On this day in aviation history: In 1971 a legend is born and a mystery begins. On a typically rainy afternoon a man who gave the name “Dan Cooper†purchased a one-way ticket for Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a non-stop flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. The flight departed on schedule at 2:50PM with a crew of 6 and 37 passengers on board. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper gave a handwritten note to Florence Schaffner, a flight attendant who was seated nearby. The note read that the airliner was being hijacked and that Cooper had a bomb in his briefcase. Schaffner asked Cooper to show her the bomb. He opened the brief case and she later described having seen eight red cylinders with red-insulated wires attached, and a cylindrical battery. Cooper closed his briefcase and gave Schaffner his demands: $200,000 in United States currency, four parachutes and a fuel truck to be standing by on their arrival at Seattle. After hearing his demands, Schaffner relayed them to the flight crew. After a quick 30-minute flight, Flight 305 circled Seattle for approximately two hours while officials on the ground arranged to comply with Cooper’s demands. The 727 landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport at 5:39PM. Ransom money had been gathered by the FBI from several Seattle area banks and consisted of 10,000 $20 bills. The notes were not marked but all were photographed to record their serial numbers. The money was carried to the airliner by a Northwest employee, along with the requested parachutes. These were given to flight Attendant Tina Mucklow at the 727’s aft boarding stairs. She carried these to Cooper who, satisfied that his demands had been met, allowed the 36 other passengers as well as flight attendants Schaffner and Alice Hancock to leave the airplane. Cooper informed the flight crew that he wanted to fly the 727 south to Mexico, and gave very specific instructions. He told pilot Captain William A. Scott to fly as slow as possible, to leave the landing gear extended, the flaps lowered to 15°, and to remain below 10,000 feet with the cabin unpressurized. He also demanded that the airliner takeoff with its ventral stairs lowered but this was refused as being unsafe. At 7:40PM, the six-year-old Boeing 727-51 took off with the three-man flight crew and cabin attendant Mucklow still on board. Cooper required that Mucklow remain with him in the passenger cabin. As a precaution, the airliner was followed by two Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptors from McChord Air Force Base. Once airborne, Cooper told Mucklow to go forward and join the rest of the crew in the cockpit. At 8:00PM, a warning light in the cockpit came on indicating that the ventral stairs had been activated. Thirteen minutes later, the aircraft pitched nose down, and had to be re-trimmed for level flight. At 10:15 p.m., the airliner landed at Reno, Nevada. After a search, it was determined that Cooper, the money and two parachutes were gone. In 1978, a hunter discovered a placard from a 727’s aft stairs near the known flight path, Victor 23, of the hijacked 727. In 1980, a young boy found three deteriorated packets containing $5,800 in $20 bills along the banks of the Columbia River, downstream from Vancouver, Washington. The serial numbers matched currency included in the ransom. Dan Cooper has never been located. There have been a number of persons considered as suspects; however it is probable that Cooper did not survive the jump from Flight 305. The story captivated the American public at the time and has been the source of numerous books, songs, films, and television shows. To this day the mystery of who and what happened to DB Cooper is still hotly debated. The Boeing 727 remained in service with Northwest Orient Airlines until mid-1978, when it was sold to Piedmont Airlines and christened “Mt. Mitchell Pacemaker.†From 1982 through 1984, it was operated by United Technologies Flight Dynamics testing navigational equipment. In late 1984 it was again sold, this time to Key Airlines. During its time with Key, the aircraft flew on daily charter flights from Nellis Air Force Base to the Tonapah Test Range, a restricted Department of Energy installation which is managed by Sandia National Laboratories. The aircraft was finally scrapped in 1996.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:52:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015