Yeah, that would be great. I think you have my email from when I joined, you can give him that. (It's the same name at gmail)

Sent an email to Jeff..also going to reach out to the Historical society and see if we can get approval.

Update..scratch the historical society. they are still closed..

Not me. We just have Flo's report, as far as I know. Please keep us informed on this matter.

The chutes....

Something is wrong somewhere. when you look at doc1 below you see the description of what appears to be the chute taken. they use the term used. the first chute is close to Haydens chute we see at the museum. the problem is the color is backwards. the harness is "sage green" or green and the container is tan. it lists the canopy at 28' where the one we know is 26'. the document also has another chute listed as a model T-7a which is a reserve or front chute with Norm D inscribed. this could be the dummy chute.

Below is taken from a 302 describing Hayden's chutes again..

1.  Civilian luxury type, tan soft cotton material outside, 26 foot while canopy inside.  The parachute inside is a military parachute.  The parachute has a  foam pad cushion and a fray mark down the rib on the back from rubbing on metal.

 2.  A military backpack parachute, standard olive drab green on outside, a 28 foot white canopy on inside.  He (Norman Hayden) stated that this parachute also has a foam pad cushion.

Doc2 below, is a portion of a list of things removed from the plane and listed as evidence. they list the chutes by letters (E and F) something skews between the two pieces of evidence. the underlined portions of evidence F give complete details of size, serial numbers, color, packing dates etc. probably because it was open. the bottom portion tells of it being found on the plane in the open position.

Evidence E should be written the same as F, but it's not. the underlined portion describes Hayen's chute to what we see and know about the chute. also, take note how the FBI misread the packing card as if it was one line off from where the writing should have been, type 226, S/N 9/57 Instead of stating it was found on the plane it appears to describe another chute but this chute is not marked as evidence. evidence F both paragraphs makes sense. E does not. actually, it does state it was found on the plane..

Is it possible Cooper never took the front chute at all since he had no way to attach them. why wouldn't he throw both chutes out if he didn't use them? there is a newspaper report of three chutes on the plane? most of the time you can't trust newspapers..

More confusion:

Hayden said that he never talked to the FBI about the parachutes, other than to sue them for the return of the not-taken parachute.

He told me that he had no idea how the FBI got the information they used in the above docs. Further, when I read the docs out-loud to him, he scowled with distain at how the feds could get it so wrong and attach his name to it all.

Fly has asked me to send him all the pix I took of Normand and his parachute to see if there are any more markings. I'll do that tomorrow and let y'all know if I find anything interesting.

I remember this photo from a while back showing Hayden's chute at the museum. you can read what appears to be USAF or possibly "seat" on the harness. also, something round is protruding out of the container. is this part of the pilot chute?

The mismatch of serial numbers and canopy sizes come from somewhere. this has been a nightmare for years. the records don't indicate more than 4 chutes but we never know. where would 60-9707 come from...it's not close to anything..

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I take it Hayden spoke to NWO when he gave them the chutes? It would have to be someone he spoke with before giving them the chutes.

I asked Nancy from the historical society to look all over the container for any markings. can anyone here tell if anything is marked, stamped, sewn on the inside of the flap for the packing card? I believe R99 and Eric both have back chutes..can more than one location be found with markings..

I believe it is FlyJack who has posted within the last few days what Hayden's actions were in connection with the parachutes.  According to the documents FJ posted, NWA personnel at SEATAC got in touch with Pacific Airmotive (or some such organization) at Boeing Field in an effort to obtain parachutes.  Hayden may have kept his airplane at Boeing Field but in any event those people knew him and knew that he had two back packs. 

The people at Boeing Field got in touch with Hayden and he put his two back packs in a taxi cab which delivered them to the people at Boeing Field.  How they got from Boeing Field to SEATAC is not documented anywhere that I am aware of.

And of course the reserves were delivered to SEATAC by the Washington State Police as is well documented.

These four parachutes are the only ones involved in the hijacking.  No parachutes came from McChord AFB despite a story stating that they were enroute from there. 

