Robert99

Even in 1971, ejection seats had the capability of keeping the pilot in the seat when at high altitudes until it slowed down and then physically separating him from the seat. After that, it was a free fall down to a lower altitude (usually 14,000 feet) where the parachute automatically opened unless the pilot pulled the rip cord at a higher altitude. For ejections below 14,000 feet, the parachute would automatically deploy as soon as the seat slowed down a bit which usually only required about 3 or 4 seconds. These parachute rigs had a constant flow oxygen system that kept 100 percent oxygen going into the pilot's mask at quite a bit of pressure for about 10 minutes. When on this oxygen system, the pressure was high enough that it was difficult to exhale. It in effect pressurized your lungs. I believe that two crew members on B-52s still have to bail out through a hatch in the bottom of the aircraft. At least that is the way is used to be. The modern zero-zero ejection seats are highly engineered to cover just about all realistic possibilities.

Call them whatever you want, but at least some USAF emergency parachutes in 1971 had automatic openers that usually were set to open the chute at 14,000 feet. I have been in pressure chamber training where these automatic openers were demonstrated and they always opened right on schedule. And I know of emergency ejections where the pilot was unconscious from the time he pulled the ejection lever until he woke up in the hospital.

Flyjack, get a good grip on yourself. We may actually agree on something. In all probability the FBI did return Hayden's parachute to him in 1975 and not either of the 1981 or 1982 dates claimed by Bruce Smith. Do you happen to know the exact time that the FBI contacted Cossey about the hijacking? And again, the numbers 226 and 60-9707 are not likely to be serial numbers. At least the 60-9707 was probably a part number and who knows where the 226 number originated.

The malfunction I experienced was using a 28 foot emergency parachute that had a 5-TU modification. This parachute was packed by my instructor, who was also a rigger, and myself. The reserve parachute that I used was also packed by my instructor. And the instructor/rigger was amply rewarded with the beverage of his choice. The cemeteries are filled with pilots who though they could fly under IFR conditions without any training or gyro instruments. Basically, the same thing applies in the Cooper jump. There is no information available on the cloud conditions above the airliner. A weather front was moving out of the area, but it is unlikely that Cooper could have had any meaningful references to help him stabilize even if he was an experienced jumper. From what I have seen of tandem jumpers, they deploy a stabilizing drag chute almost immediately after exiting the jump aircraft and they do that during good weather conditions.

Tina reportedly observed Cooper putting on the back pack and said that he seemed to do it without any difficulty. It is unknown if Tina had ever seen anyone put on a parachute before this incident. But putting on an NB6 harness is a bit more involved than putting on your standard military or civilian parachute harness. So it does suggest that Cooper had experience with military parachutes. In 1971, there were plenty of NB6 parachutes in the civilian market. But if Cooper got NB6 experience in the military, it would almost certainly be with the Navy.

Knowing how to put on a military parachute, or any other type of parachute, does not make you a skydiver. You become a skydiver by making actual parachute jumps.

377 has posted on the adjustments he had to make during free falls after he tied an equipment bag to one leg. And this was during a daylight jump. Unless Cooper pulled the ripcord while on the bottom of the stairs, he would tumble and that is all there is to it.

You don't have to be a skydiver to know how to put on a parachute.

As I stated in the original post, Cooper would have had big time problems stabilizing since he did not have reference to a horizon or anything else due to the darkness and overcast and other cloud layers. Regardless of how many jumps he may have had, and nothing suggests he had any, he would need a reference point to stabilize himself. This is somewhat like some amateur pilots who think they can fly in clouds without gyro instruments (and suitable training) until they dig a hole in the ground. Parachute malfunctions may be rare but I had a rotating streamer on my 9th jump and the Great Amazon, of DZ fame, has told me that she came down on her reserve on her 10th jump. I was using modified military equipment in the early sky diving days and I not sure what equipment Amazon was using but her problem was also a very long time ago.

The packing card for the parachute that Hayden got back indicated that Hayden DID NOT have it repacked after it was returned to him. You can check with the WSHM people on this point. The illustration you posted above indicates that whatever parachute the back of this packing card refers to was repacked in 1982 and 1986. Consequently, I doubt that the front and back pictures above are for the same packing card.

