Compelling New Suspect For DB Cooper Skyjacking Found By Army Data Analyst (oregonlive.com) 111
A U.S. Army officer with a security clearance and a "solid professional reputation" believes he's solved the infamous D.B. Cooper skyjacking case -- naming two now-dead men in New Jersey who have never before been suspected, "possibly breaking wide open the only unsolved skyjacking case in U.S. history," according to the Oregonian.
The data analyst started his research because, simply enough, he had stumbled upon an obscure old book called "D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened," by the late author Max Gunther. Gunther wrote that he was contacted in 1972 by a man who claimed to be the skyjacker... Using the name "Dan LeClair" and various details from the book, as well as information from the FBI's D.B. Cooper case files that have become public in recent years, Anonymous tracked the bread crumbs to a very real man named Dan Clair, a World War II Army veteran who died in 1990... Continuing his research, our anonymous Army officer eventually determined that Clair probably was not D.B. Cooper. More likely the skyjacker was a friend and co-worker of Clair's, a native New Jerseyan by the name of William J. Smith, who died in January of this year at age 89... Clair and Smith worked together at Penn Central Transportation Co. and one of its predecessors. For a while, they were both "yardies" at the Oak Island rail yard in Newark. It appears they bonded in the 1960s as Penn Central struggled to adapt to a changing economy.
The data analyst says the two men's military backgrounds -- Smith served in the Navy -- and long experience in the railroad business would have made it possible for either of them to successfully parachute from a low-flying jetliner, find railroad tracks once they were on the ground, and hop a freight train back to the East Coast. Poring over a 1971 railroad atlas, the hijacked plane's flight path and the skyjacker's likely jump zone, he determined that no matter where D.B. Cooper landed, he would have been no more than 5-to-7 miles from tracks. "I believe he would have been able to see Interstate 5 from the air," he says, adding that one rail line ran parallel to the highway... He believes Smith and Clair may have been in on the skyjacking together. He notes that Clair, who spent his career in relatively low-level jobs, retired in 1973 when he was just 54 years old.
Several incriminating coincidences were noted by an article this week in the Oregonian -- including a scar on Smith's hand, his visit to a skydiving facility in 1971, and Smith's strong resemblance to the police artist's sketches. Even the chemicals found on Cooper's clip-on tie in 2017 would be consistent with his job as the manager of a railyard. "[I]n my professional opinion, there are too many connections to be simply a coincidence," the data analyst told the FBI, while telling the Oregonian he believes the pair were "mad at the corporate establishment" in America and determined to do something about it.
"If I was on that plane, I wouldn't have thought he was a hero," he says. "But after the fact, I might think, 'OK, this took balls,' especially if I knew he was an ordinary guy, a working man worried about his pension going away. That he wasn't some arch-criminal. I would want to talk to that guy.... he is a kind of folk hero."
The data analyst says the two men's military backgrounds -- Smith served in the Navy -- and long experience in the railroad business would have made it possible for either of them to successfully parachute from a low-flying jetliner, find railroad tracks once they were on the ground, and hop a freight train back to the East Coast. Poring over a 1971 railroad atlas, the hijacked plane's flight path and the skyjacker's likely jump zone, he determined that no matter where D.B. Cooper landed, he would have been no more than 5-to-7 miles from tracks. "I believe he would have been able to see Interstate 5 from the air," he says, adding that one rail line ran parallel to the highway... He believes Smith and Clair may have been in on the skyjacking together. He notes that Clair, who spent his career in relatively low-level jobs, retired in 1973 when he was just 54 years old.
Several incriminating coincidences were noted by an article this week in the Oregonian -- including a scar on Smith's hand, his visit to a skydiving facility in 1971, and Smith's strong resemblance to the police artist's sketches. Even the chemicals found on Cooper's clip-on tie in 2017 would be consistent with his job as the manager of a railyard. "[I]n my professional opinion, there are too many connections to be simply a coincidence," the data analyst told the FBI, while telling the Oregonian he believes the pair were "mad at the corporate establishment" in America and determined to do something about it.
"If I was on that plane, I wouldn't have thought he was a hero," he says. "But after the fact, I might think, 'OK, this took balls,' especially if I knew he was an ordinary guy, a working man worried about his pension going away. That he wasn't some arch-criminal. I would want to talk to that guy.... he is a kind of folk hero."
