With the Highline Historical Society's D.B. Cooper exhibit currently on display at SeaTac City Hall, many Highline residents are reminiscing about Cooper's daring skyjacking 39 years ago.

The day before Thanksgiving, on Nov. 24, 1971 Northwest Airlines Flight 305 was racing down the runway on route from Portland to Sea-Tac International Airport.

A man wearing sunglasses and a suit passed a note to a flight attendant stating he had a bomb and would blow up the plane if he was not given $200,000 in cash and four parachutes when the plane landed.

In addition to his demands for the cash and parachutes, he also ordered the pilots to then fly to Mexico. He let all 36 passengers off at Sea-Tac, and the plane took off again.

The man then walked down the rear stairs of the plane, according to investigators, and parachuted his way into infamy. "D.B. Cooper" came to be the most notorious skyjacker in American history; and he was never found dead or alive.

Ken Wilson and Loren Peterson, Northwest Airlines retirees, were both very involved in the entire ordeal and have colorful stories to tell.
Wilson was the man who fueled the airplane before it took off from Sea-Tac Airport.

"He wouldn't let anyone around the plane," say Wilson. "I was one of three people allowed."

Wilson has his own theory on where the skyjacker escaped. He believes it was at a place nowhere near where investigators think.

"In my own mind," says Wilson, "I think he was a military person from McChord."

Wilson says there is no way a person could have done what he did without knowing what he was doing.

"He was wearing street shoes," says Wilson. "He would have had to know exactly how to land or he would have broken both of his ankles."
Another theory Wilson has is that the location investigators think Cooper jumped is incorrect. He says the plane took off south, flying over Des Moines, water, Tacoma, more water and over McChord Air Force Base.

"I think he got off at McChord," Wilson declared.

Wilson believes Cooper knew exactly what he was doing, and that maybe he had even been a Boeing employee at some point.

He says he knew about as much or maybe more about that plane than many Boeing employees.

Also, one of the parachutes he was given was faulty and that was the one he left behind.

Loren Peterson was chief in air freight during the time of the skyjacking; he was also the one who put the money in the bag after it was collected from, what he says, was the Federal Reserve Bank.

"They say it was gathered from several banks, but that's not true," says Peterson.

The FBI showed up at air freight, Peterson says. "And what a bunch of characters," he says.

Peterson described an FBI agent who looked like "something out of a cartoon." The man had a pencil-thin mustache and slicked back, dark hair. "He looked like a gambler out of Monte Carlo!"

Another FBI agent was a large man who kept looking at the pistol in his hand; Peterson says this man wanted to go shoot a hole in the plane and catch Cooper that way.

There was also a smaller man who Peterson says was "doo-whopping" and punched the other after saying he thought they had "messed up."

Peterson says another FBI agent, wearing a tan trench coat, had the money in his possession but was not sure what to do with it.

"I'll take it," Peterson says he told the agent.

"I put the money into one of the brand new Northwest flight bags," says Peterson. "Those are the bags the pilots carry."

He tied it with rope and says he swears he put $250,000 in it, not $200,000 like the FBI says.

The money, he says, was placed on the steps by Joe Mays, who was then the manager of air freight, according to Ken Wilson.

"He also wanted four box lunches," says Peterson.

He says he then went to the kitchen and picked up four box lunches, which he says Cooper took with him.

"That is a fact they don't ever mention."

After all this, Peterson says he and some others went back to the hanger.

"We went to the hanger and listened to what was going on, on the radio in a plane that was in the hanger."

He says when the plane reached the Columbia River it cut out.

"Kenny's theory is something we argue about all the time," Peterson exclaims with a chuckle. "I think Cooper got tangled up in the chords of the parachute and down he went."

"Look for the four box lunches!"

Peterson says no one has ever come to ask him about that day, including the FBI.

All that was found of D.B. Cooper was $50,000 washed up on the shore of the Columbia River.

The D.B. Cooper exhibit at SeaTac City Hall, 4800 S. 188th St. is open from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m., Mondays- Fridays through Nov. 30.