Линкольн Чайлд: Bloodless

Wednesday, November 24, 1971

Flo Schaffner was not at all happy with the new uniform that Northwest Orient Airlines had imposed on stewardesses, especially the dumb cap with a bill and earflaps that made her look like Donald Duck. Nevertheless, she stood at the door of Flight 305 — Portland to Seattle — with a bright smile, greeting arriving passengers and checking their tickets. She was not displeased at the relatively small number of passengers on the flight; she’d thought it would be full, this being the day before Thanksgiving. But today only about a third of the main cabin was occupied, which in her experience meant a stress-free flight.

As people began to settle into their seats, she and the other stewardess, Tina Mucklow, began moving from opposite ends of the main cabin, taking drink orders. Schaffner took the rear. One of her first customers was in seat 18C of the Boeing 727: a polite, soft-spoken gentleman of early middle age, wearing a raincoat, a gray business suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. She knew his name; one of her responsibilities in checking tickets was to try to memorize the names of all the passengers and their seat assignments. It was usually impossible, but with the plane as empty as it was, today she had managed it.

“Can I get you anything to drink, Mr. Cooper?”

He politely asked her for a bourbon and Seven. When she brought it, he handed her a twenty.

“Anything smaller?”

“Nope.”

She told him he’d have to wait until later for her to get him change.

The pilot, William Scott, whom everyone called Scotty, announced over the intercom for the stewardesses to secure the exits and prepare for takeoff. Schaffner raised the aft stairway and then settled in a jump seat next to it, not far from the passenger in 18C. The flight took off precisely on time, at 2:50 PM, for the thirty-minute hop to Seattle.

As the plane was leveling out and the seat belt signs were turned off, the passenger in 18C signaled to her. She came over, assuming he wanted another drink, but instead he placed an envelope in her hand. This was something that often happened to Schaffner: a lonely traveler writing her a note asking to meet for a drink, dinner, or something more. She had learned that the best way to handle such approaches was simply not to engage. She thanked the passenger warmly and slipped the envelope into her pocket, unread.

The man leaned toward her with a friendly smile and whispered, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”

Schaffner wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. She removed the envelope and took out the note. It was printed in felt-tipped pen in precise capital letters, and it did indeed say he had a bomb, and that as long as everyone cooperated nothing bad would happen.

“Please sit down next to me,” he said, taking the note back from her and putting it in his shirt pocket. She did as told, and he unlatched the briefcase in his lap and lifted the lid a few inches. Inside, she could see a bundle of red cylinders with wires attached, nestled next to a large battery.

He shut the briefcase and put on a pair of dark glasses. “Take this down.”

Taking out her pen, she wrote down a series of instructions.

“Relay that to the cockpit,” he said.

Schaffner rose, walked down the aisle, and went into the cockpit. Closing the door behind her, she told the pilot the plane was being hijacked by a man with a bomb. Then, reading from the envelope, she recited the list of his demands.

“Does he really have a bomb?” Scotty asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I saw it. It looked real.”

“Oh, boy.” Scotty called Northwest Orient flight operations in Minnesota. His words were summarized in a teletype.

PASSENGER HAS ADVISED THIS IS A HIJACKING. EN ROUTE TO SEATTLE. THE STEW HAS BEEN HANDED A NOTE. HE REQUESTS $200,000 IN A KNAPSACK BY 5:00 PM. HE WANTS TWO BACK PARACHUTES, TWO FRONT PARACHUTES. HE WANTS THE MONEY IN NEGOTIABLE AMERICAN CURRENCY. DENOMINATION OF THE BILLS IS NOT IMPORTANT. HAS A BOMB IN BRIEFCASE AND WILL USE IT IF ANYTHING IS DONE TO BLOCK HIS REQUEST.

The hijacker also requested that a fuel truck be waiting on the tarmac at Sea-Tac airport, to refuel the plane for a new journey to be specified later. And he demanded that a flight engineer board the plane for the next leg of the journey.

He didn’t say why.

In the cockpit of Flight 305, Scotty and copilot Bill Rataczak discussed how to handle the situation. So far, the passengers had no idea the plane was being hijacked — and Scotty wanted to keep it that way.

After the call to Minnesota, Northwest Orient flight operations had contacted Don Nyrop, the airline’s president, as well as the FBI. The FBI wanted to storm the plane, but Nyrop said he preferred to cooperate with the hijacker, that the airline had insurance and would pay the ransom. The FBI reluctantly agreed. But it would take time for the hijacker’s demands to be met.

In the meantime, the 727 had reached Tacoma and begun to circle. The FBI and the airline scrambled to pull together the ransom and parachutes.

Scotty got on the intercom and told the passengers that the plane was experiencing a minor mechanical problem, there was no need for concern, and that they would be landing in an hour or so. Meanwhile, in the back of the plane, the hijacker, Dan Cooper, had been chain-smoking. He offered a cigarette to Schaffner, who took it to calm her nerves, even though she had given up smoking some time before.

Outside, a storm was developing. Soon it began to rain.

The airline contacted the Seattle National Bank, where it had done business. The bank was glad to help. It had, in fact, a store of money ready for just such a purpose: a cache of twenty-dollar bills that had been microfilmed and each serial number recorded, in case of a heist or robbery. Ten thousand twenty-dollar bills, banded in bricks of fifty, were stuffed into a satchel with a drawstring and delivered to the FBI. It weighed about twenty pounds.

The parachutes were obtained from a jump center east of the airport: two front or reserve chutes, and two rear or main parachutes. As Cooper had insisted, they were civilian parachutes, not military. They, too, were given to the FBI.

Meanwhile, the plane continued to circle Sea-Tac. Tina, the other stewardess, moved up and down the aisle, reassuring passengers. Dan Cooper explained to Schaffner how things were going to work.

“After the plane lands,” he said, “I want you to go out and get the money and bring it back.”

“What if it’s too heavy?”

“It won’t be. You’ll manage. Then,” he continued, “you’ll get the parachutes and bring them on board.” He pulled a bottle of Benzedrine pills from his pocket. “Take these to the cockpit in case the crew gets sleepy during the next flight.”

She asked if he was hijacking the plane to Cuba, at the time the most common destination for skyjackings.

“No,” he said. “Not Cuba. Someplace you’ll like.”

She asked him why he was hijacking the plane. Did he bear a grudge against Northwest?

“I don’t have a grudge against your airline, miss,” he said. “I just have a grudge.”

On the ground, the airport had been closed and all outgoing flights canceled. Incoming flights were either diverted or put into a holding pattern. Shortly after five, ground control radioed the plane and said the money and parachutes had been assembled and were in a car at the far end of a runway, as instructed.