It was (Score:2)
It was Elon Musk (Score:2)
He's already been outed as Santoshi but his real alias is DB cooper. He used all the money on plastic surgery and height change operations. Now he's undermining cities.
Re: wTF only $200,000 (Score:5, Informative)
According to https://inflationdata.com/ [inflationdata.com], the CPI was in 207.342 in 2007 and 245.120 in 2017; that's an 18.22% increase over those 10 years, not the 100% you are claiming.
Late 1971 is 40.900 and late 2018 is 252.885, a multiplier of 6.175, making $200,000 then worth $1,235,000 today.
Need more direct evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
There were 209 million people in the US in 1972. Finding one of them who circumstantially could conceivably within the realm of possibility have known someone who circumstantially could conceivably have been D.B. Cooper is not a hard thing to do. There needs to be direct evidence connecting them for this to be newsworthy. Also, saying that the rare earth metals ending up on his tie because he was a rail yard manager is a huge stretch. In that case, assuming he left his office and went frolicking around inside of rail cars, he might have had one kind of rare earth metal. However the tie had multiple rare earths (cerium, strontium sulfide, pure titanium, etc) that indicate more of a production type facility (Boeing has been mentioned) where numerous rare earths are collected together in a single place.
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It's not rare earths. It's metal alloys. and the actual article lays out a lot more coincidences in recently released evidence and the book. FOr example, Cooper is suspected of learning skydiving outside Los Angeles, and so did the suspect. In the book cooper has an ad placed in the village voice wishing his wife well on her birthday. The ad happened and his wife has that birthdate. So there are some mounting coincidences. But nothing solid.
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It was, for it's time, a very kinetic film with a frantically moving character constantly being transported in cars, trains, planes and running on foot. It starts in NY, goes to chicago, then south dakota, then alaska. So North by way of north west.
Oh really? (Score:2)
If nobody suspected them how come they're dead?
[looks around nervou$kljl@#$ o;
no carrier]
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While I love the 'no carrier' schtick, remember that the sub-30 something children amongst us probably have no idea what the hell you're talking about...
Wait, Toto, don't bite into that electrical wir@#&$^NO TERRIER
Military? But.... (Score:5, Informative)
How does a "military background" demonstrate an ability to jump out of an airliner?
My father put 25 years in the Army. I think he may have done Jump School before I was born. Maybe. Probably not, but it's possible.
I was in the Navy. As was my brother. Neither of us ever got farther off the ground than the top of the Sail, except to fly as passengers on a civilian airliner across the Atlantic.
So, while an Air Force background might suggest an ability to skydive (most Air Force types never get in the air, except to be passengers on a civilian airliner across the Atlantic or Pacific), Navy background suggests no such thing (unless you're a Navy Pilot)....
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* being able to plan
* being trainable (ex the civilian parachuting school)
* being somewhat risk tolerant
* being somewhat able to overcome fear and complete a task
Also the older former paratrooper could teach the younger former sailor about techniques for landing around obstacles, getting down out of trees, etc. Things not normally taught in civilian training.
And then there is the likelihood that one veteran would see another veteran as a more trustworthy par
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This was before Project 100,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] so the accepted US mil skill level, fitness and IQ would have been great for that generation.
The FBI would have been all over any strange flight school and parachute clubs looking for people who did not fit into that decade of normal people doing normal "parachute" things.
The mil then becomes altern
Railroad Retirement (Score:5, Informative)
notes that Clair, who spent his career in relatively low-level jobs, retired in 1973 when he was just 54 years old..
Retiring at 54 from a railroad was not unusual back in the 70s -- it is one of the reasons Penn Central and other US freight railroads all went bankrupt!
Railroad employees pay into the Railroad Retirement system (instead of Social Security), which provides really good retirement benefits. At age 54, he could have had 30 years of service if he had started at the railroad in 24 (after having served in the military.) Having been in "relatively low-level jobs" would mean he would have been earning overtime -- getting paid 1.5 times his hourly rate for every hour he "worked" over 40 hours. He was working in a heavily unionized industry, where overtime is handed out based upon seniority, so staying in "low level jobs" often made more financial sense than going into management.
