m firmly convinced that the FBI used delaying tactics when we requested refueling in the airplane. (This was later confirmed by the F.B.I.) The ground temperature was about thirty-four degrees while they were refueling the airplane. Jet fuel freezes at far less than that. We had a couple of episodes with the refueling operation that were very upsetting to us. When they sent in the first fuel truck, it had only a few gallons—I mean maybe 100 gallons or so in it, according to the ground crew. I got this from the person who was coordinating the refueling. Then the Flight Engineer turned around and said to me, “Bill, we took some fuel in, but now they’ve quit and we’ve barely got the needle to move.”
My immediate thought was that they were playing games; they were trying to figure out a way to open up the back steps and rush the hijacker. The steps were in the closed position. The only access to the aircraft was through the front door Cooper boarded, in front of first class between the cockpit and the first class section. I got on the phone and told them “What’s going on down there? You guys get us some fuel!”
They said to me, “Well, the truck ran out of gas, it ran out of fuel.”
“Who are you trying to kid? Would you get that truck out of there and get another one in here.”
“Well OK.”
And off they went. Then, pretty soon the engineer said, “OK, we’re getting fuel again.” Then the gauge started moving. “OK, that’s good.” I said. We had our own things to do on the flight deck. We had to get the maps and charts to Mexico, because that’s where Cooper told us at first he wanted to go, and those charts were not on board.
We had to make sure we were going to get those from someone on the ground. Meanwhile, we were coordinating with Tina in the back, who was with Cooper. Florence was up in the cockpit with us. When Flo brought the note up right after departure out of Portland, I told her to sit down in the observer’s seat behind the captain. I told Andy, the Flight Engineer, to give her a headset to listen to the radio and take notes. I had to show her where the clock was so she could put the times down—the clock was in Greenwich Time. That way if we keep her out of the loop, there was one less person as a hostage, so she was out of the loop.
We talked to Alice Hancock—she was Senior Stewardess, and she was sitting up in First Class. We told her to stay put. I made a public address and told everyone to stay in their seats, saying we had a minor mechanical problem—I didn’t elaborate. “Nothing should concern you. Just relax and please stay in your seats and don’t get up while the seat belt sign is on.” I told her that if she saw anybody get up in First Class, to put them back in their seats – forcibly if she had to. (All of the crew understood that the hijacker was not in First Class, but sitting in Coach at the very rear of the aircraft.) We discussed whether we should tell the passengers that we were being hijacked—the Captain suggested we should do so.
I said, “You know Scotty, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I know we picked up some good old Montana mountain boys and they’re pretty good sized, and they’re sitting up in first class and they were on their second or third martinis. We don’t need alcohol to add to the bravado of—that’s nothing to take away from Montana people, they’re some of the greatest people in the world,—we don’t need them to look at each other and say, ‘Hey, let’s go back and get a hijacker.’ So, everyone cooperated beautifully. We now had pretty much directed the two senior flight attendants Florence and Alice, in what their duties were. Florence was captive in the cockpit with us, and Alice was sitting in her jump seat in the first class section. Tina was back there with the hijacker—I got off on a tangent, I can’t remember your original question…
Porteous: No problem. I’m glad to hear the whole story.
Bill Rataczak: The fueling problem—if the FBI was doing their job, I can’t pass judgment, all I can give is anecdotal experiences that I recall from their involvement. After the first fuel truck got out of there and Andy told me that we’re taking fuel I said “Good.”
We began communicating with our technical people on the ground. We needed to know how that airplane was going to fly if the aft stairs were lowered in flight—is the airplane going to tip over, is it going to roll and what’s going on?
Interestingly, Boeing had tested that plane before it was certified in flight with the stairs down. So, I knew exactly what it was going to do and I can confirm that it did exactly what they told us it would do. It was a very stable introduction to our clean airplane when the stairs were lowered.
Anyway, then the second fuel truck came up and Andy said, “They quit taking fuel—the fuel is not coming onto the airplane.” I was getting ticked. I knew they were playing games this time—that’s my perception. I got on the interphone down to them, “What’s going on down there; what are you guys doing?” “Well, you know, the fuel valve froze up.”
“Pardon me, but it’s thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit out there. I happen to know jet fuel has a freezing point of forty degrees below zero. You guys quit playing games down there and stop screwing around.”