The "S/N 60-9707" you list above is probably a contract number rather than a serial number. Who knows where the "S/N 226" comes from, but it is not very likely to be a serial number. You are saying this parachute wasn't left on the airplane. So just exactly where did it spend the time between the hijacking and the date it was returned to Hayden. No packing card or data for the NB8? That is probably because the NB8 never existed in the first place despite Cossey's remarks.

You need to read the FBI paperwork that you included in a post above. It is obvious that the description of the very same parachute is garbled and that it refers to the back pack that was left on the airliner. Where do you get the packing card information for the NB8 parachute and the one that Cooper jumped with?

You and CooperNWO305 are free to believe anything you want about Cooper's chances for surviving. On the matter of the parachutes, note the conflicting information in the FBI paperwork about the "SN", "Type", and "Date of Manufacture". I doubt if some of those "serial numbers" are even serial numbers in the first place. Both of Hayden's chutes were assembled from various components that were manufactured for the military by different firms in WW2. That is, a single company did not make the entire parachute. But each component was made to a specific Military Specification and the various components were interchangeable with components made by one of several other firms. In view of the conflicting information in the FBI paperwork, I do not see any problem with the parachutes. That is, there were only two back packs and they belonged to Hayden and the two chest packs came from the sky diver operation.

Emergency parachutes are simple and reliable. But the problem is more complicated here. Cooper would have had a money bag tied to himself and perhaps a jury rigged chest chute and maybe other items as well. This really complicates the aerodynamics. He was also above an overcast with about three additional cloud layers below the overcast. Plus it was night time and there was a light rain at ground level. Even if he was an experienced sky diver, and nothing supports that idea, he would not have had any references to stabilize his jump. He would have initially dropped through the 727 down wash, which was unusually strong even for airliners, and would have tumbled. There is no way he could have avoided tumbling. It is highly likely that he would have been disoriented within seconds after jumping. If he pulled the ripcord immediately, there is a high probability that he would have become entangled in the canopy and shroud lines. If the canopy did not deploy successfully, Cooper would have been on the ground within about 40 to 60 seconds which is probably a lot faster than he would have expected. Cooper had an NB6 backpack emergency parachute. For the record, I owned a similar NB6 emergency parachute until the fall of 1971, about a month or two before the hijacking. While I never jumped that particular parachute, I am familiar with its characteristics.

Bohan apparently entered the picture at Himmelsbach's FBI retirement party which took place in 1980 and several weeks after the money was found at Tina Bar. He is mentioned in Himmelsbach's book and no where else as far as I can find. In reality, there is no conclusive proof either way that Cooper survived or died in the jump. But based on secondary facts, such as the money find at Tina Bar and that none of the bills were ever found in circulation, etc., the probability is that Cooper died in the jump and that he jumped very near Tina Bar. The simple fact that the FBI refuses to release the unredacted Seattle ATC radio transcripts for the airliner's flight is evidence that the FBI doesn't want anyone to know where Cooper actually jumped. I tried to get those transcripts through FOIA actions. But even with three Congressional interventions, my efforts were unsuccessful.

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Cooper survived the jump. And you can dismiss Captain Bohan's claims out of hand. Bohan may have taken off from SEATAC four minutes after NWA 305 but he was probably on V-23 East and not V-23. Further, Bohan's claim of an 80 knot wind from the southeast is nonsense. At 10,000 feet, the hijacked airliner was experiencing a 30+ knot wind from the southwest. In addition, Bohan's claim of an extreme cross wind on landing at Portland is not supported by the actual weather data. The highest measured wind at Portland that day was about 10 knots which could easily be handled by any 16 year old student pilot.

If KC was Cooper, why couldn't at least one of the three flight attendants recognize him in a picture?

Flyjack, just for the record how about posting a picture of or listing the source for the following: 1. The packing card for Hayden's parachute that was returned to him. 2. The packing card for Hayden's parachute that went missing. 3. The packing card for the parachute that was left on the airplane.

Hayden reportedly had to go to court to get his remaining back pack parachute from the FBI. Also, the FBI reportedly paid Hayden about $40 for the parachute that Cooper jumped with. So just exactly what is your problem here.

