hundreds of airline officials and cops and agents whose Thanksgiving was ruined, and who later spent tens of thousands of hours hunting Cooper down? In one interview, Himmelsbach called the hijacker “nothing but a rotten sleazy bastard.”
The sun is out. Himmelsbach hears the distant buzz of an engine. He squints up and the sun beams off his blue eyes like flashes of light against the bottom of a swimming pool.
“AT-6 Texan,” he says of the plane. “A North American AT-6.”
Despite his age, there is an exactness to Himmelsbach, a German-reared thoroughness and competency that only enhances his credentials as the official granddaddy of the Cooper case. Before we start talking, Himmelsbach has ground rules.
No problem. Fire away.
There is one fact that he wants to make sure I understand.
“I was not and I am not obsessed with the Cooper case,” he says.
His eyes gaze over me.
Got it. Not obsessed.
I ask him what he remembers about the hunt. I want to know about the first morning.
November 25, 1971
West Linn, Oregon
It is dawn. His wife is a bundle under the black and orange silk sheets of their bed, the same bundle as when he came home late from the airport the night before. Ralph Himmelsbach puts on jeans, a shirt, his leather bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, and drives to the hangar.
The sky is wet. The air is cold. Snow today. Snow any minute. Better get up before he gets socked in, he thinks.
His airplane is a single-engine, recreational Taylorcraft. He flies over the Willamette Valley and crosses Vector 23, the flight path of the hijacked plane. He buzzes the treelines of vast areas of remote timber, the streams and lakes and crags that form the border of the Dark Divide.
Himmelsbach flies a grid. Seven miles one way, seven miles back. Back and back again. Where did the hijacker bail out? He must be in these woods somewhere. But where?
The agent squints down into the trees. He looks for a plume of smoke from a campfire, a snare of parachute, a pool of blood.
Back and back and back again. Whoever Dan Cooper is, Himmelsbach is confident he and his fellow Bureau agents will find him. The skyjacker will test the agency. He will prove how good J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI really is.
Within the Bureau, the Cooper hijacking is given a name: NORJAK. At headquarters in Washington, senior agents are processing the microfilm that contains the serial numbers to every twenty-dollar bill the hijacker was given. The numbers will be printed in a booklet and released to the public. Field offices in Portland, Reno, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and throughout the Pacific Northwest have been asked to investigate and submit daily NORJAK updates to headquarters via teletype.
In Seattle, agents re-interview witnesses. They need to know what the hijacker looked like, so Bureau artists can create a sketch.
About how old was he?
George Labissoniere, the truck driver’s lawyer, says he had a clear view of the hijacker because he went to the bathroom so many times during the flight.
He was no older than thirty-five, Labissoniere tells the feds.
He was about fifty, Cord Zrim Spreckel, the printer, tells agents. Spreckel had a good look at the hijacker too. The man looked so suspicious. Why was he wearing sunglasses?
And what kind of facial features?
He had a square jaw, Spreckel says.
He had a saggy chin, Bill Mitchell, the college sophomore, says.
The details are conflicting. Other than stewardess Tina Mucklow, the only witness who was in close proximity to the hijacker is stewardess Florence Schaffner. Flo tells the feds she saw the hijacker without his sunglasses. She was the only one to see Cooper’s eyes. What color were they?
“Brown,” she says.
And about how old was he?
“Mid-forties,” she says.
Tina Mucklow agrees. But Cooper is shorter than what Flo thinks. Tina pegs the hijacker to be between five foot ten and six feet tall.
Flo says six feet tall, no shorter. And his hair was black, just like his
The sun is out. Himmelsbach hears the distant buzz of an engine. He squints up and the sun beams off his blue eyes like flashes of light against the bottom of a swimming pool.
“AT-6 Texan,” he says of the plane. “A North American AT-6.”
Despite his age, there is an exactness to Himmelsbach, a German-reared thoroughness and competency that only enhances his credentials as the official granddaddy of the Cooper case. Before we start talking, Himmelsbach has ground rules.
No problem. Fire away.
There is one fact that he wants to make sure I understand.
“I was not and I am not obsessed with the Cooper case,” he says.
His eyes gaze over me.
Got it. Not obsessed.
I ask him what he remembers about the hunt. I want to know about the first morning.
November 25, 1971
West Linn, Oregon
It is dawn. His wife is a bundle under the black and orange silk sheets of their bed, the same bundle as when he came home late from the airport the night before. Ralph Himmelsbach puts on jeans, a shirt, his leather bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, and drives to the hangar.
The sky is wet. The air is cold. Snow today. Snow any minute. Better get up before he gets socked in, he thinks.
His airplane is a single-engine, recreational Taylorcraft. He flies over the Willamette Valley and crosses Vector 23, the flight path of the hijacked plane. He buzzes the treelines of vast areas of remote timber, the streams and lakes and crags that form the border of the Dark Divide.
Himmelsbach flies a grid. Seven miles one way, seven miles back. Back and back again. Where did the hijacker bail out? He must be in these woods somewhere. But where?
The agent squints down into the trees. He looks for a plume of smoke from a campfire, a snare of parachute, a pool of blood.
Back and back and back again. Whoever Dan Cooper is, Himmelsbach is confident he and his fellow Bureau agents will find him. The skyjacker will test the agency. He will prove how good J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI really is.
Within the Bureau, the Cooper hijacking is given a name: NORJAK. At headquarters in Washington, senior agents are processing the microfilm that contains the serial numbers to every twenty-dollar bill the hijacker was given. The numbers will be printed in a booklet and released to the public. Field offices in Portland, Reno, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and throughout the Pacific Northwest have been asked to investigate and submit daily NORJAK updates to headquarters via teletype.
In Seattle, agents re-interview witnesses. They need to know what the hijacker looked like, so Bureau artists can create a sketch.
About how old was he?
George Labissoniere, the truck driver’s lawyer, says he had a clear view of the hijacker because he went to the bathroom so many times during the flight.
He was no older than thirty-five, Labissoniere tells the feds.
He was about fifty, Cord Zrim Spreckel, the printer, tells agents. Spreckel had a good look at the hijacker too. The man looked so suspicious. Why was he wearing sunglasses?
And what kind of facial features?
He had a square jaw, Spreckel says.
He had a saggy chin, Bill Mitchell, the college sophomore, says.
The details are conflicting. Other than stewardess Tina Mucklow, the only witness who was in close proximity to the hijacker is stewardess Florence Schaffner. Flo tells the feds she saw the hijacker without his sunglasses. She was the only one to see Cooper’s eyes. What color were they?
“Brown,” she says.
And about how old was he?
“Mid-forties,” she says.
Tina Mucklow agrees. But Cooper is shorter than what Flo thinks. Tina pegs the hijacker to be between five foot ten and six feet tall.
Flo says six feet tall, no shorter. And his hair was black, just like his
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