Re:Railroad Retirement (Score:4, Interesting)
Furthermore, the DB Cooper money has never been spent! Aside from the bundle of cash found in 1980, none of it has surfaced in the monetary system. Kind of tough to retire if you never spent the cash.
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Yes. Buried in a sand bank along the Columbia River.
Re:Railroad Retirement (Score:4, Insightful)
You imagine the equipment and personnel to record serial numbers of bills passing by were common back then. Let me give you a hint, as someone who was there...no, it wasn't. Especially not in other countries that use the global currency that is the U.S. dollar.
Only a fool would have spent the money near a large U.S. city
A smart person would have laundered or spent the money elsewhere.
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The ransom money was in $20 bills which are circulated rapidly. They wear out over time and odds are that within months or years, some would have made their way back to the Treasury to be retired. Wouldn't they be scanned at this point?
Re: Railroad Retirement (Score:1)
There were no scanners in 1973!
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actually there were but not for currency. sending pictures over wire is *really* old tech, look it up. Fun fact, first "fax" was done over telegraph wire in mid 19th century.
what we would call high res scanners weren't around until late 1980s,
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Scanned? In the 70s? It was a very manual process back then, and one likely abandoned after a few years given the expense.
It's also worth noting that some bills will sit in foreign bank vaults effectively forever, never returning to to US. IIRC it's something like 10% of physical currency (which is nice, since it's effectively a free loan to the US).
One theory is that he crossed the border to Canada, and took a boat from somewhere in BC to whatever country he retired in. Of course, the real mystery for
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Of course, the real mystery for any theory that has him surviving is how the heck he planned to land safely and be recovered in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest in November. H
Apparently he boarded a train like a hobo. I'm just saying that based on the summary.
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not in the early 1970s, didn't happen and wasn't done. Late 1980s is when it happened, way too late. 20 dollar bills last less than 8 years
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Whether it was or wasn't common - the fact remains that criminals were traced and caught in that era using marked bills or serial numbers. Equally factual, is that the US Mint records the serial numbers of all the bills it destroys.
So, that none have ever shown up in circulation or to be destroyed can be taken as evidence that it's high
solid professional reputation (Score:5, Funny)
Not any more
Another book coming along? (Score:4, Insightful)
James Klansnic (Score:1)
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Surely you woosh, Mr Q?
Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Skyjacking is a specific term that came into use in the 1960s to describe the rash of airplane hijackings that occurred in the late 60s and 70s. I count 20 skyjackings that involved the United States in just the decade of 1970. It is a specific type of hijacking that involves airplanes, and which typically takes place while the plane is in the sky during flight. Thus the plane is redirected to some other destination because the risk of the threat being real must be taken seriously.
I presume you are in your 20s to have not encountered this word, which is defined in pretty much every English dictionary there is. If you prefer "A hijacking that occurs on an airplane while the plane is in flight" over "skyjacking" then feel free to use the longer phrase in your writings and conversation. However your lack of exposure to this word hardly makes it "tabloid-headline made-up".
To totally beat this point to death, here are some various dictionary entries.
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]
https://en.oxforddictionaries.... [oxforddictionaries.com]
https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com]
https://www.thefreedictionary.... [thefreedictionary.com]
https://www.macmillandictionar... [macmillandictionary.com]
I also note that the Chome spellchecker knows this word by default as well.
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I presume you are in your 20s to have not encountered this word,
No, but not American. I just tried googling the 9/11 attacks, and every article I saw used the words "hijack" and "hijacker" not "skyjacker", so I still think "skyjack" is a bit of informal regional slang, or at least archaic by this century. Dictionaries contain a lot of obscure words with better alternatives.
Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:5, Interesting)
True, I didn't hear skyjacking used to describe the 9/11 flights either. The normal connotations of "skyjacking" are actually relatively peaceful, in that the motive isn't to kill everyone on board or weaponize the plane. Usually skyjackers wanted one of two things - to be flown to some other country, and / or money. They typically aren't suicidal, and typically do not actually intend on killing everyone on the plane or people on the ground. Many skyjackings were made with the mere threat of a bomb, or with something inert that looked similar to a bomb. I believe towards the end of that era the skyjackings did start to become more violent and innocent people started dying as officials began to crack down and upped the ante.
Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:4, Informative)
“Skyjacking” came into use during those years as a newspaper headline term. Kids, ask your grandpa what a “newspaper” was.
Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I still think "skyjack" is a bit of informal regional slang, or at least archaic by this century.
It's not informal, regional, or slang. It's a well-understood term for American English speakers. Even if it was obscure, the subject and the base words ("sky" + "jack") lend themselves to a very easy contextual understanding of the word for almost any English-speaker.
I don't think this was really such a mystery for you. I think you just wanted to whinge.
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And the "hi" in "hijack" comes from "highway".
This is intuitive, but wrong. It comes from the instructions given to carriage-drivers by the robbers: "Hold 'em up high, Jack."
Re: WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:2)
Re: WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:2)
There are also infrequent instances of aircraft being on the ground while in flight, that generally are rather brief moments.
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I agree with the OP, Skyjacking is a stupid term. Someone is jacking the sky? WTF!
Air piracy is probably a better term to use (but even that gives the wrong impression: air is being pirated?!) The best term is airplane hijacking -- due to its unambiguous and clear nature.
I've never heard of skyjacking in 40+ years. The news has always reported this as hijacking as far as I've seen / heard / read.
Re: WTF is "Air piracy"? (Score:1)
Well since that is the actual federal crime in the US it is indeed the right word.
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You never heard of it because you were a youngster and not paying attention to the TV news in the 70's.
Grow up, fool.
Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:5, Funny)
The best term is airplane hijacking -- due to its unambiguous and clear nature.
That's excessively verbose, which is the enemy of effective communication in English. Try German, down the hall and to the left.
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Agreed, skyjacking is different to hijacking, but it a colloquial word of time.
Skyjacking is essentially newspaper slang for robbery in the sky, like carjacking it is from jacking slang for robbery.
While Hijack is not robbery based.
Hijacking, but with an airplane (Score:2)
Skyjacking is more directly derived from hijacking and predates the common use of carjacking.
Skyjacking emerged in the 1960s/70s during a period of frequent airline aircraft takeovers by terrorists, not so much the commercially minded as in the DB Cooper case. Yet like hijacking the dual use, commercial and political terrorism, was well understood. Hijacking simp
It's why the airport has metal detectors (Score:5, Informative)
Long before the TSA. Too many detours to Cuba. Then we all got metal detectors.
Re:It's why the airport has metal detectors (Score:5, Funny)
Re: It's why the airport has metal detectors (Score:1)
And get our balls fondled. (Sometimes I go through the lineup twice.)
Re:It's why the airport has metal detectors (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Then we had 9/11. No more "Just sit back and cooperate. We'll drop these guys off in Cuba and be back on our way." Now, if anyone acts up, the passengers will kill them.
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No ulterior motive here, just adding some anecdotal evidence. Here in Birmingham, AL a couple or three weeks ago, a guy walked into a McDonald's and opened fire. Witnesses at the drive thru window reported hearing eight or nine shots, then a pause, then two more shots.
Inside the restaurant, when the masked individual walked in and opened fire, a customer with a gun returned fire, killing the gunman.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/birmingham-mcdonalds-shooting-father-shoots-and-kills-masked-gunman-who-opened-fi
Re:It's why the airport has metal detectors (Score:4, Insightful)
Like school shootings, skyjackings are the result of our over 25,000 gun laws that disarm the "good guys" and don't do anything at all about bad guys with guns.
No, skyjackings are (or mostly were) the result of the fact that it was easy to get a gun onto a plane. When the metal detectors went up, the rash of skyjackings stopped, up until 9/11. Someone figured out that box cutters could be almost as effective as guns, and airplanes almost as effective as missiles, at least in that limited context.
As others have noted, post-9/11 there's no way that a couple guys with box cutters will ever succeed at that again. The passengers of Flight 93 demonstrated to the world that a plane full of passengers can easily overcome dipshits with box cutters. And since then, we've seen proof of that countless numbers of times -- passengers will in most circumstances unite against a hijacker, even if it means losing their own lives.
But you want supposed "good guys" to carry guns on planes? No. People who believe that kind of pro-gun claptrap are the same people who promote stupid conspiracy theories, grow neckbeards, and live in their mother's basement. Oh, and they are probably AOL users, too.
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The real solution to both skyjackings and school shooting is to simply repeal all the gun laws, and let the good guys go armed in public.