GMT is 8 hours ahead of PST. The Air Traffic Control recordings automatically recorded in GMT. So you would have to subtract 8 hours to get the PST time. Be sure to double check the time hacks on the ARINC teletype messages to insure that you are using the right time. It should be kept in mind that the FBI were not able to contact Cossey until after midnight (or very early on November 25th). There is absolutely nothing to suggest that more than 4 parachutes total were delivered to SEATAC and none of them came from McChord. Only 4 meals were delivered to the aircraft and none of them were eaten. Reportedly, the search dogs in Reno ate them. Cooper would probably have had a better chance of surviving if he discarded the dummy reserve. With a jury rigged dummy reserve, a money bag, and maybe other things tied to himself, he would be very aerodynamically unstable.

The FBI has rejected several pieces of parachute canopies as not having anything to do with the Cooper hijacking. Some of those could be rejected on sight. They had the wrong type canopy fabric, maybe wrong manufacturing stamps, or other issues that could immediately eliminate them from further consideration. I do not see a problem here. There is nothing to suggest that Cooper thought the back pack parachutes came from McChord. He had earlier rejected McChord parachutes. Cooper reportedly checked the packing cards in the back packs and should have been able to tell that they were not packed by the military or owned by the military. And if all else fails on this point, check Cossey's packing logbook. And again, I do not see a problem here.

Let me say up front that I don't have the slightest idea how the bad reserve was given to Cooper. But consider that the hijacking took place a few minutes after 3:00 PM PST and the reserves were in the NWA cargo facility by about 5:15 PM. Also, the delivery of the reserves was delayed by heavy PM commuter traffic and apparently at least one traffic accident. But I imagine that the WSHP made the entire run with his red lights on. There is no indication of when the sky diver place was asked to provide the reserve chutes but it was probably at least 3:30 PM. And it was probably a 30 minute drive under the existing circumstances to SEATAC. This leaves about 75 minutes for the sky diver place to act or react. Further, sunset was at about 4:45 PM, it was overcast with light rain, the late afternoon before a holiday, and I doubt if any of the sky diver trainers, or experienced jumpers, were at the facility. I'll bet that anyone who kept their equipment at the sky diver facility kept it in a locker and locked up tight. So all of this leads me to suggest that probably only the office staff (maybe a couple of people) was still at the facility and they were hard pressed to find any reserve that wasn't locked up. They probably spotted the bad reserve, didn't know what the "X" meant, and thought they had solved one of their problems. Hayden reportedly kept his aircraft at the Boeing Airport, which is where the aviation museum is located. Presumably, that is where Boeing Flight Services was located and their personnel were familiar with Hayden and his equipment. So they call Hayden about his parachutes, Hayden sends them to Boeing Flight Services by taxi, and they presumably got them over to SEATAC by taxi or their own vehicles. Boeing Flight Services may, or may not, have been the ones who contacted the sky diver operation about the reserve chutes. There is no reason to believe that the FBI, other law enforcement agency, or NWA personnel at SEATAC, would be knowledgeable about the parachute equipment. Frankly, I do not see a problem with the parachutes.

Flyjack, cut the nonsense! First, Cooper specifically ruled out parachutes coming from McChord and with good reason. Military parachutes in 1971 carried pingers so that air rescue people could locate the parachutist even before he hit the ground. Second, no mention is made of military static line parachutes in Cooper's demands and they are certainly not sports parachutes. They would have been useless to Cooper. Third, there is no confusion about where the chest pack reserve parachutes came from. They were delivered to the NWA cargo facility at SEATAC by a Washington State Highway Patrolman shortly after 5:00 PM and were the last of Cooper's demands to arrive. Fourth, the Hayden parachutes may, repeat may, have been sent initially to a Boeing facility at Boeing Field rather than SEATAC. But they found their way to SEATAC in short order and were the ones placed on the airliner. There were no other back pack parachutes involved. Fifth, Hayden got one of his parachutes back and the FBI paid him for the one that Cooper used in his jump. All Flyjack is trying to do is make this another of his "bundle" or "packet" kind of arguments.

Andrade, can you add to the answers to my questions above?

There are some noticeable similarities between your posts.