The FBI Gear Up
My take on the FBI's actions immediately following the skyjacking. If I missed anything, please let me know. Thanks.
Chapter 7
The FBI Gear-Up
Although the skyjacking began in Portland, overall case management was given to the Seattle Field Office (FO) because it had the most interaction with Cooper. As a result, Seattle is the “Office of Origin” for Norjak.
On the night of the skyjacking, the FBI had to first orchestrate the procurement of the parachutes and ransom money; then they had to secure the airport and debrief the passengers. Subsequently, they had to track the plane, and later launch the ground and aerial search. To accomplish those tasks, they mobilized their entire office of about thirty agents.
Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Seattle FO, J. Earl Milnes, a 30-year vet of the FBI, lead the Bureau’s effort at Sea-Tac. Later, the Norjak case agent, Charlie Farrell, teamed with three-year veteran John Detlor and another Seattle agent, Don Steele, to spearhead the Cooper task force. In addition, they utilized a number of temporary squads to conduct aspects of the investigation, such as interviewing skydivers, Special Forces commandos, or airport personnel.
As DB Cooper flew southwards, Portland FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach and another agent jumped aboard a Chinook helicopter at PDX and attempted to intercept Flight 305 as it passed over Portland. Their intention was to spot Cooper bailing from the aircraft and apprehend him on the ground. However, they were unable to catch up with the 727.
At the same time, Las Vegas, Nevada SAC Red Campbell and two of his agents boarded a jet and flew to Reno to rendezvous with 305, arriving just two hours before Cooper did. Campbell took charge of the overall law enforcement operation at Reno that night, combining forces with several FBI agents from the Reno “Resident Agency,” (RA) and dozens of officers from local police departments, most notably the Reno PD.
The next day - Thanksgiving Day - SA Tom Manning of the Woodland, WA RA began establishing his command post at the Woodland City Hall, and later through the holiday weekend orchestrated the search air and ground efforts of about two dozen local police officers and five helicopters. In the meantime, Portland’s Ralph Himmelsbach flew his private airplane over the Woodland-Amboy area, looking for Cooper and a parachute.
At the same time, a purported second fingerprinting effort was conducted aboard Flight 305 by Seattle FBI agents at Sea-Tac when the plane returned from Reno for repairs. Allegedly, they found a viable fingerprint on a magazine.
In addition, agents from Portland descended upon PDX and interviewed airport personnel, waitresses, bus drivers and cabbies, and employees of local motels.
Then on Friday, November 26, Tom McDowell, the deputy chief of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, headed about twenty deputies and volunteers on the ground search in Amboy, WA. McDowell told me that he had “a couple” of FBI agents nearby that he could call upon if they found any solid evidence, but most agents were at PDX interviewing airport staff, hotel clerks, and transportation personnel, looking for leads on Cooper’s identity or details on his travel or lodging.
The aerial and ground searches throughout the weekend were hampered by fog, rain, and cold and were terminated on Monday, November 29 without any physical evidence being retrieved.
On Tuesday, November 30, the FBI launched an aerial surveillance of the entire flight path, from Sea-Tac to Reno. In his book, NORJAK, Ralph Himmelsbach delivers a fascinating account of his sojourn over the northern quadrant of V-23 in Oregon. Again, nothing was found except a stray wet tarp located near Roseburg, Oregon.
Within days, teams of FBI agents began scouring the woodsheds, barns, and out-buildings of the Amboy-Ariel area, and conducted comprehensive operations there for at least two weeks.
At the same time, several newspapers began receiving letters from “DB Cooper” and passed them on to the FBI, who began investigating them. One letter led the FBI to post it in the Billings Gazette in Montana to flush out any accomplices of Paul Cini, a near copy-cat of DB Cooper who had hijacked an Air Canada DC 8 in early November in Calgary.
During the winter months the hunt for DB Cooper went nationwide, with numerous middle-aged Caucasian males named “Dan Cooper” receiving visits from inquiring federal agents regardless of where they lived. As a result, guys ranging from Cleveland to Orlando were asked about their Thanksgiving festivities or lack thereof.
In March 1972, Charlie Farrell assembled a huge search team to re-visit the woods of Amboy. Dozen of FBI agents and 200 soldiers from Fort Lewis, located near Tacoma. They camped on the shores of Lake Merwin adjacent to the dam, and spent two weeks swarming the surrounding countryside. Inclement weather forced a postponement until April, when another two weeks search re-commenced. Again, nothing pertaining to DB Cooper was found, but several other criminal cases were aided as the bodies of two missing women were discovered separately.
The soldiers also put the nearby Ariel Store into Cooper World folklore as they christened the tavern as the official watering hole of the DB Cooper investigation. Annual parties followed.
After April 1972 the search for DB Cooper became one of office-based organizational sleuthing. The ground searches were over. The aerial searches were abandoned, and few interrogations of airport or hostelry personnel were conducted. Occasionally, squads of agents left Seattle to interview troopers returning from Vietnam who had Special Forces training akin to Cooper’s skills. In addition, the dozen or so Cooper copycats that followed through the months of 1972 had to be assessed.
But by mid-1972 the Bureau had to dig deeper into the case to find investigatory threads to examine. Their perspectives, decisions and actions over the next few years follow in the next chapter.