Bill Rataczak, his remarks at the Northwest Reunion, 2009
I thought this clip from a Northwest newsletter might be of interest. It came to me today from Bill Rollins:
Capt. Bill Rataczak, C0-Pilot on that Fateful Flight, Delivers First-Hand Report
to NWAHC Audience
Hijacked!
D. B. Cooper Revisited
Does anybody not know who D. B. Cooper is? That nefarious villain who hijacked a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727-100, received $200,000 for his effort, and parachuted into a freezing night sky over southwestern Washington state on Nov. 24, 1971, never to be seen or heard from again.
It’s been more than four decades, now. He’s been glorified in poems, ballads and rock songs and has been the subject, or partial subject, of 22 books. To many, despite his grim deed, he is an American folk hero. On Sept. 8 a packed house at the Northwest Airlines History Centre got a brilliant first hand report on the Cooper saga from a man who lived it, retired Northwest Airlines Capt. Bill Rataczak, co-pilot on that fateful Thanksgiving-eve flight. Details of the Cooper flight are well known; but a brief summary on page nine recounts the story.
Here are a few little-known-facts Rataczak provided to his audience, often spiced with a bit of wry humor.
✈For the most part Cooper was a cool customer. He was a chain smoker, though. Raleighs were his brand. He had one cocktail.
✈President Nyrop rightly agreed with our insistence that any and all decisions were to be handled exclusively by our three-man flight crew. No interference from outside agencies. “The safety of the passengers came first and they were our passengers. Everybody’s job, on the ground or in the air, was to protect our crew and passengers and keep that airplane in one piece,” says Rataczak. “And we did that.”
✈Second Officer Anderson began monitoring the refueling, and it was soon obvious that ground personnel were delaying the process (probably on the F.B.I.’s orders, despite Mr. Nyrop’s directive not to intervene). Andy challenged the crew via his interphone and was told the truck was vapor locked. A second truck pumped only 300 of the 4,500 gallons we required. Andy ordered a third truck, which the ground crew claimed was vapor locked also. F/O Rataczak got on the interphone and told them in no uncertain terms to quit playing games. They finally cooperated and pumped the full 4,500 gallons.
✈The FBI says Cooper had a real bomb: eight sticks of dynamite with wires, batteries, etc. He
apparently threw it out when he jumped. No sign of the bomb was found by authorities in Reno.
✈We had to hold over Seattle while Cooper’s demands were being met. What to tell the
passengers? There’s a man sitting back there with you who has a bomb? No, we said we had a minor maintenance problem and asked them to please remain in their seats.
✈At 10,000 feet out of Seattle there was a cloud layer, causing icing to occur on the aircraft. We were flying what we call a “dirty airplane” with flaps and gear down. We were unpressurized. We had another problem besides Cooper. Icing.
✈ During our descent into Reno, we made a P.A. to Cooper (if he was still there) that the stairs
needed to be raised for landing so they would not be damaged, which could prevent a subsequent takeoff.
✈The crew didn’t see Cooper jump nor did anybody, apparently, in the chase planes. Where he
attempted to open the parachute would have had a bearing on where he landed. If he pulled it quickly he would have floated quite a ways. A late pull or no pull at all would have taken him straight down.
✈There’s been a lot of talk, some recently, about former purser Ken Christiansen being D. B. Cooper. He was fully vetted by the F.B.I., who determined he was not a person of interest.
✈Cooper offered Stewardess Tina Mucklow a packet of $20 bills before leaving. She declined.
✈At least two bodies have been recovered in the Cooper search area, neither of them is our man.
✈Each year, the day before Thanksgiving, the little bar/filling station town of Ariel, Wash., in Cooper territory, holds a Cooper celebration. “It would be fun to visit Ariel, then, incognito, and take it all in,” Rataczak says. “I might do that one of these years.”
Rataczak strongly opposes the folk hero moniker. “No way. He was a criminal, one of the worst kind. He was a hijacker and a thief and he endangered the lives of innocent people. There’s nothing heroic about that.”
Nonetheless, the unsolved Cooper story remains a fascinating episode, perhaps the most notorious crime in commercial aviation history.
