Here's a snip from another FBI memo from 11/25/71 which says the initial request was for two parachutes and it was changed to four parachutes. Maybe the ground misunderstood at first, and thought it was only two?

SEATTLE-TACOMA AIRPORT (SEA-TAC) CALLED AT APPROXIMATELY THREE TWENTYTWO PM, NOVEMBER TWENTYFOUR INSTANT, ADVISING THAT A MAN ABOARD INSTANT PLANE AT PORTLAND, OREGON, PASSED WORD TO THE PILOT THAT HE HAD A BOMB IN HIS BRIEFCASE AND DEMANDED TWO HUNDREDTHOUSAND DOLLARS. HE INSTRUCTED THE PILOT TO GET THIS MONEY READY BY FIVE PM, AND ALSO TO FURNISH HIM TWO PARACHUTES. SUBJECT INSTRUCTED PILOT TO HAVE NO ONE MEET THE AIRCRAFT; NO ONE WAS TO APPROACH THE AIRCRAFT AND THAT HE WOULD ADVISE LATER WHAT HIS FLIGHT PLANS WERE. SUBSEQUENTLY THE PILOT CIRCLED THE FIELD AT SEA-TAC UNTIL FIVE FORTYTHREE PM, WHEN THE PLANE LANDED. THE TIME WAS CONSUMED IN OBTAINING THE TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS AND IN OBTAINING PARACHUTES. IT IS NOTED THAT SUBJECT, DURING THIS TIME, CHANGED HIS REQUEST FOR PARACHUTES TO FOUR IN ALL, TWO BACK PACKS AND TWO CHEST PACKS.

In the transcripts we have, there's no mention of a chest pack request, until later when they say they're going to have the chest packs

at 3:57 PM

ARE IN CTC WITH LOCAL BANK AND ARRANGING FOR THE MONEY ND WILL HAVE
THE TWO CHEST PACKS SOON ALREADY HAVE
THE TWO BACK PACKS
305 R WIL ADV PSGRS HAVE HAD SLIGHT MECHCL DIFF WIL NOT ADV THE REAL NATURE
OF THE PROBLEM YET

This is for 377
Excited because I found the flight configuration details of the airstairs test team flight in the FBI FOIA
attaching the 3 page memo

It's in the Part 31 FOIA files that were just released a couple weeks ago!

Also found the 6 page review of the test team members. Mostly redacted names. Surprisingly some names not redacted.
that will be in subsequent posts

Here's the config info from airstairs/drop test.
125 knots
25 degree flaps down
altitude  10,000 feet

See the attached docs. Here's the text:
ON JULY THIRTY ONE, SEVENTY TWO, <redacted> A BOEING COMPANY EXECUTIVE, MADE AVAILABLE A COPY OF THE BOEING TEST SUMMARY REPORT PERTAINING TO THE FLIGHT CONFIGURATION OF THE SEVEN TWO SEVEN. THE FOLLOWING FLIGHT CONFIGURATION WAS USED DURING THE BOEING AIR STAIRS TEST:

SPEED - ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE KNOTS
FLAPS - TWENTY FIVE DEGREES DOWN
ALTITUDE - TEN THOUSAND FEET.

pages 4 thru 6 of the review of the Boeing test team (airstairs/drop)

Read this in a 4/12/72 FBI memo

I don't think this has been discussed before (requirement for rear door open at takeoff, in order to lower stairs, due to pressurization?)

This note was part of a long comparison of the McCoy UAL hijack and the Cooper hijack. They did a lot of work investigating whether it was possible that it was McCoy.

IT IS NOTED BOEING SEVEN TWO SEVEN AIRCRAFT UNABLE TO TAKE OFF WITH STAIRS IN LOWERED POSITION. HOWEVER IN ORDER FOR STAIRS TO BE LOWERED IN FLIGHT, IT IS NECESSARY THAT REAR PRESSURED DOOR BE IN OPEN POSITION ON TAKE-OFF

Apparently Robb Heady knew that as well. The only real demands he made was for the rear door to be left open upon take-off and to fly certain coordinates to San Francisco International Airport so that the plane would bank left at the right time for him to jump into Washoe Lake and Forest area.

BTW, as he was flying towards SFO, Western 410 was taking off on its getaway flight to Algeria.

Grinnell Update

The Bank guy, Grinnell, hasn't gotten in touch. Feels like a dead-end for getting more definitive information on bank bands, rubber bands, etc.

Well, Heady was after Cooper.
Cooper was the first

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Read this in a 4/12/72 FBI memo

I don't think this has been discussed before (requirement for rear door open at takeoff, in order to lower stairs, due to pressurization?)

This note was part of a long comparison of the McCoy UAL hijack and the Cooper hijack. They did a lot of work investigating whether it was possible that it was McCoy.

IT IS NOTED BOEING SEVEN TWO SEVEN AIRCRAFT UNABLE TO TAKE OFF WITH STAIRS IN LOWERED POSITION. HOWEVER IN ORDER FOR STAIRS TO BE LOWERED IN FLIGHT, IT IS NECESSARY THAT REAR PRESSURED DOOR BE IN OPEN POSITION ON TAKE-OFF

Apparently Robb Heady knew that as well. The only real demands he made was for the rear door to be left open upon take-off and to fly certain coordinates to San Francisco International Airport so that the plane would bank left at the right time for him to jump into Washoe Lake and Forest area.

BTW, as he was flying towards SFO, Western 410 was taking off on its getaway flight to Algeria.

First from a 727. Paul Cini was the first parajacker, less than 2 weeks earlier. 12 years of hijackings from Castro to Cooper and no ransoms, but Paul Cini shows up and 12 days later you get D.B. Cooper. Not a coincidence. Cooper read Cini's headline and said, "I know how to do that better." I have always believed that.

Cini was born in Scotland and British a citizen, not Canadian but lived in Canada and tried to immigrate to the US. He was briefly in the US military.

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"This, he convinced the crew, was a bomb that would explode if the two wires held gingerly much of the time by Mary Dohey touched."


"When he received his immigration papers in 1964, he moved in with relatives in New Jersey and went to work cleaning rollers in a printing shop. But his draft notice soon came and he scooted back to Calgary. There, he got a truck-driving job and fell in with a gang of car thieves. They paid him to deliver stolen cars and indulge his passion for driving the sleek, expensive models his father had always helped him buy. But after one such delivery there was an argument over Cini's fee. So instead of handing over the car, he changed the serial numbers and traded it in on a new model. He botched the job, however, and when he heard the police were on his track he ran back to the U.S. In a pub in Spokane he got drinking with an army sergeant who persuaded him he could join up without going to Vietnam. Cini took the oath ("I was under the influence") and found himself in a boot camp an infantryman who hated guns. "The noise bothered me I was scared to death." He escaped the guns at his next base by qualifying for the communications corps. But he froze with fear halfway up his first telephone pole. By now, however, he was carrying vodka in his water canteen and he managed to forget his terror of heights long enough to volunteer for the Green Berets because he wanted to stay with some pals who were joining the crack parachute regiment. To his secret relief, a hearing impairment disqualified him. Convinced now that he didn't belong in the army, Cini tried to talk his way out, arguing that he hadn't been sober when he signed up. When that didn't work, he stole a car and drove to the Canadian border."