no thought whatever!
If so then I hope he played the lottery that week, for if he did he'd have surely won, and we'd have an easy solve.... For those odds that he got away as a whimsical heist, are astronomical.
#dicecursesmcsorleyforgeorger
There is no valid reason to believe that Cooper got away with anything. Just because he fell through the cracks and his body was never located, does not mean that he got away. And the $5800+ found at Tina Bar definitely means that Cooper didn't get away with that money.
When Cooper handed the hijack note to Flo, he knew that he was setting himself up for a night parachute jump even if everything went well (and it apparently did at least to the point where he jumped, there are different opinions of what happened after that). He was pressing his luck about NWA being able to come up with $200,000 cash by his 5:00 PM deadline on the eve of a National Holiday.
Cooper was poorly dressed for the jump. He apparently knew enough about emergency type parachutes to be able to put it on without help. He apparently did not know enough about skydiving to make certain that he was getting compatible main and reserve parachutes.
Cooper did know something unusual about the Boeing 727, that is that the rear stairs could be lowered in flight. But he did not know how to operate the stairs and had trouble doing so even after Tina showed him how to do it. And the fact that the aft stairs could be lowered in flight was not common knowledge, but how Cooper knew this is unknown.
Cooper also knew 727 flap settings and airspeeds for 10,000 feet, with the landing gear down. This type of information would have to come from a 727 flight crew member or a 727 performance flight manual.
Cooper apparently routinely carried a pocket knife. That pocket knife was the only resource on that airplane capable of cutting the shroud lines of one of the reserve chutes in a reasonably fast time. There was no cutlery, emergency axes, or anything else on the airplane that he could have used.
The pocket knife and the stews description of Cooper's physical condition, suggests to me that Cooper was employed in a "trade" rather that "executive" position. If the clip-on tie belonged to Cooper, it would also argue for a "trade" rather than "executive" position. And everything that Tom Kaye found on the tie also argues for a "trade".
Cooper was not a master criminal and did not get away with the crime of the century. In all probability, Cooper was dead within one minute of his separation from the airliner.
