D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found

Jolie Rouge

Watched a Discovery channle program recently on Cooper ... very interesting


D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

SEATTLE - The FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found buried by children in southwest Washington to determine whether it might have been used by famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, the agency said Tuesday.

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors.

The children had seen recent media coverage of the case — the FBI launched a publicity campaign last fall, hoping to generate tips to solve the 36-year-old mystery — and they urged their dad to call the agency.

"When we went to the public, the whole idea was that the public is going to bring the answers to us," Carr said. "This is exactly what we were hoping for."

A man identifying himself as Dan Cooper — later mistakenly but enduringly identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle in November 1971, claiming he had a bomb.

When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. He apparently parachuted from the plane's back stairs somewhere near the Oregon border.

Agents doubt he survived because conditions were poor and the terrain was rough, but few signs of his fate have been found.

Carr spoke with the children's father, whom he declined to identify, early this month and learned the chute was white, the same color as Cooper's.

And when Carr overlaid the family's address onto a map investigators made in the early days of the investigation, he learned another encouraging fact: They lived right in Cooper's most probable landing zone, between Green and Bald mountains.

Carr hopped in his car and drove down. He dug around the property for about 45 minutes, unsuccessfully looking for a harness or other remains from the parachute, but the children weren't home, and the father wasn't sure exactly where they found it.

There are no obvious markings on the parachute to indicate whether it's the type Cooper used, a Navy Backpack 6 with a 26-foot canopy, Carr said. He's hoping a member of the public who has expertise in the parachutes will come forward and confirm whether it's the right kind before the FBI bothers to excavate the property. Barring that, the agency could turn to scientific analysis of the fabric.

"We've got to be pretty darn sure we're not wasting time and money here," he said.

If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery — where he apparently landed — but it will raise another, Carr said.

In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver. Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.

"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/...5XSV78AVBH2ocA

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galeane29

Interesting indeed

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Shann

I have seen Without a Paddle and didn't think DB Cooper existed, now I know he did

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Jolie Rouge

I haven't seen "Without a Paddle" - how did D.B. Cooper play into that movie ?

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Jolie Rouge

Chute find rekindles D.B. Cooper legend
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Mar 26, 7:10 PM ET

AMBOY, Wash. - A tattered, half-buried parachute unearthed by kids had D.B. Cooper country chattering Wednesday over the fate of the skyjacker, who leaped from a plane 36 years ago and into the lore of the Pacific Northwest.

The parachute is about all most people in this neck of the southwestern Washington woods ever expected would be found as evidence of Cooper's daredevil escape attempt.

"Hunters are all through here," Idy Gilbert said Wednesday as she served drinks at Nick's Bar and Grill. "They find lots of bodies up here all the time, people who are missing. They would have found some bones. All they found was a chute."

In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper, later mistakenly identified as D.B. Cooper, hijacked a Northwest Orient flight, claiming he had a bomb. He demanded and got $200,000, then jumped out the back of the plane somewhere near the Oregon line.

He may have landed around Amboy, not 30 miles from Portland, Ore. That's the same area where children playing outside their home recently found fabric sticking up from the ground where their father had been grading a road, FBI agent Larry Carr said Tuesday.

The children, responding to a publicity campaign, urged their father to call the FBI, Carr said, and when their find became public this week, it reignited talk of the region's favorite folk hero.

In Ariel, about 20 miles northwest of Amboy, the Ariel Store has an annual D.B. Cooper party.

Dona Elliot, owner of the store, said Wednesday she thinks Cooper hid out in brush and trees for an accomplice to take him to the airport in Portland, about 60 miles south.

"It's the perfect place; no one would have looked for him there," she said.

The T-shirt for this year's party will have a parachute theme, she said, even though she's skeptical that the artifact the kids found is Cooper's.

"It will be 37 years in November," she said. "There can't be too much left of that parachute."

The FBI doesn't want to excavate the property until it confirms, either through an expert's examination or scientific analysis of the fabric, whether the chute is the right kind.

If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery — where he apparently landed — but it will raise another, Carr said.

In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver. Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.

"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."

Retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, of Woodburn, Ore., who worked the Cooper case, said Wednesday he doubts the remnant found near Amboy could be the nylon parachute Cooper carried when he jumped into poor conditions over rough terrain.

"Lying in the mud, mostly wet, would not be the kind of environment that would be good for a parachute," he said, though he conceded he could offer few alternate explanations for how the chute got there.

Himmelsbach said his theory of the case hasn't changed.

"The night it happened, I thought he had a 50 percent chance," he said. "... It has gone down since then."

Locals prefer to think he made it.

"I think he's out there enjoying his money," Gilbert said. "Most people here say they think he made it. We may never know."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/...rOnQHwCxOs0NUE

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Shann

The whole movie is centered around three friends (was actually four, but one passed away, which brought them together as adults) who as little kids dreamed of finding where he landed and getting his fortune, I won't tell you how it ends just incase you ever do see it. It's one of those silly movies.

