the hijacking
1. At 4:00 pm, a man wearing a business suit paid $20 cash at the Northwest Orient counter at Portland International Airport for a one-way ticket (aisle seat 18C in coach) to Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He gave the name Dan Cooper.
2. Cooper handed a note to Florence Schaffner, a stewardess, shortly after the plane took off. She initially regarded the note.
3. After a few minutes, Cooper gestured for Schaffner and told her "You'd better read that. I have a bomb". She read the note, and shared it with the pilot.
4. The pilot radioed Sea-Tac air traffic control, who alerted Seattle police, who alerted the FBI. The FBI placed the call to Northwest Orient's president, who ordered full compliance with Cooper's demands.
5. Cooper wrote an additional note with all of his demands, which include: $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. He ordered the items be delivered to the jet when it landed at Sea-Tac. If the airline failed to comply, Cooper said he would blow up the plane.
6. He also asked for Florence to sit with him. He opened the briefcase wide enough to show wires and two red cylinders that could have been sticks of dynamite.
7. Cooper wanted the $200,000 be given to him in $20 bills. He wanted the bills to have random, not sequential, serial numbers. The FBI agents made sure each bill began with the code letter L, issued by the Federal Reserve office in San Francisco. Each of the 10,000 bills were photographed to create a record of them before being given to Cooper.
8. After landing, letting the passengers get off the plane, and collecting his requests, Cooper gave instructions to the pilot on how and where to fly. He ordered the altitude not to exceed 10,000 feet, with wing flaps set at 15 degrees and airspeed of no more than 150 knots. He also told the pilot that the cabin should not be pressurized.
9. Once the plane left Seattle with Cooper and the flight crew, Cooper ordered the crew into the cockpit.
10. At 8 pm, a red light illuminated to warn of an open door on the aircraft-- the air stairs that Cooper was suspected to using to jump out of the plane had been lowered.
11. The crew considered the possibility that Cooper had jumped at 8:24 pm, when the plane's nose dipped, following by a correcting dip of its tail. The spot was near the Lewis River, 25 miles north of Portland.
12. The cabin of plane was not checked until the plane landed in its destination, where it immediately underwent a full inspection, looking for Cooper.
2. Cooper handed a note to Florence Schaffner, a stewardess, shortly after the plane took off. She initially regarded the note.
3. After a few minutes, Cooper gestured for Schaffner and told her "You'd better read that. I have a bomb". She read the note, and shared it with the pilot.
4. The pilot radioed Sea-Tac air traffic control, who alerted Seattle police, who alerted the FBI. The FBI placed the call to Northwest Orient's president, who ordered full compliance with Cooper's demands.
5. Cooper wrote an additional note with all of his demands, which include: $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. He ordered the items be delivered to the jet when it landed at Sea-Tac. If the airline failed to comply, Cooper said he would blow up the plane.
6. He also asked for Florence to sit with him. He opened the briefcase wide enough to show wires and two red cylinders that could have been sticks of dynamite.
7. Cooper wanted the $200,000 be given to him in $20 bills. He wanted the bills to have random, not sequential, serial numbers. The FBI agents made sure each bill began with the code letter L, issued by the Federal Reserve office in San Francisco. Each of the 10,000 bills were photographed to create a record of them before being given to Cooper.
8. After landing, letting the passengers get off the plane, and collecting his requests, Cooper gave instructions to the pilot on how and where to fly. He ordered the altitude not to exceed 10,000 feet, with wing flaps set at 15 degrees and airspeed of no more than 150 knots. He also told the pilot that the cabin should not be pressurized.
9. Once the plane left Seattle with Cooper and the flight crew, Cooper ordered the crew into the cockpit.
10. At 8 pm, a red light illuminated to warn of an open door on the aircraft-- the air stairs that Cooper was suspected to using to jump out of the plane had been lowered.
11. The crew considered the possibility that Cooper had jumped at 8:24 pm, when the plane's nose dipped, following by a correcting dip of its tail. The spot was near the Lewis River, 25 miles north of Portland.
12. The cabin of plane was not checked until the plane landed in its destination, where it immediately underwent a full inspection, looking for Cooper.
after the jump
The FBI believed from the beginning that Cooper could not have survived the jump. He jumped into the dark wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment and in terrible conditions. Even if he did land safely, survival in the mountains by himself would have been almost impossible.