“I agree with my good friend, FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who bird-dogged the Cooper case for many years,” Rataczak says. “I don’t think he made it out alive. I think he’s down there in the blackberry brambles someplace.”
Perhaps we’ll never know. Or we might know tomorrow. ✈
Flight 305, a Boeing 7 2 7 - 100, l e f t Minneapolis-St. Paul the morning of November 24, 1971. Destination Seattle via Great Falls and Missoula, Mont., Spokane, Wash. and Portland, Ore.
Its six-person crew included Capt. Bill Scott, First Officer Bill Rataczak, Second Officer Harold
Anderson and Stewardesses Flo Schaffner, Alice Hancock and Tina Mucklow.
Thirty-six passengers were aboard (some reports say 35) when it left Portland for its 36-minute bounce to Seattle, ETA 5:46 p.m. Pacific time. A well-dressed man with a briefcase sat in the back row of the tourist section. He wore dark glasses. After takeoff he handed Stewardess Flo Schaffner a note. She pocketed it. Probably another mash note, she thought. Later the passenger insisted, “Miss, I want you to read that note,” he said. “Read it now.” The terse message: he had a bomb in his case. He would blow the plane up unless $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes were awaiting him in Seattle. President Nyrop immediately authorized withdrawal of the money from a Seattle bank.
Parachutes were obtained from McCord Air Force Base, 20 miles south of Seattle. Loot aboard, Cooper released the passengers along with Stewardesses Schaffner and Hancock. The plane was refueled and Cooper directed the crew to Mexico.
His instructions: Cruise at ten thousand feet. Gear down. Flaps 15 degrees. About 24 minutes out, 28 miles north of Portland, the second officer’s annunciator panel indicated that the rear stairs had been lowered. The crew did not know for sure that their hijacker had jumped until they landed in Reno. D. B. Cooper was never seen again. ✈
NWA 305 Earned Legendary Status on 11/24/71
NWA History Centre Reflections
Update: Capt. Bill Rataczak
A Minneapolitan, Bill was brought up in the shadow of Wold-Chamberlain Field, now Twin Cities International Airport. He graduated from Roosevelt High School, then the University of Minnesota, where he majored in international relations and economics with a year-and-a-half of engineering for good measure. How did he find time to be a varsity cheerleader for football, basketball and hockey?
Bill’s first Northwest school-time job was washing casserole dishes at Northwest’s food service
kitchen. “A tough job,” Bill says. He moved up to polishing airplanes and finally that Big Promotion, to baggage smasher.
“One day my crew chief said ‘Mr. Ebert wants to see you.’ Bob Ebert. I thought uh oh, what have I done? Bob Ebert was Northwest’s V. P. of Personnel. To make a long story short I went to work for Larry Stewart, V.P. of Northwest’s Economic Planning. There was the possibility of a pretty good job there when I graduated, but I decided I wanted to fly.” Bill joined Northwest’s pilot ranks in June 1966. He flew the Lockheed Electra (“I loved that airplane”), the 727, 707 and the DC-10 and was one of Northwest’s first 757 captains. Home is now with his wife Judy, in South Haven, Minnesota near the Twin Cities.
Bill’s resume also shows six-and-one-half years with the United States Air Force including reserve time. His dad, John Rataczak, was a Northwest crew chief for more than 38 years. From February 1942 to June 1999, for more than 57 years, there was a Rataczak on Northwest’s payroll, of which Bill is rightfully proud. ✈
Update F/A Tina Mucklow
Stewardess Tina Mucklow had the unenviable job of sitting with D. B. Cooper in the
727’s empty cabin, relaying his commands up front, as Capt. Bill Scott, Rataczak and Second Officer Harold Anderson guided their plane southward from Seattle.
“She flew a couple of more years,” Rataczak recalls, and then she entered a Roman Catholic
convent of cloistered Carmelite nuns in Oregon. I tried to contact her there without success. After she left the convent years later, I tracked her down. “I talk with her now and then but seldom about the Cooper episode. That’s a closed book. I know where she lives but I gave her my word I’d never tell.
“She was terrific on that flight. She never lost her composure. She is a wonderful lady.” ✈