Have you never seen a Hollywood Western?
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DB Cooper didn't stand up and announce he was hijacking the plane. He passed a note to the flight attendant, then showed her the bomb inside is suitcase. It's quite likely that none of the passengers knew he was the hijacker at the time. Even if one of them were armed and knew who the bad guy was, hopefully they would be smart enough to hold their fire and not risk shooting an innocent person or detonating the bomb.
In your imagination 9/11 is stopped because they good guys with guns stop the bad guys with b
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"Say the hijacker is holding the flight attendant hostage. I shoot at him but hit the flight attendant."
Your fault for taking a shot like that without being a certified expert marksman. What you really do is shoot the SOB from behind, which in a large population of potentially armed defenders, the bad guy cannot neutralize. Or he's standing right beside you as he's holding the stewardess hostage, and you put one up thru his ribcage and right into his heart from 6 inches away.
"Ultimately, I'm afraid more
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Very easy. Cops, because they are good guys with rules, are required to shout, "Police, drop the gun" and you do it because you're the good guy. That's how they know. The bad guys will likely turn and attempt to fire at them, which is how they know that those people are the bad guys.
Ah yes. So if I ever "go bad", I'll remember that. Someone else with a gun? Just shout "Police, drop the gun!". If he does, he is a good guy and then I shoot him because I'm bad. Fun while it lasts.
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My home country has mandatory military draft for men, so most men at the age of 18 have to go through medical examination to check their fitness for service. Of these men, about 10% are excluded due to mental issues. Yes, these examiners know well, that most folks want to dodge draft, so typical scams to fake medical issues don't go very far.
Think about it: 10% unfit for military service for mental reasons, and this is young people, not very old people with their own set of problems. Are you 100% sure you w
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Do I want to arm them? No. Do I believe that any attempt to keep them from being armed short of incarceration is futile? Yes.
OK, they're unfit for military service, but they're fully permitted to get behind the wheel of a 4000 weapon which is the terrorist's newest weapon of choice, a weapon that can be made to drive down a sidewalk and kill multiple people, and the only defense those people might have could be to turn around and put a bullet in his brain before he can run them down. So I want those
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Yes, a few terrorists caused some mayhem by slamming cars into crowds of people. No, a few simple hand guns would not have changed that, quite to the contrary. There would be general lack of situational awareness towards people suddenly opening fire at a car. Casualty count would have likely increased by an order of magnitude in every single one of these terror acts committed by car. Do not underestimate the amount of friendly fire, if hundreds of unprepared but well armed people are suddenly confronted wit
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Re:WTF is "skyjacking"? (Score:5, Informative)
There was a Monty Python bit where a man hijacks a bus and orders it to take him to Cuba, for example.
... which comes at the end of a sketch (Here) [youtube.com] where a man tries to hijack a plane flying to Cuba to divert it to Luton :-
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I remember catching a short hall "shuttle" plane. No ticket. Walk up to the plane, hand put your luggage on a trolly, hop on board and find a seat. Plane takes off when full. And you pay on the plane itself. Quick and easy and cheap. Long forgotten now.
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I kept reading, waiting for an explanation, but not given, so googled DB Cooper (no link!?) and found out they mean "hijacking".
Please speak English, not tabloid-headline made-up words.
The important bit it: the term "skyjacking" was common at the time of DB Cooper's stunt and it was the word used to describe the incident when it happened.
All words are made-up words, of course, but this one is well understood when describing this particular case. Much like the phrase "Jack the Ripper" was the creation of journalists of the time, but it's now the most-understood way to refer to that particular serial killer. The "DB Cooper skyjacking" is a similar phrase.
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Much like the phrase "Jack the Ripper" was the creation of journalists of the time, but it's now the most-understood way to refer to that particular serial killer. The "DB Cooper skyjacking" is a similar phrase.
Thanks folks. As suspected the word appears unique to American newspaper headlines of the period (1970s), and a movie title.
It is clearer now to this confused foreigner. I guess the DB Cooper case, and attached term, must be a s famous in the US as Jack the Ripper elsewhere. But it is still not in common usage today.
Wouldn't you be confused by an article that used "ripper" in place of "murderer"? Sure you get from the context that there was a murder, but be trying to figure out what specifically a "rippe