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galeane29

I never realized that movie was about D.B. Cooper. I have the movie, I'll have to pull it out. Yes it is a silly movie lol, but its been awhile since I have seen it.

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Jolie Rouge

FBI: Parachute isn't hijacker Cooper's
GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago

SEATTLE - A tangled, torn parachute found buried last month last month is not the one used by plane hijacker D.B. Cooper when he bailed out of a plane over the Pacific Northwest, the FBI said Tuesday. Investigators reached that conclusion after speaking with parachute experts, including Earl Cossey, who packed the chutes provided to Cooper that rainy November night in 1971.

"From the best we could learn from the people we spoke to, it just didn't look like it was the right kind of parachute in any way," said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs.

Further digging at the site in southwestern Washington turned up no indication that it could have been Cooper's, she added.

A man calling himself Dan Cooper — later mistakenly identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a Northwest Orient passenger jet from Portland, Ore., to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes and asked to be flown to Mexico. He jumped out the back of the plane somewhere near the Oregon line.

Some of the cash has been found, but his fate is unknown, and investigators doubt he survived.

Children playing near a recently graded road found the parachute, and they urged their father to call the FBI because they had seen recent news stories about Cooper's case. The parachute was the right color, and the location was in the middle of what could have been Cooper's landing zone.

That got the attention of FBI agent Larry Carr, who drove to the site to see the find for himself.

But Cossey told Carr that Cooper's parachute was made of nylon. The one the children found was made of silk and did not feature a harness container. Cossey sold parachutes at a skydiving operation in Issaquah in the 1970s.

Cossey has been through the drill before; this is the third time the FBI has asked him to examine parachutes to see whether they might have been Cooper's.

One chute found long ago — he couldn't remember when — was just a "pilot chute," used to pull the main chute out of the pack. The other time, in 1988, it was a parachute found by a Columbia River diver seeking clues to Cooper's fate.

"They keep bringing me garbage," Cossey said. "Every time they find squat, they bring it out and open their trunk and say, 'Is that it?' and I say, 'Nope, go away.' Then a few years later they come back."

Cossey, though sounding cantakerous, appeared to relish the spotlight Tuesday. He answered his cell phone with "D.B. Cooper" and said he got a kick out of telling some reporters that the parachute was, in fact, the hijacker's.

One reporter called him back angrily, saying he could be fired for writing a false story, but another said the newsroom enjoyed the April Fool's joke.

"I'm getting mixed reviews," Cossey said. "But I'm having fun with it; what the heck."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/...xUganKgnhH2ocA

Yet another layer in the conspiracy therories ... WOULD the FBI want it known if Cooper DID "get away" ?

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jenefer3

Why would this guy that is supposed to be the "expert" on the parachute tell some reporters that it was the hijacker's parachute? Makes it hard to want to believe him either way.

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Jolie Rouge

Cooper skyjacking cash sells for $37K at auction
2 hours, 30 minutes ago

DALLAS - Fifteen tattered $20 bills recovered from the 1971 D.B. Cooper skyjacking sold Friday for more than 120 times their face value at a Dallas auction. Heritage Auction Galleries said the bills sold for a total of more than $37,000 — two to three times higher than expected.

Winning bidders paid about $6,500 each for two of the $20 bills. The money has the handwritten initials of investigators who examined the bills, which were found buried in sand in 1980. Another recovered note, a tiny fragment showing only a portion of the printed San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank seal in the design, sold for $358.

Cooper skyjacked a flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb. He released the passengers at a Seattle airport for $200,000, four parachutes and a flight to Mexico. On that flight, he jumped out with a parachute near the Oregon-Washington line. He was never found.

"There's obviously still tremendous interest in the legendary case," Heritage President Greg Rohan said in a statement. The gallery declined to identify the winning bidders.

"I was 10 years old when it happened and I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting at the family Thanksgiving table in West Seattle hearing the news. I've always wondered if Cooper lived the high life for a while or became bear food," Rohan said.

Brian Ingram of Mena, Ark., consigned the notes to Heritage. He was 8 years old when he found three bundles of deteriorating $20 bills on the shore of the Columbia River near Portland, Ore. The FBI matched the serial numbers and kept 13 bills in case it ever prosecutes the Cooper case. The Ingrams also had to give some bills to an insurance company that paid the ransom.

Ingram still owns another 70 pieces of recovered ransom money, but has not yet revealed whether he will sell them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080614/...fyZg7wnFys0NUE

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Char

I have always believed that he (DB Cooper) made it. Really, his body was never found, and, he obviously had parachuting experience, or he never would have planned it the way he did. He even had the plane slow down to a crawl so he could jump.

This kinda stuff is soooooo interesting !

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