The Mountain News – WA

by Bruce A. Smith

Editor’s Note: Iconic DB Cooper researcher Jo Weber has died. Full details of her passing are unknown at this time, but she had entered a long-term healthcare facility in Pensacola, Florida in 2020. Nevertheless, Jo was a featured participant in the 2020 HBO broadcast titled, “The Mysteries of DB Cooper.”

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Jo Weber drove me crazy. She’d call me at all hours of the day or night and talk incessantly. I learned to put her on a time-limit, and in the last year of our relationship – two years before she passed away in February 2021 – I would tell her I “had to go in five minutes,” and when that mark was exceeded, I’d say, “Jo, I really have got to go,” and just hang up the phone.

By Bruce A. Smith

I’m developing a timeline to better understand what the FBI knew about the parachutes and when they knew it. Much of the following information comes through the hard work and courtesy of DB Cooper researcher “Fly Jack,” and his uncanny eyeballs that have pored over the federal 302 field reports released by the FBI over the past few months.

Note: DB Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient 727 on the afternoon of November 24, 1971, and after exchanging the passengers for $200,000 and four parachutes at Sea-Tac airport, he jumped into the night skies of southwestern Washington and has never been seen since.

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By Bruce A. Smith

The FBI is arguably the world’s best investigatory organization, but they couldn’t solve the DB Cooper case. Why not?

I asked former SA Gary Tallis that question at the 2011 Symposium and his reply surprised me: “Because they haven’t found a body. If we had a body, all the answers would follow.”

But what happens to an investigation when there isn’t a body? Further, how should the FBI have proceeded when they had so little tangible evidence? It wasn’t an easy job, I admit. Losing evidence didn’t help, either. But large bureaucracies lose stuff, and have less-than-adequate staff sprinkled throughout their organizations, even at managerial levels. So, after 45 years of investigating DB Cooper, how did they do?

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By Bruce A. Smith

The 50^th Anniversary of DB Cooper’s historic skyjacking will be celebrated November 19-21 – the weekend before Thanksgiving – in Vancouver, WA, promoter and preeminent researcher Eric Ulis announced last week. The event will be held at the Kiggins Theater, which was the site of the 2019 CooperCon, the last one held before the Covid pandemic.

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By Bruce A. Smith

An excerpt from DB Cooper and the FBI – A Case Study of America’s Only Unsolved Skyjacking – 3rd Edition.

The FBI is arguably the world’s best investigatory organization, but they couldn’t solve the DB Cooper case. Why not?

I asked former SA Gary Tallis that question and his reply surprised me: “Because they haven’t found a body. If we had a body, all the answers would follow.”

But what happens to an investigation when there isn’t a body? Further, how should the FBI have proceeded when they had so little tangible evidence? It wasn’t an easy job, I admit. Losing evidence didn’t help, either. But large bureaucracies lose stuff and have less-than-adequate staff sprinkled throughout their organizations, even at managerial levels. So, after 45 years of investigating DB Cooper, how did they do?

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By Bruce A. Smith

Difficulties continue in determining what back chute was recovered by the FBI in Reno on the night of the DB Cooper skyjacking, and if it is a different parachute from the one returned to Norman Hayden, the owner of the main chutes.

The serial numbers do not comport between the “returned” chute displayed by Norman in 2013 at the Washington State Historical Museum’s “COOPER” exhibit, with recently released FBI documents that reveal different serial numbers recorded by National Guard inspectors in Reno.

Both chutes in question appear to contain a Pioneer harness with a Steinthal canopy inside.

The chute I saw at Norman Hayden’s machine shop in Renton, WA allegedly possessed the serial number “226,” while the FBI reports the National Guard recorded the serial number 60-9707. Are these different parachutes? If so, what kind of mistake has been made? Answers are yet to be forthcoming. Can we even confirm that these numbers are present anywhere on the chutes?

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