Cossey did not have anything to do with getting parachutes to SEATAC, and apparently didn't even learn of the hijacking until it was all over, even if he packed all of them.  There is FBI documentation that they were still trying to contact Cossey in the early morning hours of November 25th (Thanksgiving Day).

Several years ago, I obtained some parachute equipment from Ralph Hartley, who runs an operation just south of Portland.  He told me that Cooper jumped with an NB-6 parachute and described the canopy perfectly.  The NB-6 canopy has some extremely unique features and Hartley knew them all.

I owned an NB-6 rig until late 1971 and used it as emergency parachute when flying civilian aircraft.  I bought a NB-6 harness from Hartley and an NB-6 container from another source.  I have posted on this before but will take another look at them and then post again.

But again, there were only four parachutes involved in the hijacking, not six or, heaven forbid, eight.  Let's drive a silver spike through the heart of these wild stories.

I haven't seen the exact FBI docs that FJ may be referring to, but I'd like to add some information to put some balance in this discussion.

Based upon all of the conversations I had with principals in the parachute saga, there were two informational streams developed by Northwest Orient to get the needed chutes: George Harrison, the Chief of Flight ops at Sea-Tac, and Al Lee, the Chief of ground ops. These resulted in two delivery streams - Cossey and Hayden.

Al Lee called Cossey at home on Wednesday afternoon, according to Cossey. From that call, Cossey shipped his two back chutes: a sage green military NB-Something, and a tan-colored luxury civilian chute that has been called many names: Pioneer, Paradise, and Para-commander over the years, as Cossey, Sluggo, and others have contributed all these names.

Instead of sending these chutes to Sea-Tac (ST), Cossey sent them via taxi to Boeing Field (BF) for unknown reasons, and when asked why he sent them to BF instead of ST, he became hostile. Also unexplained is how the chutes traveled from Boeing Field to Sea-Tac, a distance of about ten miles. Cossey has said that they were delivered by a private car, but no names of the driver(s) have ever been released publicly as far as I know.

As for George Harrison, he first contacted Barry Halstad, a salesman at Pacific Aviation, which may have had an office at Boeing Field since Pac Av sold airplanes and gear, such as parachutes. Norman Hayden was one of their customers, and Halstad suggested Harrison call Hayden directly and ask for Norman's back chutes. Initial communications between these three were garbled, but eventually Norman sent his two chutes via taxi from his machine shop in Renton where he stored them directly to George Harrison at Sea-Tac, c/o the NWO freight desk. According to Hayden, they were two, identical Pioneer/Steinthauls.

As far as I know, Norman Hayden did not keep his airplane at Boeing Field. Rather, he flew out of Renton Airpark, which was close to his home.

The only FBI documentation that I have seen on this timeline puts the Bureau's first contact with Cossey on Friday morning, Nov, 26, when Cossey "appeared" in the Seattle Field Office. Afterwards, Coss became quickly enmeshed in the Norjak saga, and was eventually hired by the FBI as a consulting expert on the parachutes.

As for Ralph Hatley, (aka Ralph Hartley, apparently), I interviewed him at his DZ in Oregon in about 2014 or so. Sailshaw and Mrs. Sailshaw came along, too, and we all had lunch together, which Sail graciously paid for. Ralph and I spoke at length. Ralph never mentioned that he knew Cooper jumped with an NB-6 or any other military chute.

What Ralph did talk about at length was Coss. He considered Cossey a good friend, but our conversation revealed that they hadn't seen each other for many years. In fact, it is my understanding that Ralph did not know Cossey had been murdered the year before. However, the two men had been fierce competitors in skydiving competitions back in the day, and that was when their relationship was strongest.

Ralph was also surprised that Cossey had been declaring publicly that Cooper died in the jump. In fact, Ralph was aghast. "Everyone knew Cooper made it!" he told us. Further, Ralph seemed very disappointed to learn that Coss had been supporting the FBI's public narrative on Cooper's whuffo status.

Ralph also informed me of Cossey's many alleged ethical lapses, which I discuss in my book along with tales from his alleged gambling buddies.

That's what I know.