Finally, they brought a third fuel truck up there and started refueling. Whether it was the same truck I have no idea. We finally got the fuel and filled our tanks up to the top. We needed it; knowing that Cooper had demanded we fly with the flaps down and the gear down, and then he changed that a bit later and told us he wanted the flaps at fifteen degrees.
Obviously he had some knowledge about that airplane. In the first note he wanted the gear down, the flaps down. In the next note he wanted the flaps at fifteen. Well, that told us that he had done some homework along the way.
Let’s get back to this Christiansen guy—unless he had taken a keen interest—maybe he had gotten hold of an aircraft operating manual that showed the flap settings and the maximum speed that they implied. Flight attendants don’t get involved in that stuff.
Porteous: You know Kenny Christiansen was doing aircraft maintenance in the Aleutian Islands for Northwest Airlines before he became a flight attendant. He worked on those planes; he knew them intimately.
Bill Rataczak: That’s very interesting. I’m open for information that Kenny Christiansen, or I guess in this case his brother, would offer that would strengthen his case for being D.B. Cooper. Ralph Himmelsbach has said that he doesn’t think Cooper survived the jump. Then when you talk to people like Jo Weber and get some of those others in here, it makes you wonder what the truth is.
Porteous: I understand that the jump has been duplicated—in a 727 and a sky jumper has repeated this successfully. I’ve spoken to other sky jumpers and they’ve said that it could be easily done.
Bill Rataczak: I don’t deny that it could be done. Our speed was about 175 knots, or about 200 miles an hour. I don’t doubt that he could have survived the jump. I’m more concerned about the terrain. If he landed in those mountainous woods, he might not have been able to get himself out. Again, there’s always a way to do it. I would like to see the case solved, that’s for sure. I called Ralph Himmelsbach one time—Jo Weber was trying to get hold of him at the same time by calling us. Ralph wasn’t at home, though. Just a coincidence that our calls crossed like that. She left a message on our voicemail. I called Ralph later to see what he thought of my talking to her. Ralph and I have become good friends over the years, although we haven’t talked in four or five years now. I asked him what he thought about talking to her and he said don’t talk to her, she’s a nut case, and she has no credible evidence to lend to this case. After about another year, I finally called her back. I figured, what harm could it do? I still would like to meet her; I would like to get to Florida. Is she still in Florida?
Porteous: Yes, she’s in northern Florida, I think. The main weakness I see in her story is that she could not give any indication that Duane Weber had any parachuting experience. He showed her around where he walked out onto the road. Kenny Christiansen had parachuting experience in the Army.
Bill Rataczak: I don’t have the mind of a criminal. Would someone without jumping experience still undertake a hijacking when there was such a great deal of danger in the jump? I don’t know how much you’ve done on the psychology of this stuff—we had, just a month after our hijacking—Northwest had one where we had to send a crew down to Chicago O’Hare—I can’t remember the details of it. We had a psychologist get involved in it because he had interviewed hijackers. Of course, the hijacking I was involved in was unique because it was the first one that was done for money. The others always seemed to be someone wanting a ride somewhere for some political reason, like flying to Cuba. I don’t know if someone would try this without jump experience or not.
Porteous: I think some people are of the mind that it’s easy to jump from a plane—the parachute will open and away you go—I think they’re foolish to believe that.
Bill Rataczak: I think so, too. Another question I’ve been asked: ‘Did Cooper have eight sticks of dynamite?’ What was I going to do, go back there and challenge him? He said he did. As far as I’m concerned he did. We’re not law enforcement; we’re not skilled on how to apprehend someone. We have one way to get to them and that’s down the aisle. Our first and foremost objective is safety. That’s our primary objective of our operation, and to that end I feel very good about the job we did. We got everyone back safely, and we got the airplane back safely. So he got $200,000, big deal. As far as the FBI is concerned they had their mission. I’m sure they would have felt very badly if they had delayed our departure long enough out of Seattle to the point where he would have said to himself, ‘I’m going to connect these two wires, and then we’re all atomized.’ They did their job, and we did ours...'
Bill Rataczak retired from Northwest Airlines on June 30, 1999 at the age of sixty.
(Transcibed by Hannah Kanew at Sherlock Investigations, NY)
Robert says: Edited out two things. City where Jo Weber lives in Florida, and a personal reference to her that I thought shouldn't be posted on the internet)
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'If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything...'
Mark Twain
(This post was edited by RobertMBlevins on Sep 2, 2012, 4:39 PM)
