◆ SpookStack

~4the Bandit Who Went _ as CRIME +. * rd Out into the Cold Northwest Airlines Flight 305 began as the most prosaic of milk runs. It start ed in Washington, D.C., at 8:30 a.m. fast. Wednesday, with scheduled stops at Minneapolis, Great Falls and Mis. soula, Mont. Portland, Spokane and finally Seattle. What happened en route rivaled Alfred Hitchcock's more baroque fantasics. In the most elaborate sky- jacking ploy in the bizarre history of air piracy, an inconspicuous middle-aged traveler identified on the manifes: as “D.B. Cooper" extorted $200,000 from the airline, and apparently foiled any plan of capture by parachuting to safe- ty over southwest Washington State. _ Whoever the latest air pirate is, he ob- viously had conceived his plan with a Tspidary’s attention to detail. Wearing dark glasses and a plain business suit, he boarded the Boeing 727 in Portland and took a seat at the rear. He did noth- ing to distinguish himself from the other 36 passengers aboard—until he gave a stewardess a note stating his demands. “J thought he was trying to hustle me,” said the stewardess, Florence Schaffner. “E stuffed the note in my purse, and he motioned that I should take it out and read it," He wanted, upon arrival at attle-Tacoma International Airport\the sum of $200,000 and four parachutes. Recalls Pasgenger Richard Simmons: }11 saw one stewardess answer a call, and her face dropped. She tooked bewildered and gulped. ‘I guess she learned what was happening then.” She certainly did. The hijacker . showed her a briefcase that contained two red cylinders and a tangle of wite. He told her calmly that unless his demands were met he intended to "s re} oe 4 Soe TEN Ss a : ™ ht Uae - pe en blow up the airplane, She immediately relayed the demands to Captain Wil- liam W. Scott, who in turn radioed Se- attle ground control. Northwest Pres- ident Donald W. Nyrop quickly issued orders to cooperate fully with the hi- jacker and “do whatever he demands.” Airline offitials were dispatched to round up the money, and a call went out for the four parachutes. The 727 circled the Seattle airport unti] the hijacker was satisfied that the money and parachutes were ready. The plane then touched down at 5:40 p.m. Said Pilot Scott to the men in the con: trol tower: “We will ask you {to stay there until we get coordinated with our friend in the back.” Getting Antsy. Says Passenger Bar- bara Simmons: “It was really strange. When the plane landed, we sat there for 15 minutes, and nobody talked.” As soon a$ the money and parachutes were drought aboard, the hijacker al- lowed the passengers and two of the stewardesses to disembark; however, he demanded that one of the girls, Fina Mucklow, remain on board as a hos- tage, The hijacker asked to be flown to Mexico. The crew explained that such a flight was out of their ship's range. At one point the impatient captain told the tower: “This guy is getting antsy.” To underscore the point, the hijacker in- terrupted an attempt by a Federal Avis ation Administration official to board the plane by snapping: “Let's get this show on the road!" With the hijacker’s agreement, the plane ultimately took off for Reno, os- tensibly a refueling stop en route to Mex- ico, Yet it ts clear that the hijacker knew precisely what he was about. He ordered the plane to be flown at less than 10,000 ft. and at 200 m.p.h., an ex- tremely slow cruising speed. He also or- dered the rear door to be left unlocked. Of ali U.S. commercial aitliners, only the 727 has a door beneath the tail that would permit a reasonably safe parachute jump. Then he locked Miss Muckiow in the forward cabin with the crew, and was not seen again. Five planes trailed the jet from Seattle, but no one saw the hijacker jump. If he fell free in the dark for more than 2 few hundred feet, however, he would have been afmast impossible to spot. Four-State Manhunt. FBI officials es- timate that he dropped into an open area in the wilderness some 35 miles north of Portland. The location was de- termined by the time of his jump, which probably occurred when a red light went on in the cockpit, indicating a drop in cabin pressure. The hijacker must have opened the rear door at that point. A fourstate manhunt was immedi. ately Jaunched, FBI agents, along with more than 30 officers of the Clark and Cowlitz county sheriff's departments, set up a command post and fanned out through a thickly timbered corridor 15 miles long and ten miles wide near the towns of Longview and Ariel in south- west Washington, The area is densely forested enough to present a serious haz- ard to the jumper if he did not make the clearing. Said Undersheriff Tom Mc- Dowell: “We're either looking for a para- chute or 4 hole in the ground.” The 3rd Armored Cavalry joined the search from the air, sending out two heli« copters. But the hijacker also managed to pick ideally inclement weather to cover his escape. Sullen clouds rolled in from the Pacific, grounding the chop- pers wotil a couple of hours before dark- ness. By week's end officers were scratch: ing their heads and wondering where to look next for the dapper, audacious fellow with $200,000 to spend. CITIES Romney on Forest Hills In white, middle-income Forest Hills, N.Y,, last week angry crowds booed the bulfdozers that were breaking ground for a proposed low-income housing proj- ect that would bring numbers of blacks into the area (Time, Nov, 29). One res- ident, Mrs. Ann Schachter, mother of two small schoolchildren, admits that she is embarrassed by the pickets. Still, she- adds, typically enough: “I like to think of myself as a liberal, but the term doesnt seem to apply to me any more. I'm frightened." Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, who favors the project, says of the protesters: “They are afraid of what they see as these hostile forces break- ing into their istand.” ‘ Mayor John Lindsay's associates pro- claimed that the project would proceed, but there were sigas of queasiness at City Hall; last week the Board of Es- timate turned down a similar proposal for Lindenwood, another section of Queens. Also fast week, despite a per- sonal appeal fron. New York's Repub- lican-Conservative Senator James Buck- Key, Housing and Urban Development Sceretary George Rommey gave the DB Cooper-5571 yue, pecemper 6, 1971